There's a convenience food that is not available at most grocery stores. One that I would pay extra for. Day old refrigerated rice. I would make fried rice more often.
Just cook extra and freeze it if you have the space. Freezing actually makes it better, besides the normal starch retrogradation there is also water sublimation. Win/win
Oh, I didn't know that! I'll have to try it. Do you know how long it tends to last in the freezer (best guesstimate is fine, not looking for expert science)?
I know I have kept it for a few weeks in the freezer. Unless it was vacuum packed you would probably lose too much water after that and you might end up with uncooked Uncle Bens
Interesting, I prefer it left at room temperature overnight (semi-sealed in the rice cooker). Out of the fridge I find it too hard to break down and stir, and frozen seems even more cumbersome.
That's an option though you do risk Bacillus Cereus, and an extended unpleasant potty break.
The lack of food safety makes my eye twitch.
Here's an idea
Cook double the rice you need for a meal and put half in the fridge for the next day.
Convenient, cheap and available from your own fridge.
Madness. Rice two days in a row?
Just freeze it in a bag, and defrost when you're ready for fried rice. You can also use long or medium grain rice, or cook your rice al dente, and you don't have to wait for it to be a day old for fried rice.
Gives me an idea for a pizza shop: All the pizza was made yesterday, and it's served cold straight out of the fridge.
Not saying that cold pizza is better than fresh, hot pizza. Just good in a different way.
Make sure you have warm Coke, are open in the morning and home deliver.
Believe it or not, you can make fried rice with fresh rice. It's not exactly the same experience, but it's equally tasty imo. If you haven't tried it yet, give it a go. You might find that you like it too.
I doubt there would be enough of a market for precooked rice to make it worth selling. In households that do a lot of fried rice, this dish is usually more of a use-up-our-leftovers kind of meal than the sort of thing you go out of your way to make. The typical meal consists of white rice and sides of protein and vegetables. You make extra rice to make sure everyone has enough to eat in that meal, and whatever's left over goes in the fridge. You collect 2-3 days of rice this way and when you have enough, it becomes fried rice.
“I doubt there would be enough of a market for precooked rice to make it worth selling.”
Uncle Ben’s would disagree…
Just cook your rice with less water. Achieves a very similar effect.
I have received packaged pre-cooked rice like this in home delivery boxes before, so the infrastructure is there.
the problem is convincing them there is a market for it in the store.
idea: get in the good graces of a near-by restaurant that makes lots of rice?
I actually saw this at Costco today, pretty sure it would work
It must be a regional thing, because here the stores have many different '90 seconds' bags of pre-cooked rice, including unseasoned.
Freshly cooked instant rice is just not the same as day old rice for fried rice. Day old rice has had a chance to cool down and lose some moisture.
Steamed rice can be fried right away
I just wan to add that cooked rice (all starches like pasta) should be stored in the fridge. Left on the counter rice gets bored and watches manosphere videos. This can make the rice toxic in a few days.