If you shop via retailer links on our site, we might earn affiliate commissions. 100% of the fees we accumulate are used to support our nonprofit mission. Be taught more.
Stovetop rice appears easy sufficient-you measure out the rice and water and set it on the burner. But there are a lot of variables that can lead to mushy or burnt rice, including the burner’s level, the pot’s insulation, the lid’s seal, and even the kitchen’s humidity.
Rice cookers shrug off all these variables as a result of they’re a sealed vessel with a exactly controlled heat source. The most effective ones make consistently excellent rice every time with the press of a button.
Like many countertop appliances, rice cookers have gotten extra superior over the years. In the 1950s, these machines had a single on-off swap.
At the moment, we’re seeing fashions with specialty settings and excessive-tech options, resembling microprocessors and induction heating, with correspondingly high-tech costs. Do these bells and whistles make superior rice?
Whether the dish in common rotation on your household menu is fried rice or arroz con pollo-otherwise you just love steamed rice-learn on to find out how fashions from Aroma, Prompt, and Zojirushi fared in our lab assessments.
How We Take a look at Rice Cookers
We selected six fashions from five well-liked manufacturers: Aroma, Black+Decker, Hamilton Beach, Instant, and Zojirushi. All fashions are in the 3- to 4-cup-capacity range as a result of our research indicated that this was the preferred measurement. Prices common round $35, however we also brought in a $270 Zojirushi mannequin-which publicizes that your rice is ready by playing “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star,” among different (much less whimsical) features-to see how it stacks up.
Client Reviews testers rinsed and cooked small and enormous batches of lengthy-grain white rice as well as batches of lengthy-grain brown rice following the rice cooker manufacturers’ directions. (We always comply with manufacturers’ instructions for the appliances we check. Plus, in this case, not all rice packages embrace instructions for learn how to cook the rice utilizing a rice cooker.) We used the rice measuring cup that comes with every cooker and adhered to the fill strains on the pots to measure the quantity of water to make use of. (All the cookers also come with a fluffing paddle.)
A panel of several trained tasters and some fortunate CR staffers sampled each batch of rice in a blind aspect-by-aspect taste take a look at. Tasters also compared how rice tasted when cooked in a rice cooker vs. The best batch of rice was cooked evenly prime to bottom-no mushy or crunchy pockets-with mushy, fluffy grains. a multi-cooker.
Larry Ciufo, CR’s lead tester for rice cookers, says all of the machines simply made white rice that earned either Superb or Wonderful ratings. “But we saw a lot more variation in style, texture, and cooking time with brown rice,” he says.
Testers also factored comfort and the management settings into the general Rating, assessing how easy the machine is to clean, the readability of the controls, how audible the alerts are, whether or not it automatically switches off, and how clear the water line markings are on the pot.
“None of these machines have been an all-out fail,” Ciufo says. “Even the ones that ended up at the bottom of the ratings nonetheless make rice higher than a multi-cooker.”
As a result of a lot of the rice cookers carry out properly general in our tests, we break down four of the top fashions under by their varied attributes. For extra particulars and our full test results, see our full rice cooker ratings.
Photograph: Client Experiences Photograph: Consumer Reviews
Finest Budget Rice Cooker
Despite the name, the Zest is actually a 4-cup rice cooker. (The “8-cup” refers to cooked rice; most rice cookers go by dry measurements.) Like a lot of the rice cookers in our scores, this one earns a very good score for cooking rice, but it’s on the sluggish side, turning out white rice in somewhat over half-hour and brown rice in about an hour.
One taster stated the brown rice made within the Zest had a great texture and a nice bite. Many tasters discovered that whereas the white rice was cooked by, it often came out too sticky.
The Zest has a steam setting (and steamer insert), plus packages for making quinoa and oatmeal. In addition to the keep-heat setting, it has a helpful delayed-start perform for planning ahead or soaking grains, and cooking standing indicators to let you know the way much time is left before you may chow down.
Finest Rice Cooker for Rice Aficionados
This dear 3-cup rice cooker consistently makes stunning rice, incomes an excellent rating for cooking rice, however takes its candy time-virtually 45 minutes to cook white rice and a whopping ninety minutes to cook brown rice. Nonetheless, it’s the all-around greatest-performing and most foolproof rice cooker we tested. Heat is distributed throughout the pot as a substitute of radiating from the bottom like traditional rice cookers. It’s also the only rice cooker in our ratings that makes use of induction expertise, which generates a magnetic discipline that turns the pot itself into the heating element.
We also like that it’s intuitive to use. Plus, there are additional applications for combined grains, rice porridge, quick-cooking, and delayed start. It has set packages for cooking white, two kinds of brown, rinse-free, and sushi rice. It’s the rice cooker to have should you love cooking all sorts of rice.
The pot and removable inner lid are additionally straightforward to clean, and the white markings on the dark pot are the best to see of the bunch.
It’s additionally worth noting that this is the only mannequin among those we examined that has buttons for users with visible impairments. The beginning button has a raised dot, and the cancel/reset button has a raised dash. Its audio alerts are also quite loud (the default is the music “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star”), so you understand precisely which equipment is beckoning you into the kitchen.
Finest Rice Cooker for Seasoned Rice
The Aroma performs quite well in our assessments, earning Superb scores across the board, but some batches of brown rice came out barely undercooked and some batches of white rice came out barely mushy. It’s not a fast cooker, either-white rice takes about forty five minutes, and brown rice cooks in about 55 minutes.
When you make seasoned rice, you might discover this mannequin value seeking out for its sauté mode. It’s the one cooker we tested with this perform, which can be utilized to soften onions, garlic, or different aromatics, and toast spices earlier than including rice and water to the pot.
In addition to the white and brown rice settings that we examined, it has packages for quinoa, oatmeal, fast rice, steaming, and slow cooking. It comes with a steamer tray and a five-year warranty, which matches far past the standard one-year warranty for rice cookers. It additionally has delayed-start and keep-heat features.
Finest Traditional Rice Cooker
For a basic, one-button machine, this compact mannequin produced completely tender, chewy rice. It’s the sort of starter rice cooker that appears made for college students. It took half the time to cook rice compared with most of the other fashions we examined. Actually, it’s the better of the bunch-earning an excellent rating in that check-and the fastest. But when you’re in search of the only rice cooker with none microcomputer, contact screen, or alerts, this is a good selection that takes up little house. Points had been docked for convenience, although, because it lacks applications, a keep-warm mode, and audio cues when the rice is completed (it mechanically turns off).
Perry Santanachote
I cover the intersection of individuals, products, and sustainability, and try to offer humorous however useful advice for everyday dwelling. I love to dive deep into how issues work, and debunking myths is likely to be my favourite pastime. However what I intention to be above all else is a guiding voice while you’re procuring, telling you what is a worth, what’s a rip-off, and what’s just right for you and your family.
