Black rice substitutes

The nearest thing on the shelf. Both are whole-grain rices with a coloured bran, so you get the same slightly chewy, springy grain and the same nutty, faintly earthy flavour, at a very similar cooking time. The difference is entirely visual: the bowl comes out warm russet-brown rather than inky purple-black, and it bleeds a rosy tint into a dressing rather than a dramatic violet one.

Best for

grain bowls, grain salads, pilafs, rice to serve under roasted vegetables or fish

Bhutanese red cooks faster, in about twenty minutes, and eats softer. Camargue red is firmer and takes closer to thirty-five. Both are more forgiving than black rice and neither turns mushy easily.

The best choice when the dark, dramatic look is the point, since wild rice is nearly black and its grains split open to show pale interiors, which looks striking in a salad. Flavour is where it diverges sharply: wild rice is not rice at all but an aquatic grass, and it tastes distinctly grassy, smoky and tea-like, much stronger than the mild nuttiness of black rice. Texture is chewier still, almost bouncy.

Best for

cold grain salads, stuffings, pilafs, dishes where dark colour matters most

Cook it like pasta in plenty of water and drain, since it needs far more liquid and time than black rice. Blending half wild rice with half brown rice moderates the strong flavour while keeping the dark look.

The most available and cheapest option, and a solid one on texture. The intact bran gives the same pleasant chew and a similar nutty flavour, so a grain bowl built on it works in exactly the same way. What you lose is the drama: no purple, no colour bleeding into the dressing, and a slightly milder, less roasty flavour. It also cooks noticeably longer than black rice.

Best for

grain bowls, salads, rice pudding, everyday whole-grain rice

Short-grain brown clings more than long-grain brown, which is closer to how black rice eats. Rinse it briefly and cook it in plenty of salted water, then drain, for the most even result.

Worth knowing about if you find them, because they get you some of the dark colour with a totally different grain. Black quinoa cooks in fifteen minutes and gives a dark speckled bowl with a small popping bite rather than a chew, plus a grassy flavour. Purple barley is plumper, starchier and softer than black rice, and it bleeds a pinkish liquid that thickens noticeably.

Best for

dark-coloured grain salads, quick weeknight bowls, soups in the case of barley

Black quinoa is much smaller than rice, so a salad made with it reads as a different dish. Rinse quinoa thoroughly to remove its bitter saponin coating.

The right substitute for the specific case of Thai black sticky rice pudding, because the essential property there is stickiness rather than colour. White glutinous rice gives the same dense, chewy, cohesive texture and it cooks the same way, soaked then steamed. The pudding comes out ivory instead of deep purple, and it loses the roasty, slightly winey note that black sticky rice has, so it tastes cleaner and sweeter.

Best for

black sticky rice pudding, coconut rice puddings, mango sticky rice

If you have even a couple of tablespoons of black rice left, add them to the white glutinous rice and the whole pot will still turn purple, since the pigment is very strong. Do not boil glutinous rice like ordinary rice, as it turns to paste.

The practical answer when you have a little black rice but not enough. Anthocyanin is a powerful dye, so a quarter of the quantity will colour the whole pot a convincing purple-grey, and the brown rice supplies the bulk with a compatible chew and flavour. This gets you nearer to a real black rice dish than any single substitute in this list.

Best for

grain bowls, salads, stretching an expensive bag of black rice

Cook them together only if the timings are close: black rice takes about thirty to thirty-five minutes and brown rice forty to forty-five, so start the brown rice about ten minutes earlier and add the black rice after.