Is rice one of your staple food or do you often crave for rice dishes? Even if you can cook perfect rice on the stove, it is a lot more convenient to cook rice in a rice cooker. Nowadays rice cooker technology is so advanced that you can have any kind of rice – brown, long grain, short grain, basmati, jasmine or plain old white rice – perfectly cooked every single time with the best rice cooker.
Hi, this is John here, welcome to my Best Rice Cooker & Rice Cooker Reviews blog. I have been eating rice every day since I got my first rice cooker in college, and it is so time-saving for me so I want to share my reviews of rice cookers with you all so that you can find your pick. I also included a guide on how to choose a rice cooker for those who are buying a rice cooker for the first time.
How To Choose A Rice Cooker
You need to ascertain 2 things when choosing a rice cooker :
- Size
- Type of Rice Cooker
Size
Always buy a rice cooker that fits your household size unless you have a known number of regular guests who will eat with you. This is because a rice cooker works best if you fill the pot halfway. If it’s too small you will get messy boiling starch around the rim and even boil-overs for some types of rice cookers. If it’s too big unless it’s a nonstick fuzzy logic rice cooker you will get all your rice stuck to the bottom of the pan.
Check out my size guide below. Rice cookers are available in many sizes in between 3 to 10 cups, and are usually labeled according to uncooked cups of rice. If a rice cooker is sized by cooked rice, remember that rice expands to double the size when it is cooked, so a 5-cup (uncooked) rice cooker is twice the size of a 5-cup (cooked) rice cooker.
One person eats about 1/2 to 1 cup of uncooked rice (1 to 2 cups of cooked rice) per meal, so if you are cooking rice for one meal and:
- 1 – 2 persons, you need a 3-cup rice cooker
- 3 – 4 persons, you need a 4-cup to 6-cup rice cooker
- 5 – 6 persons, you need a 7-cup to 8-cup rice cooker
- 7 – 8 persons, you need a 10-cup rice cooker
- more than 8 persons, you need a 16-cup rice cooker
- Best rice cooker recommendation base on cup size.
- Small Rice Cooker – See all the best small rice cookers here.
Type Of Rice Cooker
There are two main types of rice cooker – on/off rice cooker and fuzzy logic rice cooker.
- On/Off Rice Cooker
This is the simplest rice cooker with only one button or switch. Just press down the switch to start cooking and it will turn to keep warm mode when the rice is cooked. This is the least expensive type of rice cooker that can be found, sometimes as low as $20. It doesn’t have advanced technology so you will need to measure rice and water correctly to cook good and tasty rice. This type of rice cooker can be used to steam food with an included steamer but doesn’t have other functions. Pick this type if you will mainly use the rice cooker to cook white or brown rice, and steam food like veggies and fish. - Fuzzy Logic Rice Cooker
A fuzzy logic rice cooker is one that always cook fluffy and soft rice even if you haven’t got the measurements exactly right. This is also the rice cooker for you if you want extra functions like steaming and cooking soup, porridge, brown or mixed rice. The even more advanced type of fuzzy logic rice cooker may have a timer, induction heating, rice texture setting and cake making. Pick this type if you want to use the rice cooker for cooking many types of rice and need more cooking functions, or if you need a timer to preset your cooking time.
