The rice cookers I examined fell into three free classes: small, inexpensive gadgets, midrange multicookers and specialised, high-end rice cookers.
Each mini rice cooker I examined, together with the Imusa 3-cup, the Dash mini 2-cup rice cooker, and the Black & Decker 3-cup rice cooker provided respectable, small servings of white rice, though the Dash took a painfully lengthy 35 minutes simply to prepare dinner simply 1 cup of white. All of them struggled with brown rice and combined rice.
The barely bigger 6-cup Oster (our price range decide) and the Zojirushi rice makers carried out practically identically, making good pots of white rice in 19 and 20 minutes respectively and excellent brown rice — albeit maybe simply barely underdone — in a lightning-fast 22 minutes. I might gleefully suggest both one as a strong space-saving rice cooker possibility. While the Zojirushi does appear barely extra solidly constructed, it is greater than double the worth of the Oster, which supplies the Oster our last nod.
The easier Oster and Zojirushi rice makers carried out practically identically in our testing.
The $50 8-cup Hamilton Beach rice cooker (Currently Out of Stock) looks like deal for the dimensions, however its rice was inconsistent, with severely undercooked, dry rice sections. Zojirushi’s 3-cup possibility additionally upset with rice that was too moist and barely damaged down, shedding the excellence of well-cooked white rice.
Cuisinart’s 4-cup and Black and Decker’s 7-cup rice cookers had been a few of our least favorites as a result of they had been each so messy. Cuisinart’s boiled every time I used this standard rice cooker and Black and Decker’s bigger mannequin leaked onto the counter, necessitating vital cleanup.
When it got here to the midrange multicookers, I discovered the cooking time to be gradual and the outcomes had been persistently a bit off. An 8-cup Aroma rice cooker and meals steamer, Instant Pot’s Zest cooker and a 5-cup Panasonic received us excited with the varied features obtainable on their interfaces, however all three produced overcooked, barely mushy rice, presumably as a result of gradual cooking. I additionally examined Cusinart’s bigger Rice Plus Multi-Cooker and whereas it may possibly maintain a number of rice and produced respectable batches of white and brown, cooking rice took longer than some other machine to take action at properly over an hour and a half for brown rice.
If you end up cooking a great deal of several types of grains, one among these could also be a viable possibility since they’ve so many area of interest settings. For rice, there are higher choices obtainable. You may also discover you get extra worth with a real multicooker that features a strain cooker perform. I’d direct you to CNET’s checklist of greatest Instant Pots for 2024 for a bit extra on that.
Somehow I did not blow a fuse.
Finally, the higher-end, specialised rice cookers from Tiger and Zojirushi had been each spectacular, as famous above. It’s clear these gadgets are rigorously calibrated; Zojirushi even gives a bit little bit of personalization as to the way you need your white rice cooked, which is good if you happen to’ve received of us with totally different rice texture preferences dwelling underneath the identical roof.
The Tiger is lower than half the worth of its counterpart and cooked rice extraordinarily properly; quicker than any others. It could not have all of the bells and whistles of the Zojirushi, which nabs our high decide for customized rice, nevertheless it’s our high total alternative for 2024.
