Rice cooker buying guide: models, sizing, and usage tips

Rice has been one of humanity’s main staple foods for thousands of years. This simple grain is ingrained in everyday life all over the world. You’ll see it served at dinner in China, made into a beautiful tahdig in Iran, and tossed at weddings in Tuscany. You can make your rice a hundred different ways, but the easiest is by using a rice cooker that’s dedicated to the task.

Table of Contents:

1. What is a rice cooker?
2. Types of rice cookers
3. Rice cooker features to look for
4. Rice cooker vs Instant Pot comparison
5. What size of rice cooker do you need?
6. Rice cooker materials and care
7. What can you make in a rice cooker?

What is a rice cooker?

Rice may be one of our oldest grains, but rice cookers are (a little) newer. Ceramic rice steamers were used by 1250 BC, and with the invention of electricity, automatic rice cookers gained popularity.

The first rice cooker was developed by Mitsubishi Electric in 1923, but it wasn’t until the mid-1950s that rice cookers became popular for home use. (At the time, the two big names in rice cookers were Mitsubishi and Toshiba.) These automatic, electric devices use a timer, thermostat, and heating element to steam your rice to perfection with the press of a button.

Types of rice cookers

As you may have guessed from the very first paragraph of this post, not all rice is made the same way. Different types of rice are used to create vastly different dishes, from crisp-bottomed pilaf to soupy congee. As a result, different dishes and rice types will require different temperatures and timing for cooking.

The two main categories of rice cookers are simple. First, you have single-function rice cookers. These have just two settings (“cook” and “keep warm”) and are controlled by a single switch. They are typically very affordable, sitting in the $30-100 price range. Then, you have multi-function rice cookers. These have different settings and timing lengths. Multi-function rice cookers often have buttons labelled by grain type instead of dish type: For instance, “white rice” or “whole grain.” This type of rice cooker is more expensive, and you can expect to pay a few hundred dollars for one with many features.

Multi-function rice cookers often have functions to make things like baby food, rice porridge (congee), larger grains, and brown rice. They typically have a setting to help you steam food (on a bed of rice or on its own), and may have cleaning functions for helping you dislodge dried rice from a previous cycle.

Rice cooker features

The different functions of a rice cooker are heavily dependent on the particular model. One great thing that’s universal about these small appliances, however, is that you don’t need a lot of functions to make delicious rice. The functions are helpful—but rice is an easy grain to cook. If you know you only want to make a small amount of plain white rice every day, there’s nothing wrong with buying a simple, single-setting cooker to get the job done. These cookers will have a single, latching switch to toggle the appliance from “warm” to “cook” and will switch back to “warm” when your rice is ready.

If you want more out of your rice cooker, however, then there are other options for you. Higher-end rice cookers use more precise heating elements, thermostats, and moisture monitors, so it actually does become easier to make great rice in a more expensive rice cooker. (Thanks to the extra precision, they’re typically more forgiving if you get your water ratio or temperature setting wrong.) Higher-end cookers similarly offer features for a wider range of rices and grains. They may also be equipped to help you make specific rice dishes such as sticky rice, sushi rice, and rice porridge.

Zojirushi: The big name in rice cookers

Many chefs agree that the biggest exception to the “simple is just as good” guideline is the Zojirushi rice cooker, which Best Buy carries a very wide selection of. Any rice cooker will get the job done… But these are the cream of the crop. They’re often seen as the best line on the market for texture, flavour, and all-day warming.

Restaurants and people who consume a lot of rice typically love Zojirushi rice cookers. These unassuming appliances use fuzzy logic technology to ensure that your rice comes out perfectly cooked every time—never too soggy or too dry. Depending on the model, Zojirushi cookers also use technologies such as induction heating and triple-element design to create the optimal pot of rice.

For many families and businesses, however, what makes these rice cookers special is their “keep warm” function. Zojirushi is known for designing rice cookers that can keep your rice warm all day without overcooking it, so the pot of rice that you made for breakfast at 7 am still tastes fresh and delicious at your 7 pm dinner.

Rice cooker vs Instant Pot comparison

Are there other products like a rice cooker that deserve some special attention? Absolutely—and one very popular one is the Instant Pot. These multi-function (or, perhaps, multi-multi-multi-function) products are overwhelmingly popular, especially in Canada and the United States.

Instant Pot rice cookers operate very similarly to multi-function rice cookers. They’re a multi-use product with long warming timeframes (up to 10 hours), which is ideal for rice. Not every Instant Pot multi-cooker is sold as a rice cooker, but all of their multi-cookers feature a setting for rice. They can, and often are, used as rice cookers in Canadian home kitchens.

What size of rice cooker do you need?

Rice cookers tend to come in 3 cup, 5.5 cup, and 10 cup sizes. 5.5 cup rice cookers are fairly standard, and are suitable for a single person, a couple, or a family. In a 5.5 cup rice cooker, you can cook rice for a small family and still have room on top to steam food. For many 4-5 person families, 4 cups of rice is enough for dinner with leftovers the next day.

3 cup rice cookers are best for small households (1-3 people). They’re sometimes sold as mini rice cookers. They’re great for small spaces like apartments and, if allowed, dorm rooms.

10 cup rice cookers are quite large. They can make enough rice to serve at a family reunion of 10 people, or more if your rice dish is a side and not a primary part of the meal. This is the most common “large” size of rice cooker, but larger models are also sold.

The size of your rice cooker is an upper limit of how much rice you can cook at one time. You can make smaller servings in any rice cooker. A good rule of thumb is that you can make any amount of rice that’s marked on your rice cooker pot: So, if your rice cooker has measuring lines from 1 to 10 cups, you can make 1-10 cups of rice in it. If your rice cooker has measuring lines from 2-5 cups, you can make 2-5 cups in it, and so forth.

Rice cooker materials and care

The interior pot of a rice cooker is typically made from aluminum (with a nonstick interior finish) or stainless steel. Both pot materials are lightweight and dishwasher-safe. With proper use, both materials should also be non-stick.

When purchasing a rice cooker, make sure you also consider cleanup. The interior pot of a rice cooker is easy to wash in the sink or dishwasher, but the rice cooker itself may be more difficult to clean up in case of a spill. Some models of rice cookers rest the pot fully inside of the rice cooker, while others feature a design where the lip of the inner pot wraps around the upper rim of the rice cooker.

Typically, rice cooker messes can be cleaned up with a warm, damp cloth and should be cleaned up after every use. These small kitchen appliances are easy to wash and maintain.

What can you make in a rice cooker?

Rice cookers are a truly awesome small appliance. They’re handy for making plain, white rice, but they’re great for doing so much more.

A few other dishes that you can easily make in a rice cooker include:

• Steamed vegetables
• Oatmeal
• Rice porridge
• Other grains like quinoa, bulgur, and barley
• Rice pudding
• Curries and soups
• Beans
• Cakes and pancakes

In East Asian homes, it’s common to use your rice cooker to make one-pot meals. Items like bok choy, pork sausage, and salted fish are placed on top of the rice toward the end of the cooking cycle to warm and cook them. It makes the rice fragrant and delicious—and cuts down on cleaning time, too.

What else can you use to make rice?

Using a rice cooker is the best and easiest way to make rice. However, it’s not the only way. You can also use pressure cookers and multi-cookers to make rice, though you may need to time the rice on your own (especially when using a stove top pressure cooker). You can also make rice in a non-stick or stainless steel pot on the stove.

While great in a pinch, these other methods of making rice are often considered to be more finicky than using a rice cooker. Many home chefs notice a difference in the quality of their rice when using a rice cooker versus a pot, pressure cooker, or multi-cooker. The thermostat, moisture meter, and timer that are built into a rice cooker help improve the overall texture and fragrance of your rice, cooking it to perfection every time.

Take the next step

Rice is a staple food for more than half the world’s population. It’s a great way to tie a meal together and make sure everyone leaves the table feeling full. With the right rice cooker, it’s easy to make a delicious side of rice for any occasion.

Explore rice cookers at Best Buy Online today.

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