Forget everything you know about cooking rice. There's a healthier way to do it.

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Rice is one of those foods that is deceptively hard to get right. If you overdo the water, it turns into slop; if you get distracted by what’s happening on The Block, you’ll very likely find yourself with crispy grains and a charred pot.

But it might be time to forget everything you’ve been told about getting perfect rice, because Sri Lankan researchers have just discovered a cooking method that can cut the calories by a whopping 60 per cent.

Yes, it turns out we’ve been cooking rice all wrong.

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Here’s what you need: coconut oil and a refrigerator (along with, you know, rice, water and a pot). There’s a catch, of course — instead of the usual 10 minute job, this technique requires 13 hours of prep time. So, yeah, a little forward-thinking is required.

According to the findings, which were presented at the American Chemical Society’s national meeting, adding fat to the cooking process and then cooling it helps to increase the rice’s levels of resistant starch.

One cup of cooked rice contains about 200 calories. Check out what 200 calories looks like in other foods… (post continues after gallery).

Unlike digestible starch, which is also present in rice, resistant starch isn’t transformed into sugar and absorbed into the bloodstream, because the human body doesn’t have the enzymes to make that happen. So increasing the amount of resistant starch in rice means the body will absorb less calories.

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By testing 38 different types of rice, the research team determined that the best method was to add a teaspoon of coconut oil into boiling water, before pouring in half a cup of non-fortified white rice and cooking it for 40 minutes. Probably a good idea to have your laptop handy because that’s a loooong time to be hanging out in the kitchen with an eye on the pot.

Then, once cooked, the rice needs to be refrigerated for 12 hours.

This technique upped restricted starch levels in the rice by 10 times the usual amount, shaving off 10 to 15 per cent of the usual calories. The study authors claim it could reduce calories by up to 60 per cent for other kinds of rice. Evidently, this is the result of fat molecules squeezing in between starch molecules to protect it from fast digestion. Fat to the rescue!

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In case you're wondering, no — this calorie reduction wasn't impacted when the rice was reheated. So you can still enjoy leftover stir fry for breakfast if that's your thing.

What's your favourite rice dish?

Okay, so if breakfast stir fry isn't your thing, maybe one of these dishes will take your fancy...