TikTok's Ice Trick For Reheating Leftover Rice Is Blowing Minds

Rice fans, rejoice — there's an easier way to reheat your leftovers. If you accidentally cook yourself too much rice or just love having leftovers, you'll love this TikTok hack from @OfficialTikTokNurse. The video has been shared thousands of times, and it's blowing people's minds. Everyone has a strategy for reheating rice, but not many have thought to try this one.

Per Southern Living, all you need to reheat rice perfectly is a bowl, the rice, and an ice cube. While this may not sound like it makes any sense at all, when you try this microwave hack, you'll save yourself plenty of time and frustration. It's fun, it's easy, and for a strategy for reheating your food, it's pretty dang cool. 

You might be "today years old" when you learn this trick, but once you try it, you may just want to use it for the rest of your life.

How exactly can ice, of all things, help you reheat rice? All you need to do to find out is put a portion of leftover rice into a microwave-safe bowl and toss in an ice cube. (TikTok user @OfficialTikTokNurse uses a fairly small amount, but you can definitely use more.)

Just place the bowl in the microwave, set the microwave timer (but check on your rice before the timer runs out if need be), and pull out your rice when the timer goes off. Be careful, though — if this TikTok video is any indication, your rice will be steaming hot, so grab some oven mitts or a pot holder before you take it out. TikTok user @OfficialTikTokNurse, who says she learned this trick from her mother, sets the timer for one minute, but if you have a larger quantity of rice, you may need to put it in the microwave for longer.

The wildest part is that when you pull out your hot rice, the ice cube won't have melted; you can just throw the cube away afterwards (per Southern Living). But how is ice still intact after being microwaved? What kind of kitchen sorcery is this?

The reason this TikTok trick works on rice comes down to microwaves, molecular bonds, and all the stuff from science class you probably forgot (or just weren't paying attention to). Fortunately, the science behind reheating rice with an ice cube isn't as complicated as you might think.

According to America's Test Kitchen, tiny waves called — you guessed it — microwaves cause the molecules in your food to vibrate when you turn on your microwave oven. This process heats your food — the more rapidly those particles vibrate, the hotter your food will be. This is where the ice comes in. 

Grains of rice contain water, and, naturally, so does ice. When the ice is in contact with the rice, it gets hot from the water it contains. In turn, the hot rice warms the ice cube. Thanks to the microwaves, the ice reaches a boil in your microwave oven, which creates the steam you'll see on your rice when you take it out. The reason the ice doesn't look melted? It all comes down to the hydrogen bonds in the ice, which are in a special crystal formation (per Hearty Health). The molecules in ice are locked in place, so when the ice and the rice touch, the ice won't melt. This simple TikTok hack will give you steaming hot rice in no time — and it's all thanks to some good ol' chemistry.