With so many options on the market, which one is best? We cooked 50 batches of rice to find out. Equipment expert Adam Ried shares with host Julia Collin Davison his top picks for rice cookers.
Buy the winning Zojirushi 5.5 Cup Rice Cooker:
Buy the Toshiba 6 Cup Rice Cooker:
Zojirushi 3-Cup Rice Cooker:
Read our rice cooker review:
ABOUT US: Located in Boston’s Seaport District in the historic Innovation and Design Building, America’s Test Kitchen features 15,000 square feet of kitchen space including multiple photography and video studios. It is the home of Cook’s Illustrated magazine and Cook’s Country magazine and is the workday destination for more than 60 test cooks, editors, and cookware specialists. Our mission is to test recipes over and over again until we understand how and why they work and until we arrive at the best version.
If you like us, follow us:
Related posts
34 Comments
Leave a Reply Cancel reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.
https://youtu.be/BmHPa2oZlRU
Did you say 65 minute cooking time? Nah, this is the wrong video for me lol. I searched for "Fastest rice cooker" not "Rice cooker that is so slow you physically age."
Notice the a Cuisinart cooker wasn't on the table, that is because it is probably in the garbage.
65m to cook rice? Holy crap!! I can make it on the stove top in less than 15.
The best rice cooker I've used is a Zojirushi IH (induction heating) model which is about $300 range. Its even better than the Zojirushi or Cuckoo models that have the pressure feature and can cost over 2x more. These are just very basic or entry models shown… and good for beginners.
When I moved out my Korean grandmother gifted me a Zojirushi rice cooker and a Philips air fryer. The perfect combo and still in tip top shape 6 years later.
This machine is now $222.00. Whoa.
Note to myself:
The Zojirushi Neuro Fuzzy Rice Cooker, is Made in Japan
Must look the nonstick inner pan is made of which material. PFOA?
I have the red one. It is impeccable. I use it nearly daily, and I love it. Sure, the lines a little hard to see, but that's what good lighting is for.
Hands down best, if pricey rice maker is Le Creuset's analog rice cooker. An high-sided enameled cast iron pot with an internal and external lid. Equal parts rice and water, a dash of salt and bring to a boil, put both covers on and reduce heat to a slow simmer for 10-12 minutes then shut off the heat and don't lift the lids for another 1-12 minutes and voilà, perfectly cooked rice, no microchips needed.
I struggle with eating enough so I’m thinking about buying a rice cooker to help with that.
Damn harvey weinstein is doing rice cooker reviews now. Rip
Why did you not talk about the inner pan the rice is cooked in??
The price is now over $200. !!
Bought my cheap Aroma cooler 13 years ago and still going strong. However, I'm interested in that zorjiroshi
In general, Zojirushi makes great appliances. Well worth the extra money
halo
Zojirushi are great rice cookers but cuckoo is amazing for Korean rice. I used to have one and somehow it always made rice stickier and amazing compared to other rice cookers. And I currently have a zojirushi rice cooker. I’m also surprised they didn’t test any more expensive models.
Pay a little bit more?
A little bit?
Oh, and the actual price is over $210.
Nope.
Cuckoo is almost exactly the same as Zojirushi. I don't know how the testers evaluate products, but they must have been doing something wrong if the Zojirushi was substantially better.
In different cultures there are in*grain*ed preferences
I needed a new rice cooker right when you posted this, bought the 3 cup capacity Zojirushi. It works great, and I'm very happy with the first batch. I'll be making those super fluffy pancakes in it next.
What, no best buy?
I bought the zojirushi used on craigslist for $80, and it has made me perfect rice over and over again despite never having glanced at the manual. A gift from the japanese electronic appliance heavens.
Zojirushi is the Bentley of rice cookers!!! Cuckoo is another amazing great rice cooker.
I really should just finally get one of these machines.
I get great rice out of my instant pot. I would have liked to see those included in the testing.
I still have the Zojirushi I bought in 2001. It's been making 4-5 batches of rice a week for more than 20 years and still works great.
Amazon prices can change within seconds. I was searching for an item, looked at several items, decided I was going to buy one and the price had gone up in the few minutes I was looking at the other models. Another time I was shopping for a gas burner, Amazon wanted $89.00 for it, the exact same burner was $22.00 from ebay. Delivery time was about the same. The burner is made in the UK. It pays to shop around. Today I noticed a lot of products have high shipping costs.
I have a different model Zojirushi rice cooker that’s well over 50 years old. We use it all the time and it still makes perfect rice.
Out of curiosity, where does it retail for $164? Their link to Amazon has it listed at $212 right now. Not sure when the review was from, but it was only posted a day ago.
My rice cooking appliance preference is the Instant Pot pressure cooker for medium grain Calrose and Jasmine rice for steam cooking. However, when making steamed basmati, Mexican, and Cuban style rice, the stove top works best for me.
where are you seeing this selling for $164??
I have the cheapest, smallest, simplest zojirushi. It doesn't have all the fancy features but the build quality is noticeably higher than the several others I've owned of the same type. The high end models must be nice but the basic one is all I need