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Cooking rice for a crowd is SO easy with this Baked Rice Method! For a potluck, family reunion, or church party, bake it in the oven and have up to 50 servings in less than an hour.
Featured with this recipe
- Ingredients in this Rice Recipe
- What Kind of Pans to Use for this Easy Oven Rice
- Types of Rice to Use
- Seasoning Variations for Baked Rice
- Getting the Quantities Right:
- Tips for Perfect Baked Rice
- How to Store Leftovers
- Frequently Asked Questions
- More Ideas for Cooking for a Crowd
- How to Bake Rice (Making Rice for a Crowd)
- Rice for a Crowd (Baked Method) Recipe
Cooking large quantities of rice doesn’t have to be hard. In fact, it is pretty much one of the easiest starches you can make for a crowd! I used this baked rice method when I was serving 50+ people a big dinner at our church’s Girls Camp, and it worked like a charm. It was so much easier than making batches on the stovetop or a rice cooker and it never scorches on the bottom of the pan. Use it for stir fry, fried rice, cilantro lime rice or plain rice. It’s cheaper, too! Why spend $25-$35 (or more) to have rice catered when you can literally make it for a few bucks? You will love this easy recipe!
Ingredients in this Rice Recipe
A basic rice recipe is so easy and only has three ingredients. You can add more seasonings like fresh herbs or lime juice as desired but here’s what to start with:
- Long grain, white rice – I use a five pound bag of long grain rice for this recipe. I prefer that over short grain or medium grain. That’s about 12 cups of rice or 3 quarts.
- Water – five quarts or about 20 cups water. This may seem like excessive water to rice ratios, but rice in the oven requires more liquid than the stovetop. You could use vegetable broth, chicken broth or beef broth instead of water.
- Kosher salt – three tablespoons, or add a teaspoon salt more at a time, to taste.
What Kind of Pans to Use for this Easy Oven Rice
Cooking rice in the oven is so easy and can make a large quantity. Use a 20-3/4″ x 12-3/4″ x 4″ steam table pan. It holds 15 quarts, so plenty of room for rice expansion. You can also use a roasting pan or a large baking dish with a lid. Just make sure that it can hold at least 10 quarts of rice and liquid. I like using the steam pan because it allows the rice to liquid ratio to cook more evenly. It is only 4″ deep, so not too shallow, not too deep. The closer you can get to the dimensions above, the better.
Types of Rice to Use
For this baked rice recipe I used long-grain white rice. You can also use brown rice, basmati rice, wild rice, short-grain rice or jasmine rice. The cooking times should remain the same. No need for rinsing the rice before cooking, either. You can rinse, if you want to, by using a fine mesh strainer, but that step isn’t necessary.
Seasoning Variations for Baked Rice
Once you get the gist of cooking large quantities of rice for a crowd, it is SO easy to make variations and flavors depending on what you are serving. Keep it simple with lemon zest, a little garlic, and garnish with parsley, bell peppers or green onions. Season with some soy sauce or teriyaki sauce. Or try one of these recipes below. They’re super easy and absolutely delicious!
- Spanish or Mexican Rice for a Crowd: The recipe below calls for 5 quarts of water. For this Spanish Rice, reduce water to 3.5 quarts and then add two 28-ounce cans of Rotel tomatoes, 2 cups of tomato sauce, ⅓ cup of taco seasoning, and more salt to taste (if needed). Continue directions as directed below. This is delicious served with refried or black beans.
- Seasoned Rice for a Crowd: Use 2 quarts water and 3 quarts chicken broth. You can also substitute beef broth if you’re serving this with a beef main course. Eliminate salt (or just use a pinch to taste. The chicken broth should have plenty of sodium). Slice four cubes of butter (2 cups) into squares (pats) and evenly place over rice (it doesn’t need to be perfect, this is just so it will melt evenly when the hot water is poured on). In a small bowl, combine 2 tablespoons EACH of thyme, basil, and paprika and 1 tablespoon turmeric. Sprinkle mixture evenly over rice and butter. Carefully pour water and chicken broth over the top and lightly stir to combine butter and herbs/spices if needed. Bake as directed below. This rice is delicious alongside cooked carrots, green or red peppers, and onions or any other vegetables.
Getting the Quantities Right:
The baking times and methods shouldn’t change depending on the quantity of rice. It may vary slightly but not much. You will just need bigger or smaller pans depending on whether you need more or less rice. The recipe below makes 50 servings but it can easily be doubled to make 100 servings. If doubling, you will definitely want to use 2 separate pans, but they should still be able to fit in 1 oven. If you need closer to 20 servings of rice, you can half the recipe but still use the same-size pan or opt for a smaller pan.
Tips for Perfect Baked Rice
Some of our wonderful readers offered some helpful tips to make this rice perfect every time:
- Toast the dry rice in the oven for about 30 minutes on 350 degrees, stirring every 10 minutes.
- Add blended charred tomatoes and onion to the boiling liquid just before pouring it over the rice to be baked.
- Use boiling water, not cold water. Water temperature will affect how the rice cooks in the oven.
- Make sure to use enough water and check the volume of water in the recipe. Keep in mind that there is more water in this recipe than cooking on the stove or a rice maker.
- Double the foil pan due to weight of water for added stability. You can use foil steam table size pans or a large casserole dish.
- Fluff rice using a fork just before serving.
How to Store Leftovers
Store any leftover rice in an airtight container in the refrigerator for up to five days. Heat again by warming in the oven, if there is a lot to heat up, or microwave single servings. Remove the covering before microwaving.
Frequently Asked Questions
It’s the easiest, least messy way to make rice for a crowd. And unlike rice cooked on the stovetop, which is heated just from the bottom, oven-cooked rice gets an even, steady flow of heat from all directions.
You will need more water when baking rice than you would cooking it on the stovetop. For a five pound bag of rice, you’ll need about 20 cups or five quarts of water.
This recipe will serve 50 people, at about ½ to ¾ cup per person. So you’ll need a five pound bag of long grain rice for a party of 50.
READ MORE: Family Reunion Ideas for Meal Planning
More Ideas for Cooking for a Crowd
Need more ideas for cooking for a crowd? Have a big reunion coming up? Check out our Ultimate Family Reunion Meal Planning Guide! Cheesy Potato Casserole (aka Funeral Potatoes) is always a crowd pleaser, along with this yummy Blueberry Jello Salad. Or try some of these delicious recipes that you can make in bulk:
How to Bake Rice (Making Rice for a Crowd)
Rice for a Crowd (Baked Method)
Video
Equipment
- Conventional Oven
Ingredients
- 3 quarts long grain, white rice (12 cups or a 5 pound bag)
- 5 quarts water (20 cups)
- 3 tablespoons Kosher salt
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350-degrees.
- Place 3 quarts uncooked rice in large roasting pan (lightly sprayed with cooking spray), spread evenly. Set aside.
- In a large stock-pot, combine water and salt. Bring to a rolling boil.
- CAREFULLY pour boiling water over rice and stir so rice is even along the bottom.
- Immediately cover tightly with aluminum foil. Make sure you have a tight seal around ALL the edges.
- Place roasting pan in oven and bake for 40-45 minutes or until rice is tender.
- Fluff with a large wooden spoon & serve.
- **Note: If you want to wait to serve, just keep in the oven at 150 degrees or so, or keep warm in an electric warming pan. Add a little water if necessary to keep from drying out.
Can you tell me the how to make the mexican rice for about 30-35 people? What would be the ratios?
Hi Bonnie- We usually just make the full batch. If you are doing 30-35 you will want to adjust the recipe to about 3/4 of the original amounts. Hope this helps!
What is the ratio for the Mexican rice if serving 80 people? How much tomato sauce? And Water?
We have only have the measurements for the recipe above for the Mexican rice. You would probably be safe doing 1 1/2 times what is mentioned above for the Mexican rice adjustments. I think it would probably be close enough. Hope this helps!
When using a 20x12x4 pan as recommended, it was very heavy and I thought I might not be able to lift it in oven. Very heavy with water and rice in it. Next time I would use 2 pans.
Great suggestion if you feel your pan is too heavy!
Do you recommend replacing the water for vegetable broth to enhance the flavor?
I haven’t tried that before, but I think it would work!
I need enough rice for 150 people for Hawaiian haystacks. What would you suggest the amount of rice I would need?
If it were me, I would triple the recipe. You will have to gauge it by how big of eaters you have. If you are feeding a bunch of hunger teenage boys you may want to 4-5 times the recipe. Hope this helps!
Apologies…not famy……family. Also I used Jasmine rice.
Hi.
I am terrible.at cooking rice. I was asked to cook for a famy function rice for at least 30. I became nervous. How am I going to pull it is off.
I found your recipe and tried. I did not have big enough pan and dscided to split the rice and water into 2.
Oven 170 Celsius. 45 min.
I have never made such perfect rice.
Thank you, Thank you.
Bennett
How much water for jasmine rice
It should be the same amount as listed in the recipe!
Can u cook the yellow rice a day ahead? And how can i rewarm it?
Sure! Just add a little water to the pan and rewarm it in the oven.
This recipe saved my life!!! Thank you, thank you, THANK YOU!!
We did a semi taco bar back in February for 400 kids!! Whew! I thought I was going to die, but this recipe totally helped. We used the parboiled rice from Sam’s Club… 10 lbs. for $5. Can’t beat that!
This recipe is delicious and my children have asked for it again. Now, i just have to make it in a smaller amount…
Thank you so much again for such a great recipe! AND an eye opener to the ease of cooking rice!
Thanks Sally! I am so glad this recipe helped!!
Hi Sally- Thank you so much for sharing your experience with us. WOW, that is a lot of kids to feed! Way to go! Glad it turned out well! Thank you so much for the 5-stars and for the kind comment 😀
Can this be done in a glass oven proof dish? Looking for a simple way to make rice at a school and this sounds great but we only have deep ovenproof pans
I think that should work!!
Hi, did you keep the liquid ratio the same? As well added boiling water? I think the parboil rice is genius!
Took an hour and a half too cook. Boo!
Hi Matt- it definitely shouldn’t take that long to cook. How deep was your pan? Did you bring the water to a rolling boil before adding? Was it covered well?
I don’t know if this will make a new comment or just thread off the last. I am sorry for any confusion. I am wondering why you are only using the roaster as a warmer and not actually cooking the rice in the roaster pan it’s self? Wouldn’t that be the same method and just like you cook rice on the stove?
So, you do cook the rice in the roaster pan. You just boil the water in the pot and then pour it over the rice.
I would like to use your Spanish rice for a Crowd recipe as a side at a church BBQ plate fundraiser. It is rated for 50 servings but it seems to me it will provide more than that if filling a side section of a foam plate box. Can you comment somehow? What is the size of your servings?
Thanks
Each serving is 1/2 cup of cooked rice. If you are aiming for it to fit in a little section of a foam plate you will probably get more than 50 servings (if you are going 1/4 c. – 1/3 c. servings) does that make sense?
We run a food truck and typically are not used to pre making large portions of rice. Due to the climate today, we did a catered event for drive-thru orders instead of on demand. I needed a recipe where I could do a large amount of rice.
This recipe is phenomenal! I needed 100 portions so I just doubled this recipe. The rice turned out perfectly fluffy!
I used yellow rice, so I mixed water and chicken broth together for extra flavor.
Thank you for such an awesome recipe and this will be in my arsenal for the future!
Can disposable aluminum pans be used for cooking the rice?
Yes! That should work!
Hello
I stumbled across this recipe while looking for ways to cook a large amount of rice ( 150 people ) for chipotle wraps for a graduation party. I’m leery of trying bulk rice because of it getting sticky. Will this rice stay fluffy or over time or become sticky and stick to the serving spoon etc…?
Thank you for your post!
Rachel
No matter how you cook rice you will risk it getting sticky if it stays out. How long were you wanting it to be out over time? I think you should be fine, the rice comes out as it would if you were cooking it in a rice cooker. Hope this helps!
One way to help prevent sticky rice, no matter how you cook it, is to first rinse it in water til the water runs clear. This washes away the powder stuff that makes it starchy & sticky, and give the rice an overall better appeal.
Can I use this formula with brown rice? Ty
We haven’t tested this recipe with brown rice, so I can’t say. I know brown rice takes much longer to cook.
Hi, Ladies,
What is the finished serving amount to get 50 out of a batch?
It is a 1/2 cup serving. Hope this helps!
Help please! We are holding our annual Boy Scout fish dinner, decided to do wild rice blend in lieu of red potatoes. Serving between 150 – 200 people, can I scale this and in batches. Additionally, I was always told to wash rice prior to cooking, or does this make it a dish of mush? By the way, all fish, cod, salmon, rolls etc donated.
You can definitely rinse first! That is a great idea– It actually makes the rice more fluffy if you rinse it until all the water becomes clear but that might take a long time for 200 servings. If you rinse it and drain it really well you shouldn’t have to change the proportions, maybe just a little less water. Hope this helps!
Any idea how much black beans to add if I am making rice and beans? Thanks so much – this recipe is awesome!!
If the beans are drained and rinsed you can add as many as you would like– you may need a bigger pan though. If it were me I would use one for those big food storage cans of black beans (I think they are like 5 pounds).. drained and rinsed. Hope this helps!
For the Mexican rice, do you mean 2-28oz cans, or just a total of 28 oz of rotel?
No, it would be a totally of 28 ounces. Hope this helps!
Can I make this recipe with coconut milk? My usual coconut rice uses half canned coconut milk and half water. Trying to figure out how to make 50 serving of coconut rice for tiki masala.
We haven’t tried this, so I can’t say. But let us know how it goes if you try it!
Holy talk about saving grace. I am making greek styled rice for about 55 to 70 people. I am glad i found this. I have a question though I am using a basmati rice, chicken based broth and lemon juice as well as shredded carrots oregano and garlic. I usually soak and rinse my basmati. Should i still so the same or do you have a better suggestion on rice for this dish. I don’t want mushy rice. That would be embarrassing 🙁
If you rinse your rice you will need to use less broth/water– I haven’t made it before rinsing the rice so I can’t tell you HOW much less exactly. Rinsing it will make it less sticky as you are washing away much of the starch. If I were to GUESS, I would say do 3 qt. rice and 4 qt. broth/water. Hope this helps!
I know I’m too late to help, but just in case I’m not the only one reading all the comments for extra advice, I thought I’d share my method. When cooking rice at home I weigh the rice with a kitchen scale before and after rinsing. Every extra gram in weight is equal to 1 ml of water retained by the rice. Then I simply minus this amount from the cooking water amount. A US cup is 237ml for reference. Hopefully this makes sense.
This is extremely helpful! Thank you so much for figuring this out!
My oven isnt very big somewhere I read a pan 20 3/4 by 12 3/4 by 4” is needed to cook for 50 people. Any suggestions
At home for my family, I make Mexican rice, but I first brown the white long grain rice in Manteca (lard) with chopped onion and garlic till light golden. then I add the water mixed with Knorr chicken crystals or chicken broth ,and red California chili powder and cook till ready. My question is, could I use your oven method for 50 browning the rice first, then adding the liquid and baking it as you directed? Do you think it would work out well?
We haven’t made it this way before but my guess is yes, you should be able to make this for 50 using the browning method. Browning the rice first should affect the recipe at all. It will actually probably make it taste better when doing Mexican rice!
thank you so much
Did you try it? How did it turn out? My grandma uses the browning method and we’re looking to make a batch for my sons first birthday.
Do you have a recipe for yellow rice recipe for 50…with the adjusted seasonings. Thanks.
We don’t have the actual recipe yet for the yellow rice for a crowd… we need to experiment with it to make SURE we have all the measurements right. We will work on it and see what we can come up with! If you try it and have success, let us know how it turned out!
will a roster oven also work?
thanks doing a baby shower toco lunch
debby
We haven’t tried it in a roaster oven before so I can’t say for sure. As long as it seals well, I don’t see why it wouldn’t work just as well. If you can roast other things in it I am guessing you should be ok. Let me know how it turns out if you try it!
For the Mexican rice, when do you add the rotel, tomato sauce and taco seasoning? To the boiling water? Or over the top of the rice after the water is added and mix it? Help please!
You can add it at either time. You stir it all together so it really shouldn’t make a difference. You just add all of those things at one time. Hope this helps!
so excited to try this one question I’m using Calrose long grain and I usually wash it thoroughly because I was told it was loaded with lye for preservation reasons your thoughts??
Calrose rice should be rinsed, but I don’t know that it is because of lye. According to the Hinode Calrose rice website, the rice should be rinsed to wash away the residual bran and starch on the rice so that it will absorb the water evenly. Thanks for asking!
I am going to use this to make rice for a graduation and am concerned about the water amount. This is less water then if doing on stove…is the ratio correct? Just don’t want hard rice. Thank you
Yes, the ratio is correct. 🙂 hope this helps!
Do you think you can add cooked chicken with a little extra water to make this a chicken and rice bake?
Hi Tracie- you probably could but you may want to try making a triple or quadruple batch of our cheesy chicken and rice casserole that is baked as well. You can just make it in a big roasting pan and use the times in THIS crowd method. Hope this helps! https://www.favfamilyrecipes.com/cheesy-chicken-and-rice-casserole/
How can I make this recipe for 15? Can I use a large pan? I think it’s 18 x 24.
You can just scale down the recipe and use a smaller size pan! That should be fine!