The rice cookers I examined fell into three unfastened classes: small, reasonably priced gadgets, midrange multicookers and specialised, high-end rice cookers.
Every mini rice cooker I examined, together with the Imusa 3-cup, the Sprint mini 2-cup rice cooker, and the Black & Decker 3-cup rice cooker provided first rate, small servings of white rice, though the Sprint 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 marginally bigger 6-cup Oster (our price range decide) and the Zojirushi rice makers carried out almost identically, making excellent pots of white rice in 19 and 20 minutes respectively and superb 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 choice. Whereas the Zojirushi does appear barely extra solidly constructed, it is greater than double the worth of the Oster, which provides the Oster our last nod.
The less complicated Oster and Zojirushi rice makers carried out almost identically in our testing.
The $50 8-cup Hamilton Seaside rice cooker (At the moment Out of Inventory) looks like a great deal for the dimensions, however its rice was inconsistent, with severely undercooked, dry rice sections. Zojirushi’s 3-cup choice additionally dissatisfied 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 important cleanup.
When it got here to the midrange multicookers, I discovered the cooking time to be gradual and the outcomes had been constantly slightly off. An 8-cup Aroma rice cooker and meals steamer, Prompt Pot’s Zest cooker and a 5-cup Panasonic acquired us excited with the varied capabilities accessible on their interfaces, however all three produced overcooked, barely mushy rice, probably because of the gradual cooking. I additionally examined Cusinart’s bigger Rice Plus Multi-Cooker and whereas it will probably maintain a number of rice and produced first rate batches of white and brown, cooking rice took longer than every other machine to take action at effectively over an hour and a half for brown rice.
If you end up cooking a great deal of various kinds of grains, one among these could also be a viable choice since they’ve so many area of interest settings. For rice, there are higher choices accessible. You may also discover you get extra worth with a real multicooker that features a stress cooker operate. I might direct you to CNET’s record of finest Prompt Pots for 2024 for a bit extra on that.
Someway I did not blow a fuse.
Lastly, the higher-end, specialised rice cookers from Tiger and Zojirushi had been each spectacular, as famous above. It is clear these gadgets are fastidiously calibrated; Zojirushi even affords slightly little bit of personalization as to the way you need your white rice cooked, which is good if you happen to’ve acquired 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 effectively; quicker than any others. It might not have all of the bells and whistles of the Zojirushi, which nabs our high decide for customized rice, but it surely’s our high general selection for 2024.
