Best way to cook rice for 15 people

If you have a Chinese restaurant near you most will sell you however much white rice you need. That's what I always did when I needed a lot.

Instapot

Instant pot and start cooking rice about an hour and a half before you want to eat. Each batch takes about 25 minutes (about 15 to cook, then let sit for 10), so you can easily get three batches done by the time you're ready to serve. 1.5 times as much water as rice in a batch (at least to my tastes on my counter in my instant pot, YMMV).

I'd do 2-3 cups of dry rice in a batch. If I'm in full on fatboy mode and I have a big serving bowl to eat out of, and I'm using my gumbo spoon, a cup of dry rice will feed me to stuffed, and I'm a growing boy. Polite people won't eat that much, especially when you figure they're not going to be eating out of a serving bowl and won't have their gumbo spoons. A half a cup of dry rice per person is usually what you can plan for. So, three batches of 2 cups gets you 12 half cup servings, and 18 servings with 3 cups per batch.

Start another batch when you start serving and after that, keep an eye on your bowl of cooked rice. If it gets to half full, start another batch of rice and just fold in each batch of new hot rice with the old rice and keep everything covered with a moist tea towel or a good tight lid to keep from drying out.

Don't be that cheap arse who cooks two cups of rice for three people and runs out and then keeps everyone waiting while you cook a third cup of rice. Rice is dirt cheap, so who gives a shite if you cook too much? DON'T RUN OUT. Also, you can get away with cooking it ahead and not having hot rice because your gumbo will be plenty hot enough and will heat the rice through quickly. Again, just make sure to keep it covered or lidded to keep it from drying out.

If you have a griddle or a wok, some fried rice the next day with the leftover rice is hard to beat.

Cook it like you would spaghetti

Rice For A Crowd

I just did this last Saturday. Rice is cheap. Just cook a 5lb bag and be done with it. You will need a large steam pan or a large disposable foil pan.

Add a little vinegar and/or butter if you do choose.

Thanks for the all advice. I'm leaning toward using the Instant Pot. And I wanna have rice left over so I can eat gumbo during the week and/or make fried rice for dinner one night. We've got some Chinese dinners from Trader Joe's in the freezer.

Because I have them, I'd use multiple rice cookers. I have my Mom's, which is way too big for regular use for us, and a couple of smaller ones. Borrow from a friend or relative?

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Chicken broth instead of water, thyme, basil, turmeric, and paprika sound like it would turn out awesome. I might try that in the next couple of days.

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White wine with the broth and saffron also work well.