Use 1 1/2 cups of water per 1 cup of medium-grain rice on the stove. That is less than the 1 1/2 – 2 cups a long-grain bag asks for, because a medium grain is shorter and rounder: it swells sideways rather than lengthways, and it gets there without being given as much water. In a rice cooker use 1 1/4, and in a pressure cooker 1 : 1 for firm or 1 : 1.25 for softer.
The number on the bag is a budget, and what a grain spends it on depends on its shape. A long grain is slender: as it cooks it extends along its length, and water has to travel further into it before the centre softens. Give it too little and the middle stays chalky while the outside has already gone soft.
A medium grain — Calrose, the California rice most American sushi is made from, or Arborio and Valencia in European cooking — is short and round. It does not have that length to fill. It takes water up across a shorter distance, and it is done sooner. That is the whole reason the ratio drops: not because medium grain is a different plant, but because the distance the water has to cover is shorter.
The trade-off sits on the other side. A medium grain carries more of the starch that makes grains cling, so it lands softer and stickier than a long grain cooked the same way. Less water is what keeps it from tipping into mushy.
| Cook | Setup | Ratio | What they say |
|---|---|---|---|
| One cook | Calrose, stove, covered | 1 : 1.25 | rinses until the water runs clear; "tender, light cling"; wants it to hold together for a teriyaki plate |
| Another cook | Calrose, rice cooker | 1 : 1.25 | uses the cooker cup, not the US cup — a cooker cup is about 180 ml, not 240 ml |
| A third cook | Medium grain, pressure cooker | 1 : 1 | 3 min high pressure + 10 min natural release; says 1 : 1.25 if you want it softer |
Three things shift it, and they are not the same thing:
| Method | Water per 1 cup rice | Time | Result |
|---|---|---|---|
| Stove, covered | 1 1/2 cups | 15–18 min simmer + 10 min rest | Separate but soft |
| Rice cooker | 1 1/4 cups | Cooker cycle | Softer, light cling |
| Pressure cooker | 1 – 1 1/4 cups | 3 min high + 10 min natural release | Firm at 1 : 1, softer at 1 : 1.25 |
Sushi rice is usually a medium or short grain, but it is seasoned after cooking with vinegar, sugar and salt. The rice is the same kind; the seasoning is what makes it sushi rice. If you are seasoning it, the sushi page covers that half.
Two usual causes: it was not rinsed, so the surface starch stayed on the outside of each grain, or it was stirred while cooking, which breaks grains and releases more starch. Less water helps too — if you are at 2 cups for a medium grain, that is a long-grain number.
Not quite. Basmati and jasmine are long grains and their numbers run higher (1 1/2 – 2 cups on the stove). A medium grain needs less. See basmati and jasmine for their own pages.
Yes. A cooker cup is about 180 ml against a US cup's 240 ml. If you measure rice with the cooker cup but read water off a US-cup recipe, you are giving roughly a third more water than the rice wants.
No. Soaking can shorten the time a little, but it does not change the ratio enough to matter on the stove, and for a grain this short there is hard centre to worry about.
1 1/2 cups of water per cup of medium-grain rice on the stove, 1 1/4 in a cooker, 1 : 1 in a pressure cooker. The number is lower than a long-grain bag tells you because the grain is shorter and the water has less distance to cover — and it is worth keeping low, because a medium grain has more of the starch that turns soft rice into mush.