Cooking rice shouldn’t be all that hard, right? People have been eating rice for thousands of years, after all. Yet I can’t even begin to count the number of times that my rice cooked on the stovetop has come out less than great (well, sometimes inedible). Too dry and crunchy, too wet and soupy, not cooked, burnt onto the pan…I’m a good cook, but stuff happens. I don’t have a big kitchen or a lot of counter space, so I’m always wary about adding another appliance to the collection. But I can’t fathom going back to the days before I got a rice cooker.
The best rice cooker is the one that has all the features you need for the way you cook. For a busy family of four, a 5 cup rice cooker with fuzzy logic is a great choice. These cookers have internal sensors and measure multiple variables (weight, temperature, humidity) to make judgments and adjustments throughout the cooking process. My cooker has a countdown timer that starts when the rice has 13 minutes left to cook–most days I set the rice up in the morning to be ready at dinnertime, but on days where I don’t, and I’m making something with timing issues (say, a stir-fry), the countdown timer is a good signal to start hustling!
The Zojirushi neuro fuzzy rice cooker is a very popular choice, but there are other brands of rice cookers available that also have fuzzy logic and programmable cooking cycles, such as Sanyo and Tiger. For a family of two, a 3 cup rice cooker may be a better choice. For a larger family, an 8 or 10 cup rice cooker will do nicely. Of course, it all depends on how much rice you eat!
Some rice cookers include steamer baskets, which add versatility. Most fuzzy logic rice cookers include a brown rice cycle and even a porridge cycle, which can extend the usefulness of this appliance into all meals of the day. If you think that you’ll use a sweet rice cycle for sticky rice, be sure that the cooker you’re considering has this cycle, and that its capacity for sweet rice is large enough for you. My 5 cup cooker will only do 3 cups of sweet rice, for example. It’s worth noting that a rice cooker cup is usually 6 fluid ounces in capacity, unlike a regular measuring cup, which is 8 ounces.
A neuro fuzzy cooker is the best rice cooker for preparing other grains to perfection. I don’t own an induction rice cooker, but I have read that they are great for plain rice, not so much for other grains…so I’d strongly recommend the micom/neuro fuzzy for maximum versatility. Whole grains that have been cooked properly are much tastier and more appealing. Rice cooker rice is foolproof and consistently great to eat.
The best cooker is probably not going to be the cheapest rice cooker, but it will be a worthwhile investment for your kitchen if you eat rice even once a week. Perfect rice with very little work means more time is available for preparing the rest of dinner, or tending to other immediate issues, and you’ll never burn your rice because you forgot to turn down the heat! I’ve mentioned a few brands here; there are others available on the market, at a lower price, but I don’t know if their performance makes them a worthwhile purchase or not. Zojirushi rice cookers are considered the best rice cookers by many people, but if you are lucky enough to have a local Asian grocer, you may want to look at the selection of rice cookers they’ve got for sale, and ask for some further advice.
