Can You Eat Rice Noodles if You Live With Diabetes?
Health ConditionsDiabetes
Explore This Topic

Can I Still Eat Rice Noodles if I Have Diabetes?

Can I Still Eat Rice Noodles if I Have Diabetes?
Adobe Stock
By
Updated on August 6, 2025
by
Rice noodles can add variety and essential minerals, like selenium and manganese, to your diet.

If you live with diabetes, you may wonder whether the high carbohydrate content of rice noodles could mean they’re off the menu when it comes to your diet.

High-carb foods like rice noodles can elevate your blood sugar if you eat too much of them or pair them with the wrong foods. Understanding their glycemic load and where they fall on the glycemic index can help you continue to enjoy them without causing blood sugar spikes.

How Many Grams of Carbs Are in Rice Noodles?

For a person with diabetes, one serving of carbohydrates is 15 grams (g). This means that if you eat a 1-cup serving of cooked rice noodles — which has about 42 g of carbs — it counts as roughly three servings of carbohydrates.

Each meal should contain three to five servings of carbohydrates, depending on your sex, how active you are, and other factors.

Eating balanced amounts of carbohydrates throughout the day can help keep your blood sugar stable, while eating a much higher number of carbohydrate servings in one sitting could cause your levels to spike.

What Is the Glycemic Index of Rice Noodles?

The glycemic index (GI) estimates how much a food is likely to increase your blood sugar levels.

Foods with a GI of 55 or lower aren’t likely to affect your blood sugar levels much, while those with a GI of 70 or above are more likely to cause higher increases.

Boiled, dried rice noodles have a GI of around 61 to 65, making them a medium-GI option when it comes to rice products.

Still, some researchers highlight that rice noodles can contribute to high blood sugar, especially for people who eat them regularly.

Different kinds of rice noodles can also have a much higher or lower GI. For example, vermicelli rice noodles, a thinner type of noodle, can have a GI of 40 to about 80.

Glycemic Load of Rice Noodles and Why It Matters

When it comes to estimating the true effect of rice noodles on your blood sugar levels, glycemic load may be more useful than GI. This is because the GI doesn’t take serving size into account while glycemic load does.

You can calculate the glycemic load of a food by multiplying its GI by the number of carbohydrates in a serving and dividing that number by 100. A glycemic load under 10 is considered low, and a score over 20 is high.

Using the formula above, a 1-cup serving of cooked rice noodles has a glycemic load of nearly 26, so it’s likely to cause a higher increase in your blood sugar levels.

How Rice Noodles Can Fit Into Your Diabetes Diet

Even though rice noodles themselves have a high glycemic load, a number of factors can help you reduce their effect on your blood sugar.

Consider these tips for making rice noodles more diabetes-friendly:

  • Reduce serving size. While a 1-cup serving of rice noodles has a high glycemic load, eating half that amount of noodles brings the glycemic load down to about 13, meaning its effect on your blood sugar will be less significant.
  • Mix things up. Eating a half cup of rice noodles on their own is unlikely to be satisfying. Adding foods with a low GI, such as proteins like lean beef, skinless chicken, or tofu and nonstarchy, high-fiber vegetables such as broccoli, mushrooms, and peppers, can turn them into a satisfying meal while reducing its impact on your blood sugar.

  • Shorten cooking time. Starches, including rice noodles, tend to have a lower GI when cooked for less time. Eating your noodles al dente rather than well done could lessen their ability to raise your blood sugar.

  • Add something acidic. Combining acidic food, particularly vinegar, with higher GI foods could lower their overall glycemic impact because it slows your stomach’s emptying process. Adding a vinegar dressing or pickled vegetables to a rice noodle dish could help manage its GI.

The Takeaway

  • Rice noodles are high in carbohydrates and can have a high glycemic load, or impact on blood sugar, if you eat a large serving.
  • If you live with diabetes, you can still enjoy rice noodles by taking steps to manage their overall impact on your blood sugar, like mixing them with low-GI foods and eating smaller servings.
  • If you’re not sure what serving size of rice noodles best fits into your diabetes meal plan, it’s a good idea to talk with your doctor. They may refer you to a dietitian who specializes in creating individualized meal plans tailored to your nutritional needs and lifestyle.
EDITORIAL SOURCES
Everyday Health follows strict sourcing guidelines to ensure the accuracy of its content, outlined in our editorial policy. We use only trustworthy sources, including peer-reviewed studies, board-certified medical experts, patients with lived experience, and information from top institutions.
Resources
  1. Rice Noodles, Cooked. U.S. Department of Agriculture. April 1, 2019.
  2. Carbs Count When Managing Diabetes. Stanford Medicine Children’s Health.
  3. Counting Carbohydrates. MedlinePlus. July 24, 2024.
  4. Glycemic Index and Diabetes. MedlinePlus. October 11, 2024.
  5. Dwiningsih Y et al. Glycemic Index of Diverse Rice Genotypes and Rice Products Associated with Health and Diseases. Advance Sustainable Science, Engineering, and Technology. April 2023.
  6. Rice Noodles. Glycemic Index Guide.
  7. Luo X et al. Feasible Methods to Control Starch Digestibility: Strategies for Reducing Glycemic Index of Rice Noodles. Trends in Food Science and Technology. July 2024.
  8. The Lowdown on Glycemic Index and Glycemic Load. Harvard Health Publishing. August 2, 2023.
  9. Glycemic Load and Glycemic Index. University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.
  10. Murillo S et al. Culinary Strategies to Manage Glycemic Response in People With Type 2 Diabetes: A Narrative Review. Frontiers in Nutrition. November 10, 2022.
  11. Farooq MA et al. Starches in Rice: Effects of Rice Variety and Processing/Cooking Methods on Their Glycemic Index. Foods. June 7, 2025.
Meet Our Experts
See Our Editorial PolicyMeet Our Health Expert Network

Sylvia E. Klinger, DBA, MS, RD, CPT

Medical Reviewer

Sylvia Klinger, DBA, MS, RD, CPT, is an internationally recognized nutrition expert who is relentlessly passionate about helping people fall in love with creating and enjoying delicious, safe, and nutritious foods.

As a food and nutrition communications professional, Dr. Klinger is a global nutrition professor, award-winning author, and the founder of Hispanic Food Communications.

She is on the board at Global Rise to build a formal community nutrition program as part of an ambitious initiative to create a regenerative food system in Uganda in partnership with tribal and community leaders. This program included an extensive training session on food safety and sanitation that displayed cultural sensitivity and various communication strategies and incentives to spread these important food safety and sanitation messages into the communities.

Her Hispanic background fuels her passion for nutrition, leading her to empower and encourage those in her community through the foods they enjoy in their kitchens. At the same time, she understands everyone’s needs are different and seeks to individualize nutrition and exercise to best fit each person and their journey to a happy, safe, and healthy life.

Her latest book, The Little Book of Simple Eating, was published in 2018 in both Spanish and English.

In her spare time, Klinger explores food and culture all over the world with her family, realizing the power a healthy lifestyle has to keep people together.

See full bio

Jessica Bruso

Author

Based in Massachusetts, Jessica Bruso has been writing since 2008. She holds a master of science degree in food policy and applied nutrition and a bachelor of arts degree in international relations, both from Tufts University.

See full bio
See Our Editorial PolicyMeet Our Health Expert Network