The package instructions on most rice will tell you to rinse the grains before cooking them, but if you’ve been tempted to skip this step—or if you have skipped this step, only to be left with a bowl of gummy rice—you’re not alone. You might be wondering why people in the know consider it so important to wash rice, or if it’s always necessary. Here, we’ll cover the facets of making perfect rice, including why you should wash your rice, when to wash it, and how. Read on for perfectly textured grains in your fried rice, pilafs, biryanis, and so much more.

Why should you wash rice?

When rice makes the journey from paddy to grocery store to your home, with a few stops along the way, the grains rub against each other, resulting in a layer of starch that coats the outside of each individual grain. When you cook rice without rinsing it beforehand, that excess starch makes the grains stick together, forming into one gluey mass. Rinsing rice also helps remove any grit or tiny broken pieces that might have made their way into the package.

How to wash rice

You’ll need: A bowl that is comfortably larger than the amount of rice you’re cooking and a strainer of some type.

Measure the quantity of rice you’d like to make. Pour it into a large vessel and add enough cold water to completely cover the grains. Agitate the rice with your hands until the water turns murky. Then, pour this starchy water out, using a mesh strainer or small-holed colander to catch the grains of rice. Repeat this step until the water runs clear; the number of rinses will depend on the kind of rice, but usually three or four times is sufficient.

You can also simply place your rice in the strainer and let running water roll over it, but this makes it harder to see when your water goes from starchy and murky to clear.

What types of rice need washing?

Although every kind of white rice will have excess starch around the outside of the grain, the starch content does vary depending on the type of rice. All rice contains two types of starch: amylose and amylopectin. The types of rice that are high in amylopectin and lower in amylose are stickier—think arborio or glutinous rice. In contrast, rices like basmati or jasmine are higher in amylose and lower in amylopectin, so they produce a fluffier, more separated final result.

Every type of white rice should be washed until your water runs clear when you want the end result to have separated, fluffy grains. For dishes where you want the rice to stick together, like risotto or congee, you’ll likely still want to do a light rinse to avoid too much gumminess, but you can skip the thorough washing because, after all, your desired result involves the starchy rice breaking down into a sticky, porridge-like texture.

I’m an unabashed dairy fan and avid baker, which means there’s always—always—cream cheese in my fridge. The ingredient is essential for many cakes, pastries, and frostings, its tang helping to balance desserts that would otherwise be too sweet. In most recipes, cream cheese needs to be at room temperature before you incorporate it; if you don’t, you risk grainy results.r Softening a cold block of cream cheese, though, can feel like it takes forever, which is no fun when a towering cheesecake or tangy-sweet pastelitos is waiting to be made.

In my haste and desperation, I’ve tried many methods to soften cream cheese quickly. The internet abounds with tips and tricks: Some recommend microwaving it; others dunk packaged cream cheese in warm water; and impatient bakers use their stand or hand mixers to beat it until it’s soft and workable. Determined to find the best way to soften cream cheese, I zeroed in on five popular approaches to see which would work best—and get me closer to a bite of cheesecake the fastest.

Why Soften Cream Cheese?

If you, like me, have added cream cheese or butter to a recipe before it was ready to use, you’ve probably regretted it. What you might gain in time, you lose in texture: When cream cheese is fully softened, it blends seamlessly into frosting or cake batter, creating a smooth, silky finish. Use it cold, and your batter or frosting will be marred by grainy specks, visible blobs, or streaks of white. This is most evident in cream cheese frosting, which should have an ultra-smooth, billowy texture. (Baking expert and former Serious Eats editor Stella Parks even goes so far as to add a custard element to her cream cheese buttercream frosting recipe to ensure it is as smooth as possible.)

How to Tell When Cream Cheese Is Properly Softened

The best way to assess the softness of your cream cheese is to check its internal temperature with an instant-read thermometer, inserting the probe into the center, where it will be coldest. Some recipes call for “room temperature” cream cheese, but this can be confusing, as ambient temperatures vary widely depending on the time of year and your location. As former Serious Eats editor Kristina notes in her guide to softening butter, 70°F (21°C) is typically considered room temperature. This, however, is on the warm side for cream cheese. At this temperature, the cream cheese may become too soft and runny during mixing, especially as friction from mixing continues to raise its temperature. 

Generally, an internal temperature of 60 to 65°F (15 to 18°C) yields properly softened cream cheese for baking. It should yield easily to gentle pressure, leaving an indent when pressed with a finger or spoon, but shouldn’t be so soft that it offers no resistance. It’s also important not to leave cream cheese out for too long, even after it’s been incorporated into a frosting. The FDA advises leaving perishable foods at room temperature for no longer than two hours. Any longer, and the ingredient may begin to harbor bacteria that can cause foodborne illness. Once softened, cream cheese should be used immediately—and any leftovers promptly refrigerated.

The Testing

In my research, I came across several common methods for softening cream cheese: leaving it at room temperature whole and cubed; submerging a sealed package in warm water; microwaving it; or using a stand mixer to beat it until soft. These are the most widely recommended approaches, and the ones I tested for this article.

During testing, my kitchen’s ambient temperature was 71°F, very close to standard “room temperature.” I used 8-ounce blocks of Philadelphia Original cream cheese, a national brand that’s widely available and generally regarded as the standard for baking. Using an instant-read thermometer, I recorded the starting temperature of each refrigerated block, then timed how long it took to reach 60 to 65°F (15.5 to 18.3°C) in the center. I also noted any internal temperature variation (e.g., whether the ends warmed faster than the center in whole blocks) and assessed each method’s final consistency, convenience, ease, and cleanup requirements.

• Whole Block on a Sheet Pan: I unwrapped an 8-ounce block of cream cheese and laid it flat on an aluminum baking sheet. As former editor Kenji noted in his guide to defrosting foods quickly, aluminum is one of the best kitchen conductors of heat. To maximize contact, I set the block flat, inserted a probe thermometer into the center of the block, and started a timer, recording the temperature every five minutes. Initially, the center’s temperature rose by three to five degrees every five minutes, climbing from a chilly 37°F (2.7°C) to 52°F (11°C) in 20 minutes. After that, the temperature plateaued, rising just one to two degrees per interval. It took 50 minutes for the cream cheese to reach the minimum benchmark of 60°F (15°C), and a full hour to reach 63°F (17.2°C). The ends of the block warmed slightly faster than the center, reading generally just one or two degrees warmer than the middle. 
• Cubed Block on a Sheet Pan: For this method, I used the same setup, but cut the block into eight 1-ounce cubes. I spaced the cubes about 1/2-inch apart on the baking sheet to allow air to circulate. This method proved much faster: The cubes reached 61°F (16°C) in just 25 minutes and 65°F (18°C) at the 30-minute mark. Each cube was at a consistent temperature throughout the test.
• Wrapped Block in Warm Water: Many bakers recommend a warm water bath to speed up softening. For this test, I left the cream cheese in its foil wrapper and placed it in a bowl of 90°F (32°C) water. The block’s internal temperature rose from 37 to 60°F (2.7 to 15°C) in just 10 minutes, and reached 64°F (17.7°C) after 15 minutes. However, this method only works if you’re planning to use a full 8-ounce block of cream cheese, and piercing a thermometer through the foil lets water seep in. Without a probe, it’s hard to tell by feel how soft the block is through the packaging.
• Whole Block in the Microwave: When speed is the goal, the microwave is often the first solution that comes to mind. For this test, I unwrapped a block of cream cheese and laid it flat on a plate. Using 50% power, I microwaved it in 10-second bursts, checking the internal temperature after each. Starting at 39°F (3.8·C), the center hit 61°F (16°C) after four 10-second bursts. The ends of the block, however, warmed up much faster: At 20 seconds, the center was 54°F (12.2°C) while the ends were already at 63°F (17.2°C). By 40 seconds, they had reached 72°F (22.2°C), and were visibly soft, runny, and beginning to bubble—signs of not just over-softening but overheating.
• Cubed Block in the Microwave: For this test, I followed the same method in the microwave as above, but cut the cream cheese block into eight 1-ounce cubes and placed them about 1/2-inch apart on the plate before microwaving. Similar to the results from the room-temperature baking sheet test, this method proved significantly faster than leaving the block whole, taking just 20 seconds for all of the cubes to register 60°F (15.5°C) or above when microwaved at 50% power. However, similar to the whole block in the microwave, the cubes at the outer edge of the plate heated faster than those at the center, registering 71°F (21.6°C) at the 20-second mark, whereas the center cube had only reached 60°F (15.5°C) and showed signs of being over-softened.
• Whole Block in a Stand Mixer: Many bakers recommend using a stand mixer or hand mixer to paddle cream cheese as a quick way to soften it. For this test, I unwrapped a block and placed it directly in the bowl of my stand mixer. Using the paddle attachment, I beat the cream cheese on medium-low speed (to avoid incorporating excess air), pausing every 30 seconds to check the temperature. After 2 1/2 minutes, the center reached 60°F (15.5°C), and it took a full five minutes to hit 65°F (18.3°C). I scraped down the bowl periodically to ensure the cream cheese was fully agitated, but despite my efforts, plenty of it remained stuck to the beater, spatula, and bowl—leaving me with less than the full 8-ounces by the end. 

The Results: What’s the Best Way to Soften Cream Cheese?

The best way to soften cream cheese is to cut the block into smaller portions, such as 1-ounce cubes, place them on an aluminum baking sheet, and let them sit at room temperature for 25 to 30 minutes. Because aluminum is such an excellent conductor of heat, it softens cream cheese quickly and evenly. The cubes come to temperature in about half the time of a whole block, with no special equipment or extra cleanup required. If you do this step first, your cream cheese will likely be ready by the time you’ve measured your other ingredients and preheated the oven. 

While a microwave can soften cream cheese in seconds, it’s easy to overdo it, resulting in uneven texture and overly soft spots. Power levels vary significantly from one model to another, so the settings that work for one microwave may not work in another. You can, of course, learn your particular microwave’s quirks and adjust accordingly, but doing so requires trial and error, and may still pose the risk of overheating some portions of the cream cheese.

As for the warm-water method, the five to 10 minutes saved isn’t worth the risk of water seeping into the cream cheese through a hole made by the thermometer’s probe—or the uncertainty of skipping the thermometer and trying instead to gauge its softness through the wrapper. The mixer method, meanwhile, was by far the messiest and least practical: It requires cleaning a bowl, paddle, and spatula, and you lose precious cream cheese to the equipment. Next time I need softened cream cheese, you can bet I’ll be reaching for my trusty quarter-sheet pan and exercising a little bit of patience.

Pasta and convenience: two things that tend to be naturally aligned. It’d be impossible to even guess at how many times we’ve relied on a quick-cooking bowl of spaghetti or rigatoni to fill our bellies in minimal time and with minimal effort. And while there are thousands of from-scratch pasta recipes that can be whipped up in minutes (aglio e olio, anyone?), there’s no doubt that a jar of good premade tomato sauce is the quickest of quick. But can you make jarred products better, and is it even worth the effort?

Well, no…and yes. The truth is that once you start down the road of doctoring store-bought pasta sauce, you’re adding enough effort that in many cases you might as well just whip up a quick-and-easy sauce from scratch. Is it really easier or better to spike a jarred sauce with fresh garlic or herbs, if you can make an equally wonderful sauce by, say, gently browning garlic and dried oregano in some olive oil and then briefly simmering some high-quality canned tomatoes with it? Frequently it is not.

But for all the instances in which it’d make just as much sense to forgo a supermarket brand of premade sauce, there are still times when you might enjoy popping the top off a ready-to-eat sauce and modify it in one way or another. There are few absolutes in life.

By applying at least one—if not a combination—of any of the tips below, you can customize store-bought tomato sauces to your heart’s content, to satisfy whatever your pasta goals may be.

Start With a Good Jar

The best way to make a jarred sauce taste more like a good homemade one is to start with a high-quality product. Trying to save an overly sweet, out of balance jarred sauce is a waste of time when the market is now chock full of products that taste great from the moment you pop open the lid. Rao’s, for one, is a longstanding SE staff favorite in need of little improvement. The sauce is bright and fruity, with a balanced acidity and the pleasing flavors of garlic, olive oil, onion, basil, and oregano. And these days it’s just one of many.

Add Alliums

You can treat a jarred sauce the same as a homemade sauce by sautéing classic alliums like garlic and/or onions in olive oil or butter before adding the sauce. In most cases, the jarred sauces will already have these ingredients cooked into them, but doubling down on garlic and onion is unlikely to elicit any complaints.

Deglaze With Wine

If you have a bottle of dry red or white kicking around, there’s no harm in adding a splash to the pan after sautéing the above alliums in fat. Make sure to simmer the wine long enough to cook off its raw alcohol flavor before dumping the sauce into the pot, or you may end up with an unpleasantly boozy pasta.

Season With Fresh or Dried Herbs and Spices

While most jarred pasta sauces already contain some degree of seasonings like dried oregano and basil, a boost of these ingredients in a fresher form can enliven a sauce. A generous sprig or two of fresh herbs like basil, parsley, rosemary, or sage can all amp up the flavor of a jarred pasta sauce. Alternatively, some of those herbs, like parsley, sage, and rosemary, can be great minced up and gently fried into fresh olive oil before adding the sauce to the pot.

Keep in mind that when you add the fresh herbs will depend on the herb and the flavor you want. Simmered for longer, delicate herbs like basil and parsley lose some of their freshness in exchange for a deeper infusion, whereas adding them towards the end of cooking or off the heat keeps things lighter and brighter. Woodsy herbs like rosemary, meanwhile, require some simmering time to extract their flavor compounds, but if left too long (or used in too great a quantity) can end up making the sauce unpleasantly piney or menthol-y.

Dried herbs are another great option, especially if you want to go for a more classic Italian-American marinara vibe. Generally speaking, woodsier dried herbs like oregano are preferable to dried delicate herbs like basil, the latter of which lose almost all of their flavor once dried. And because many dried herbs like oregano have fat-soluble flavor compounds, you’ll get more benefit out of blooming them in oil or butter before adding the sauce. That said, take care with how much you add, especially since jarred sauces usually start off with some level of herbal flavoring: It’s better to start with a small pinch and then adjust to taste as needed, since it’s always easier to add flavor than take away.

Putting herbs aside, there are ingredients in your spice cabinet can also make a good addition to a tomato sauce. Toasted and ground fennel seeds, for example, can deepen a sauce’s intensity and offer a suggestion of Italian sausage without actually adding any meat (as with the dried herbs, most spices will bring more flavor to the sauce if you toast them in oil or butter first, though this does add marginally more time and effort compared to just stirring the spices into the sauce and simmering for a few minutes).

Whisk in Tomato Paste

To double down on tomato flavor in your sauce, heat up a spoonful or two of tomato paste in a couple tablespoons of oil until softened and caramelized before pouring in the sauce and whisking to combine. Since tomato paste is heavily reduced and has such a concentrated tomato flavor, it’s a quick way to make a sauce taste like it’s been simmering for hours without actually having to do so.

Boost the Acidity

Tomatoes are naturally acidic, but sometimes a jarred pasta sauce can lean too sweet, or just taste flat. Incorporating acids like lemon juice (and even zest) or red wine vinegar right before serving can round out your sauce. Added acidity also balances the sweetness often found in many lower-quality jarred tomato sauces, but again, why buy those?

Toss in Olives or Capers

Briny ingredients like olives or capers are another way to brighten up your pasta sauce while also introducing texture and depth of flavor. Roughly chop a handful and stir them into your sauce while it’s heating up on the stove. If you go heavy on some of these ingredients, you can bend a store-bought sauce in the direction of a puttanesca, one classic sauce that can be hard to find on store shelves.

Add Vegetables

Sautéing an array of aromatic vegetables in olive oil before adding your sauce can boost flavor while also creating more texture. A “battuto” (the Italian term for a finely minced mirepoix of onions, celery, and carrots) is a great place to start, but you can also try sautéed mushrooms, which will add a dose of umami, or fresh fennel, which will add complexity.

Get Meaty

A variety of meats can work to infuse fat, flavor, and texture to a jarred sauce. The best meats for this are fatty cuts with big flavor that will turn tender in a short simmer—think Italian sausage, pancetta, ground meats (like beef, pork, or lamb), and even bacon. Brown your preferred meat (or a combination) in a pan with olive oil to render its fat, then add your sauce and simmer until the meat is tender and fully cooked. Even as little as two ounces of meat will add considerable flavor. This is a great way to add richness and protein to your sauce, turning it into a more filling meal.

Amp Up the Umami

Incorporating umami-rich ingredients into a jarred pasta sauce can increase complexity and savoriness. In addition to umami-rich ingredients like mushrooms and grated cheese mentioned in other sections here, you can melt a couple anchovy fillets in some olive oil before adding the sauce, or dissolve in a bouillon cube, a spoonful of miso, or a splash of fish sauce or Worcestershire sauce. Just be careful you don’t go overboard by using too much or too many of these intensely flavored ingredients.

Enrich With Dairy or Olive Oil

Just because a sauce is pre-made doesn’t mean it’s finished. Just as we like to simmer pasta in its sauce with a little bit of the pasta-cooking water for the last few minutes of cooking, we also like to enrich most sauces with a final glug of fresh olive oil, a pat of butter, and/or a big handful of finely grated cheese like Parmigiano-Reggiano or Pecorino Romano. Vigorously stirred into the sauce off the heat, these ingredients thicken the sauce for a more silky texture and round out any lingering tangy notes from the tomato sauce. 

On a related note, if you have some old grated-cheese rinds awaiting a purpose, you can also toss one of them into the sauce to make use of their flavor (though this will require a longer simmer that arguably defeats the purpose of a jarred-sauce convenience hack).

Beyond those basics, you can in some instances enhance a sauce with a splash of cream or half and half, a dollop of ricotta or some mascarpone. These can transform a sauce into something more like a creamy vodka, but please be thoughtful about what kind of jarred pasta sauce you’re starting with. The sweetness of cream, ricotta, and mascarpone all blend more seamlessly with a sauce that has a similar flavor profile—more fruity and sweet than acidic and herbal. That’s not to say a classic oregano-tinged marinara can’t be mixed with creamy dairy, just that not all sauces are good fits for that kind of fat.

Kick Up the Heat

Sometimes all it takes is a little spice to amp up a pasta sauce’s flavor. Try sprinkling in some red pepper flakes or stirring in some Calabrian chile paste for a welcome kick, though as noted with some of the other ideas above, these ingredients tend to incorporate most seamlessly into a sauce if heated in oil first, which will add time to the process.

October 2023

I was standing at the kitchen counter preparing dinner. Tears rolled down my cheeks. I sniffled and attempted to wipe my eyes with my sleeves. I wasn’t crying over spilled milk, nor was I crying because of a broken heart. I was crying because I was chopping an especially pungent onion—one with an aroma so powerful you could smell it across my apartment. So many recipes start with onions that if you cook at all, you’ve undoubtedly experienced the unpleasant, tear-inducing effects of an onion. But why does this happen, and is there any way to minimize the vegetable’s irritating effects on our tear ducts?

When onions experience cell damage—such as when they’re cut—their cells release alliinase, an enzyme that produces sulfur compounds. In his book On Food and Cooking, food science writer Harold McGee notes that this is the vegetable’s defense mechanism. According to McGee, plants “compensate for their immobility with a remarkable ability for chemical synthesis” and “produce thousands of strong-tasting, sometimes poisonous warning signals” to discourage predators from attacking them. Those sulfur compounds released by the onion are intended to “annoy and repel” their attackers by irritating their mouths, nasal passages, and eyes.

These compounds are especially potent at room temperature. In his cookbook Veg-Table, Serious Eats contributor Nik Sharma writes, “The enzyme alliinase produces its most potent chemicals at warmer temperatures; cold temperatures will reduce the activity of this enzyme.” So to minimize the tear-inducing effects of an onion, Sharma simply refrigerates his onions for an hour or two before using them.

I read about the method in Veg-Table shortly after the book was released in 2023, and was curious to test it out myself—so I refrigerated an onion for an hour before slicing it. Miraculously, I did not shed a single tear. Although I was skeptical, I am now a converted believer who will never cut an onion without first refrigerating it. I should note that this is entirely anecdotal; I have not scientifically or methodically tested it against other techniques, but in my personal experience, it has proven to work extremely well. Onions may have once annoyed and repelled me, but thanks to this simple trick for reducing kitchen tears, they no longer do.