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Rice flour is not one thing. There are several varieties, made with different kinds of rice in different parts of the world, and each has its own distinct personality. I grew up with Vietnamese foods made from rice flours, like bánh cuốn and bánh xèo, and I’ll share this: Using the wrong rice flour can really mess up a dish. Figuring out which to buy may seem tricky, but if you have some basics in your back pocket, you’ll succeed.
Rice flour is simply ground rice. Nothing else. Differences between rice flours depend on what kind of rice is featured: Regular rice flour can be ground from long-, medium-, or short-grain rice (what’s enjoyed daily in grain bowls and on rice plates). Glutinous (a.k.a. sweet) rice flour is ground from sticky rice grains (think butter mochi cakes); despite the word glutinous, there is no wheat gluten involved.
Rice contains varying combinations of two starches, amylose and amylopectin, which impact how grains cook up. Long-grain jasmine has a higher amylose to amylopectin ratio—that’s why it cooks up as separate grains. Short-grain rice, such as what’s used for sushi, has a lower ratio of amylose to amylopectin, hence its clump-ability. On the extreme end, sticky rice has no amylose and the highest amount of amylopectin.
The milling method also determines how the flour will behave in a recipe. Wet-milled rice flour is super fine and silky because the grains were soaked before being ground. It weighs less by volume and rehydrates quicker than dry-milled rice flour, which feels coarser because the grains were unsoaked before grinding. One is not better than the other. They each have their uses.
Sound confusing? Stay with me. For grocery shopping in America, remember that there are three (three!) popular kinds of rice flour to look for: Thai rice flour, Japanese rice flour, and supermarket rice flour. Always read the recipe to make sure you’re buying the right type.
Thai rice flour: regular and glutinous
When a recipe calls for Thai rice flour, it involves wet-milled regular (long-grain) rice or glutinous (sticky) rice flour. Foods such as rice noodles are traditionally made from wet-milled rice flour. Unless you’re planning to go pro, you don’t have to carefully select the rice, soak, and then grind it. Simply head to an Asian market and look in the flour-and-starch aisle for plastic bags of rice flour imported from Southeast Asia, mostly from Thailand and sometimes Vietnam. One consistent and widely distributed brand is Erawan (scan for the three-headed elephant logo).
Packaging displays multiple languages, but if you don’t speak any of them, fear not: Regardless of the brand, the bagged Thai rice flour is likely labeled in red or green lettering. Red-label rice flour is milled from regular rice (on the label “bột tẻ” means plain flour in Vietnamese)—that’s the rice flour for a batch of my bánh cuốn, Vietnamese rice rolls.
Green-label Thai rice flour is glutinous rice flour (on the label “bột nếp” means glutinous rice flour in Vietnamese). Glutinous Thai rice flour is good for certain dumplings. Due to starch content differences, resist subbing flours. Trying glutinous rice flour in a regular rice flour recipe will likely yield a gluey mess.
Japanese rice flour: mochiko and more
To make chewy mochi treats, recipes often call for mochiko, Japanese-style dry-milled glutinous rice flour. Commonly labeled as “sweet rice flour,” mochiko is texturally coarser than its Thai wet-milled kin. California-based Koda Farms is a leading mochiko producer; if a recipe specifies mochiko, start with a Japanese-style flour to closely match recipe results. (Bob’s Red Mill sells sweet rice flour, but its provenance is unknown, so it may not be a seamless swap for recipes that specify the mochiko from Koda Farms; in a pinch, try it out and see.) Other kinds of Japanese rice flour include shiratamako (wet-milled glutinous rice flour) and joshinko (wet-milled short-grain rice flour). Shiratamako and joshinko are not used as much as mochiko but worth knowing about in case you go wild with rice flour for crafting Japanese dango dumplings and other wagashi treats ; the less-used flours are chiefly sold at Japanese markets.
Mainstream market rice flour: white and brown
If a recipe specifies white or brown rice flour, it’s likely asking for dry-milled flour sold at mainstream markets and health food grocers. Bob’s Red Mill and Arrowhead Mills are leading brands. I love using white and brown rice flour for coating fish for pan-frying. Brown rice flour, with its bran and germ intact, yields a slightly crisper finish.
Can you sub mainstream white rice flour for Asian rice flour in recipes? Only if the recipe says so or you do it with care. For example, to make bánh xèo, Vietnamese sizzling rice crepes, I typically whisk regular Thai rice flour with cold or lukewarm water, plus other ingredients. However, to formulate a bánh xèo batter with supermarket white rice flour, I had to specify a different amount of flour and employ hot water to soften the batter texture. The result was still crunchy and rustic compared to the original.
Well-written recipes will specify which type of rice flour to use. Cooks have their preferences. Read the headnote and/or cookbook ingredient section and don’t swap varieties on a whim. Thai sweet rice flour, for instance, can’t stand in for mochiko because of different types of rice and milling methods.
The rice flours discussed here are the most common varieties in the US—so while there are many others around the world, these few products can turn into countless recipes. Start by making tender, ricey bánh cuốn.
