After boiling for 2 min (Fig. 4A), the water content of cooked rice noodle with 0 g NaCl/100 g flour was the highest at the surface and slightly lower at the center of the rice noodle. It should be noticed that the difference in the water content between the surface and the center of the cooked rice noodle was relatively lower than that of the 2-min-cooked spaghetti reported by Horigane et al. (2006). This implied that water diffuses to the center of the rice noodle faster than in spaghetti. This may be because rice noodle is very thin (1 mm) and it has been previously fully gelatinized during the steaming process. At 4 min of boiling (optimum cooking time), the water content at each point increased due to the migration of water. However, compared to the water content profile at 2 min, the shape of the water content profile was unchanged. The shape of the water content profile of rice noodle at the optimum cooking time still had a small water content difference between the surface and the center. The large water content difference between the surface and the center of pasta was reported to give a firm texture while a small difference was reported to give a soft texture (Gonzalez et al., 2000 and Irie et al., 2004). Therefore, regarding the water content profile of rice noodle at the optimum cooking time, its texture should be soft which is the preferable texture of rice noodle. The water content of rice noodle increased at every point with increased boiling time and ceased at a maximum after 10 min, reflecting the unchanged profile between 10 and 12 min.