How much cooked rice you get
Rice absorbs water and swells, so it roughly triples in volume: cooked ≈ uncooked × 3 for white rice. One cup of uncooked white rice yields about 3 cups cooked — enough for roughly three servings. Brown rice expands a bit more, around 3.5×.
The reason is simple: dry grains absorb roughly twice their own volume in water and swell around it, so almost all of the extra bulk is water rather than rice. Scale it in either direction - half a cup of uncooked white rice gives about 1.5 cups cooked, and 2 cups uncooked gives about 6 cups, enough for six generous portions of a cup each.
Not every grain behaves the same. Long-grain white and basmati sit close to 3x, brown rice lands nearer 3.5x because it cooks longer with more water, and short-grain sushi rice expands a little less but ends up denser and heavier per cup.
The cups to grams calculator is the natural next step once you have this figure.
How to use this calculator
Enter the uncooked rice in cups and an expansion factor (3 for white, 3.5 for brown). To work out the water for cooking, use the rice to water ratio calculator.
Work backwards when you are cooking for a number: divide the cooked rice you want by the expansion factor. For 9 cups of cooked white rice, 9 divided by 3 means 3 cups uncooked. Measure the uncooked rice level in a dry measuring cup, since a heaped cup can be 20% more rice than you intended and throws both the yield and the water ratio out.
Leftovers keep well: cooked rice refrigerates for a few days in a sealed container and reheats best with a splash of water to replace the steam it lost.
The grams to cups calculator answers the question that usually follows this one.
Frequently asked questions
- How much does rice expand when cooked?
- White rice roughly triples; brown rice expands about 3.5 times its uncooked volume.
- How much cooked rice from 1 cup uncooked?
- About 3 cups of cooked white rice, or roughly three servings.
- How much uncooked rice per person?
- About 1/3 to 1/2 cup uncooked per person, yielding roughly 1 to 1.5 cups cooked.
- Does brown rice expand more?
- Yes, a little — around 3.5 times, since it cooks with more water.
- Why did my rice not triple in volume?
- Almost always evaporation: a loose lid, too high a heat or too little water lets steam escape before the grains finish absorbing it. Cook covered on the lowest setting, then rest the pan off the heat for 5-10 minutes so the last of the water is taken up.