In this article
- Resistant starch, in one minute
- Resistant starch carbs ranked, as eaten
- Rice: cooling makes the biggest difference
- Pasta and gnocchi
- Potatoes: how you cook them matters first
- Beans and lentils: the carb with resistant starch built in
- Bread, breakfast cereal and corn
- Myth vs fact: high fiber cereals are high in resistant starch
- Resistant starch carbs and blood sugar
- Gut fuel: what happens in the colon
- How close can a meal get to 6 grams?
- What the research still needs to measure
- Resistant starch carbs: what people ask
- Sources
0.64 grams versus 1.65 grams. That’s how much resistant starch 100 grams of white rice held in a 2015 Indonesian study when eaten freshly cooked, compared with the same rice chilled for 24 hours and then reheated. Among resistant starch carbs as a whole, though, beans and lentils still lead, with some flatbreads, crispbreads and cornflakes close behind.
So the carbohydrate you choose matters, and so does what you do with it after cooking. Here’s how the main carb staples compare, using lab measurements of foods as they’re actually eaten.
Resistant starch, in one minute
Resistant starch is starch your small intestine can’t digest, so it reaches the colon intact, where gut microbes can ferment some types. A 2020 review by Patterson and colleagues counts it as a type of fiber.
Cleveland Clinic describes four main types. Type 1 sits inside the cell walls of whole grains and legumes, type 2 is in raw potatoes and unripe bananas, type 3 forms when cooked starches like rice, potatoes and pasta cool, and type 4 is a manufactured ingredient.
For everyday carbs, types 1 and 3 do most of the work. Beans bring type 1 naturally, and cooling does the job for rice, pasta and potatoes.
Resistant starch carbs ranked, as eaten
A 2024 study by Hareer and colleagues measured resistant starch in 40 Australian foods prepared the way people eat them. These are the main carbohydrate foods, in grams per 100 grams:
| Carbohydrate food | Resistant starch per 100 g |
|---|---|
| Red kidney beans, canned | 3.23 g |
| Lebanese white flatbread | 2.31 g |
| Cornflakes | 2.30 g |
| Brown lentils, canned | 2.16 g |
| Rye crispbread | 2.13 g |
| Chickpeas, canned | 2.06 g |
| Cannellini beans, canned | 1.99 g |
| Baked beans | 1.48 g |
| Corn chips | 1.15 g |
| Corn tortilla | 1.05 g |
| Potato gnocchi | 1.00 g |
| Wholemeal bread | 1.00 g |
| Pulse pasta, chilled overnight | 0.82 g |
| White bread | 0.61 g |
| Quinoa, cooked | 0.60 g |
| Gluten free rice pasta, chilled overnight | 0.28 g |
| Instant oats, cooked with water | 0.15 g |
| Plain rice cracker | 0.00 g |
Legumes take four of the top seven spots. The surprises are the white flatbread and cornflakes, which beat wholemeal bread by more than double.
This study didn’t measure plain white rice or potatoes, so the rice figure in the opening comes from a separate study. Wheat pasta wasn’t tested either.
Rice: cooling makes the biggest difference
In the 2015 study by Sonia and colleagues, freshly cooked white rice held 0.64 grams of resistant starch per 100 grams. Rice left at room temperature for 10 hours rose to 1.30 grams, and rice chilled at 4°C for 24 hours and then reheated reached 1.65 grams.
The researchers also tested blood sugar in 14 healthy adults. The chilled and reheated rice produced a smaller rise, with an average glucose response of 125 compared with 152 for fresh rice, a drop of about 18%.
That fits Cleveland Clinic’s advice to cool cooked rice or pasta in the fridge overnight and then reheat it. The fridge method is the one tested in the blood sugar trial.
Pasta and gnocchi
Pasta data is thinner than you might expect. In the Hareer study, pulse pasta rose from 0.70 to 0.82 grams per 100 grams after chilling overnight, and gluten free rice pasta went from 0.25 to 0.28 grams.
Potato gnocchi came in at 1.00 gram, more than either pasta. Regular wheat pasta wasn’t part of the test, so there’s no measured figure to give you here.
The direction matches the wider evidence. The Patterson review, which pooled 94 studies, found that foods cooked and then chilled have more resistant starch than the same foods freshly cooked.
Want more ways to use cooked and cooled rice, pasta and beans? Our recipe eBooks are packed with easy, high fiber meals.
Potatoes: how you cook them matters first
Raw potatoes are rich in resistant starch, but you lose much of it in the pot. A 2024 study by Karunarathna and colleagues found 33.9 grams per 100 grams of dry weight in raw potato, falling to 14.4 grams after 45 minutes of boiling.
Fifteen minutes of pressure cooking kept it at 20.1 grams. In this test, the shorter pressure cook protected more of the starch than the long boil.
Cleveland Clinic lists potatoes among the foods that form type 3 resistant starch as they cool. Cooking them on the shorter side and chilling them before eating gives you both advantages.
Beans and lentils: the carb with resistant starch built in
Beans don’t need any special handling. Canned kidney beans topped the Hareer study at 3.23 grams per 100 grams, about five times as much as white bread and more than fresh or chilled rice.
Cleveland Clinic names beans and legumes, along with barley, brown rice and oats, as go to sources of resistant starch. Lentils, chickpeas and cannellini beans all landed around 2 grams per 100 grams.
Even baked beans, with their sauce, came in at 1.48 grams. That beats every bread in the study except the Lebanese flatbread, so with beans on toast, the beans supply more resistant starch than the toast.
Pairing a starchy carb with beans is the most reliable way to stack resistant starch at one meal. Chilled rice with kidney beans, for example, combines both.
Bread, breakfast cereal and corn
Breads and cereals vary more than their labels suggest. In the Hareer study, Weet-Bix held 0.90 grams per 100 grams, while Special K held 0.13 and Nutri-Grain just 0.04.
Among breads, dark rye sourdough and mixed seed sourdough landed at 0.69 and 0.64 grams, close to white bread. Gluten free white bread was lower still, at 0.45 grams.
Corn shows how much processing changes things. Canned sweet corn had only 0.08 grams, but corn tortillas reached 1.05 grams and corn chips 1.15 grams, more than ten times as much.
None of these come close to beans, but they show that the everyday carb you already eat may carry more, or less, resistant starch than you’d guess.
Myth vs fact: high fiber cereals are high in resistant starch
Myth: If a breakfast cereal or bread is labeled high fiber, it must be packed with resistant starch.
Fact: In the Hareer study, All Bran held just 0.03 grams of resistant starch per 100 grams, while plain cornflakes held 2.30 grams. A low GI high fibre bread came in at 0.37 grams, below ordinary white bread at 0.61.
Resistant starch is one specific kind of fiber. A food can be loaded with bran fiber and still contain almost none of it, so treat resistant starch and total fiber as two separate numbers.
Resistant starch carbs and blood sugar
Cleveland Clinic says resistant starch may help you manage blood sugar and feel full longer. The Sonia rice trial is a small, direct example: the same rice, cooled and reheated, raised blood sugar less than fresh rice.
Keep the scale in mind. That trial included 14 healthy adults and tested one meal, so it shows a short term effect rather than a long term change.
Not sure how much total fiber your day should include? Our fiber calculator gives you a personal target in seconds.
Gut fuel: what happens in the colon
Harvard’s Nutrition Source counts resistant starch among the prebiotic fibers, the kinds gut bacteria ferment into short chain fatty acids. That fermentation is what makes these carbs gut fuel rather than just calories.
Harvard lists cooked and cooled pasta and potatoes, unripe bananas and legumes among the main sources. That’s the same set of carbs that leads in the lab data above.
If your gut isn’t used to much fermentable fiber, our guides walk you through building up gradually.
How close can a meal get to 6 grams?
Cleveland Clinic suggests aiming for at least 6 grams of resistant starch per meal, and says most people get only about 5 grams a day. Using the as eaten figures above, here’s what that target takes:
| Portion | Resistant starch, approx. |
|---|---|
| 150 g canned kidney beans | 4.8 g |
| 150 g chilled and reheated white rice | 2.5 g |
| Both together | 7.3 g |
| 100 g canned lentils plus 70 g wholemeal bread | 2.9 g |
| 150 g fresh white rice | 1.0 g |
Beans plus cooled rice clears 6 grams in a single bowl. Fresh rice alone doesn’t come close, which is why cooling your carbs and adding legumes make such a difference.
What the research still needs to measure
Resistant starch numbers are still patchy. The Hareer team found that duplicate batches of the same food varied by more than 10% for 12 of the 40 foods they tested, and they estimate that Australians eat about 4 to 14 grams a day, which they suggest may not be enough for the full benefit.
Staples like plain white rice, wheat pasta and potatoes weren’t in that study, and the rice trial was small. Its authors suggested cooled rice for people with diabetes, but the trial itself only included healthy adults. Expect clearer, food by food numbers as more labs test carbohydrates in the form people actually eat them.
Resistant starch carbs: what people ask
Which carb has the most resistant starch?
Among foods as eaten, canned kidney beans tested highest in one 2024 study, at about 3.2 grams per 100 grams. Lebanese flatbread and cornflakes came next, at about 2.3 grams.
Does cooling rice increase resistant starch?
Yes. In a 2015 study, white rice rose from 0.64 grams of resistant starch per 100 grams fresh to 1.65 grams after 24 hours in the fridge and reheating.
Does reheating rice destroy the resistant starch?
No. The rice that was chilled for 24 hours and then reheated had the most resistant starch in the 2015 study, about 2.5 times more than freshly cooked rice.
Is cooled pasta better than fresh pasta?
It has a little more resistant starch. Chilled pulse pasta had 0.82 grams per 100 grams compared with 0.70 grams freshly cooked, and chilled foods in general carry more.
Do potatoes have resistant starch after cooking?
Yes, but less than raw. Boiling for 45 minutes cut it from 33.9 to 14.4 grams per 100 grams of dry weight, while 15 minutes of pressure cooking kept 20.1 grams.
Are resistant starch carbs low glycemic?
They can lower the blood sugar response. In one trial, chilled and reheated rice raised blood sugar about 18% less than freshly cooked rice.
Is whole wheat bread high in resistant starch?
Not especially. Wholemeal bread had about 1 gram per 100 grams in one study, ahead of white bread at 0.61 grams but behind beans and some flatbreads.
Sources
- Sonia S, Witjaksono F, Ridwan R. “Effect of cooling of cooked white rice on resistant starch content and glycemic response.” Asia Pacific Journal of Clinical Nutrition, 2015. apjcn.qdu.edu.cn
- Hareer LW, Tran C, O’Neill HM, Genoni A. “Resistant starch content of Australian foods.” International Journal of Food Science and Technology, 2024. academic.oup.com
- Karunarathna S, et al. “Investigating the impact of boiling and pressure cooking on resistant starch levels in food.” International Journal of Food Science and Technology, 2024. academic.oup.com
- Patterson MA, Maiya M, Stewart ML. “Resistant Starch Content in Foods Commonly Consumed in the United States: A Narrative Review.” Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, 2020. jandonline.org
- Cleveland Clinic. “Are Foods With Resistant Starch Good for You?” Health Essentials, 2025. health.clevelandclinic.org
- Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. “Fiber.” The Nutrition Source, 2022. nutritionsource.hsph.harvard.edu
