← Plant Milk Family Tree ← Back to Collection

Rice Milk

Common

Widely consumed internationally

A plant-based beverage made from rice and water. Commercial production commonly processes the rice carbohydrates to create a drinkable liquid.

About Rice Milk

Rice milk is a plant-based beverage made from rice (Oryza sativa), one of the world's most important staple crops. It is produced by blending cooked rice or raw brown rice with water and straining the result, though commercial production typically uses brown rice and an enzymatic process to break down the starches before blending. Rice milk is one of the oldest plant milks, with a long history in East and Southeast Asian cuisines — rice-based drinks have been consumed in China, Japan, and Korea for centuries in various forms.

Rice milk has a mild, slightly sweet flavour from the natural sugars formed when rice starches are broken down during processing or cooking. It is notably thinner and more watery in texture than oat or nut milks, with a lower fat content and a higher carbohydrate content than most other plant milks. Commercial rice milk is almost always fortified with calcium, vitamins D and B12, and sometimes riboflavin and iron to improve its nutritional profile, as unfortified rice milk provides very little protein, fat, or micronutrients beyond carbohydrates.

Rice milk is the most allergen-friendly of all mainstream plant milks — it is free of dairy, lactose, nuts, soy, and gluten (rice is naturally gluten-free), making it suitable for people with multiple food allergies or intolerances. It is particularly valued as a plant milk option for children with multiple allergies, though it is not suitable as a nutritionally complete dairy replacement without fortification and should not be used as the primary milk for infants without medical supervision.

Sources & Further Reading

USDA FoodData Central — Rice Milk (SR Legacy) (current search) — Current USDA database search for the named food; select the matching product/data type because formulations and database records can change.
USDA FoodData Central — Rice, White, Long-Grain, Cooked (current search) — Current USDA database search for the named food; select the matching product/data type because formulations and database records can change.
PMC — Glycaemic Response to Plant-Based Milk Alternatives (2023) — Review reporting rice drinks showed notably high glycaemic index values compared to oat, soy, almond, and other plant milk alternatives
PMC — Commercial Plant-Based Milk Alternatives: Fatty Acids and Protein Digestibility — Beverage-level study that analyzed commercial almond, coconut, hazelnut, hemp, oat, quinoa, rice, and soy drinks; results are product-specific rather than universal.

Nutrition

Rice milk (240ml / 1 cup, unsweetened, fortified) typically contains:

Calories~120 kcal

Fat~2.5 g

Protein~1 g

Carbohydrates~23 g

Calcium~280 mg (fortified)

AllergensFree of all major allergens

Rice milk is the highest-carbohydrate plant milk, reflecting rice's high starch content. It is the lowest in protein of all mainstream plant milks. It is naturally free of all major allergens. Fortification is essential to make it nutritionally adequate as a dairy substitute. It has a high glycaemic index, making it less suitable for people managing blood sugar levels.

Common Uses

◌ Drinking◌ Cereal◌ Smoothies◌ Baking◌ Coffee & tea◌ Cooking

Rice milk is commonly used as a neutral, allergen-free plant milk for cereal, smoothies, baking, and cooking. Its mild, slightly sweet flavour makes it unobtrusive in most applications. It is the go-to plant milk for people with multiple food allergies who cannot use nut, oat, or soy milks. In Asian cooking traditions, sweetened rice drinks (such as horchata in Spain and Latin America, which uses rice and cinnamon) are popular traditional beverages.

Interesting Facts

Rice milk is the most allergen-friendly of all plant milks — free of dairy, soy, nuts, and gluten — making it the plant milk of last resort for people managing multiple food allergies.
Horchata de arroz, a traditional Mexican drink made from rice, cinnamon, and sugar blended with water, is one of the oldest known rice milk beverages, with roots in Spanish and Moorish cooking traditions.
Commercial rice milk was first sold in the United States in 1990 by Rice Dream (Imagine Foods), making it one of the pioneer commercial plant milks available before oat and pea milk.
Rice milk has a naturally high glycaemic index — the sugars from broken-down rice starches are absorbed quickly, raising blood sugar faster than most other plant milks.
Rice grows in flooded paddies that create methane-producing anaerobic conditions — making rice cultivation a significant contributor to greenhouse gas emissions. Environmental impact varies by rice production system, processing, packaging, and transport; this entry does not assign a universal greenhouse-gas ranking to rice milk.