The best rice to cook Paella

Paella is one of the most representative dishes of Spanish cuisine, with rice as its main ingredient. There are at least 100,000 varieties of rice in the world, each indicated for a specific use and specific dishes. The importance of choosing the right rice is that depending on what you use the result will be one or the other, since not all rice is worth to cook an authentic paella. Each variety has specific properties of size, starch, hardness… From the School of Rice and Paella Valenciana we share you the best rice to cook paella.

Usually, rice is differentiated according to its grain. Long grain rices are loose and have a spongy texture, medium grain rices require a shorter cooking time and short grain rices absorb a lot of flavor and aroma. Although the water of Valencia is one of the secrets so that the Paella leaves perfect thanks to the lime that it has, the rice is a very important point to take into account.

Despite the large number of varieties of rice in the world, there is one perfect for cooking paella: Senia Albufera rice, a variety of medium grain (or semi-long grain) rice. It’s a rice with a high content of amylopectin and for this reason it has a great capacity to absorb flavors of other foods, whether meat or seafood. The low amylose content makes it a bit sticky. After cooking it provides a creamy texture. This rice has little resistance to cooking and is usually opened with some ease. It is for this reason that you should know well their cooking times and the proportion of water and rice.

As you have seen, the choice of this type of rice is due to its high capacity to maintain the flavors, smells and an ideal cooking to enjoy an authentic paella. However much you use the right rice it is important to have other recommendations in mind when cooking a perfect paella: put the rice in the pan diametrically, get the rice stick out a little of the broth, don’t stir the rice while it is cooking …

If you want to learn step by step how to cook an authentic paella, we encourage you to book one of our courses. Choose your favorite course among our options of Paella Experience: Seafood Paella, Valencian Paella or Vegetables Paella and enjoy with our professional chefs a gastronomic day where you will learn all the secrets of this characteristic dish.