A rapid predictive method based on near-infrared reflectance spectroscopy (NIRS) of paddy rice was developed to measure the pasting properties of rice. The paddy rice samples were scanned by a near-infrared reflectance spectrometer in the wavelength region of 1400–2400 nm and preprocessed by mathematical pretreatments prior to pasting properties analysis using a rapid visco-analyzer (RVA). The results indicated that the developed models of setback (SB), peak viscosity (PV), breakdown (BD) and consistency (CS) provided good prediction results with relatively high correlation coefficients (0.81–0.96). In addition, the validity of the calibration models was statistically tested. Standard error of prediction (SEPT and bias were small enough without any significance at 95% confidence interval. Nonetheless, this study proved that the use of NIRS for predicting pasting properties was feasible in paddy rice and could be applied in commercial trade and research.