When we can’t cook on a campfire (which is most of the time), we’re cooking with propane. We try to avoid recipes that involve long simmer times that could deplete our fuel too fast. So we don’t use dry beans, for example. But we do prepare a lot of rice and pasta. Here’s our food hack for cooking great rice with less fuel.

Unless you’re using par-boiled 5-minute rice, a small of pot of perfect rice takes about 16-18 minutes of cooking, followed by 1-2 minutes resting time, before fluffing and serving. That’s a lot of propane really, and adds up over time, requiring more refills or tank swaps. This is an easy way to cut your fuel use by a third and still get perfectly yummy rice.

Ingredients:

• 1 cup of basmati or any long-grain rice
• 1 ¾ cups water
• pinch of salt

Preparation:

It’s always best to wash the rice first to rinse away any excess starch that would make the end product too sticky. But unless we’re at a campground with unlimited water, we usually skip this step and it’s still pretty good.

In a 2-quart sauce pan (or smallest sauce pan you have with a lid), place the rice and water. Add the salt and stir once. Cover and bring to a boil. This takes roughly 5 minutes on the smaller of our van’s 2-burner stove. Then reduce the flame to the lowest setting to get a good slow simmer for another 5 minutes. The rice should be just bubbling without foaming up and boiling over (pre-rinsing the rice also helps reduce this issue).

Here’s the hack. After 10 minutes, the water level has likely dipped just below the surface of the rice and it’s still 6-8 minutes away from being done. Nevertheless, turn off the flame and let it sit for 10 more minutes. Don’t remove the lid to check on it; you’ll lose precious steam and heat. The rice will continue to cook and absorb the water on its own. By this time, the rice should be studded with its tell-tale craters, or steam holes, indicating it’s done. Notice that the total preparation time is nearly the same as the usual method.

Fluff and serve… and use that saved propane for something else.