Finest Rice Cookers of 2024

The rice cookers I examined fell into three unfastened classes: small, inexpensive units, 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 supplied respectable, 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, although.

The marginally bigger 6-cup Oster (our finances choose) 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 advocate both one as a stable space-saving rice cooker possibility. Whereas the Zojirushi does appear barely extra solidly constructed, it is greater than double the value of the Oster, which supplies the Oster our remaining nod.

The $50 8-cup Hamilton Seaside rice cooker looks like deal for the dimensions, however its rice was inconsistent, with severely undercooked, dry rice sections. Zojirushi’s 3-cup possibility 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 have been a few of our least favorites as a result of they have 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 sluggish and the outcomes have been persistently slightly off. An 8-cup Aroma rice cooker and meals steamer, Immediate Pot’s Zest cooker and a 5-cup Panasonic received us excited with the assorted features obtainable on their interfaces, however all three produced overcooked, barely mushy rice, probably as a result of sluggish cooking. I additionally examined Cusinart’s bigger Rice Plus Multi-Cooker and whereas it could actually maintain lots 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 various kinds of grains, one among these could also be a viable possibility since they’ve so many area of interest settings. However for rice, there are higher choices obtainable. You may also discover you get extra bang in your buck with a real multicooker that features a strain cooker operate. I would direct you to CNET’s record of greatest Immediate Pots for 2024 for a bit extra on that.

Lastly, the higher-end, specialised rice cookers from Tiger and Zojirushi have been each spectacular, as famous above. It is clear these units are rigorously calibrated; Zojirushi even presents slightly little bit of personalization as to the way you need your white rice cooked, which is right should you’ve received people with totally different rice texture preferences dwelling underneath the identical roof.

The Tiger, nonetheless, is lower than half the value 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 prime choose for customized rice, however it’s our prime general alternative for one of the best rice cooker in 2024.