We independently evaluate all recommended products and services. If you click on links we provide, we may receive compensation. Learn more. Show Photo: Amazon The perfect bowl of rice can be surprisingly hard to achieve. You can easily burn grains on your stove, overcook them into mush, or undercook a pot of crunchy, inedible rice. Thankfully, Amazon shoppers have found just the thing that "delivers fluffy, perfect rice every time." That's the NHS lineup of rice cookers by Zojirushi, the editor-loved brand that makes some of the best rice cookers and you can buy on the market. These particular models are no-fuss and easy to use, quickly whipping up bowls of rice by a simple press of the button. The line comes in three sizes, including a mini 3-cup option that won't take up room on space-limited countertops — and it's even on sale for $48 at Amazon. Amazon Buy It! Zojirushi NHS-06 3-Cup Rice Cooker, $47.99 (orig. $53.99); amazon.com All you need is a 1-to-1 ratio of rice and water to make the perfect bowls of rice that reviewers say this cooker is capable of. This rice cooker even comes with a 6-ounce measuring cup that makes enough rice for about two people in each scoop. Its see-through glass lid also makes it easier to track the cooker's progress, and it will automatically stop cooking once your rice is ready. You can use the included spatula to transfer the rice into bowls, and the inner cooking pan is non-stick so you won't have a hard time cleaning up. The popular gadget has more than 5,600 five-star ratings from Amazon reviewers. One described it as "a rice cooker you can't pass up," adding, "This rice cooker is everything I wanted! I bought this rice cooker for a few reasons. Firstly, I wanted a brand I knew I could trust to deliver good rice and Zojirushi is the best brand of rice cookers. Secondly, I wanted something cheap. That's why I was happy to find this model which is about $45 to $65 depending on the size you go with. Lastly, I wanted a rice cooker that was small and the 3-cup size is perfect for me. And boy do I love the simplicity of flipping a switch and letting the rice cook all on its own!" It's "so easy to make great rice" with Zojirushi's mini cooker, said another shopper. "We do have a 6-cup cooker, but this little one is perfect for four to six people and cooks the rice perfectly. I should have bought this years ago. A great appliance, and it doesn't take up much room on the counter. Works great, easy to use and so easy to clean up. The best cooker around!" If you want even more functions, the 6- and 10-cup models include keep-warm capabilities and a steamer basket. They're both on sale, meaning you can grab these larger but "simple and effective" cookers starting at just $57. Shop all three of Zojirushi's NHS rice cookers at Amazon now. Amazon Buy It! Zojirushi NHS-10 6-Cup Rice Cooker, $56.99 (orig. $67); amazon.com Amazon Buy It! Zojirushi NHS-18 10-Cup Rice Cooker, $64.99 (orig. $77); amazon.com Do you love a good deal? Sign up for PEOPLE's Shopping newsletter to stay up-to-date on the latest sales, plus celebrity fashion, home décor and more. Cooking rice perfectly on a stovetop is dependent on so many factors: the burner’s level, the pot’s insulation, the lid’s seal, and even the kitchen’s humidity. Rice cookers shrug off all those variables because they’re a sealed vessel with a precisely controlled heat source. The best ones make consistently perfect rice every time with the press of a button. More on Countertop Appliances Like many countertop appliances, rice cookers have gotten more advanced over the years. In the 1950s, these machines had a single on-off switch. Today, we’re seeing models with specialty settings and high-tech features, such as microprocessors and induction heating, with correspondingly high-tech prices. Whether the dish in regular rotation on your household menu is fried rice or arroz con pollo—or you just love steamed rice—read on to find out how models from Aroma, Instant, and Zojirushi fared in our lab tests. We tested six models from five popular brands: Aroma, Black+Decker, Hamilton Beach, Instant, and Zojirushi. All models are in the 3- to 4-cup-capacity range because our research indicated that this was the most popular size. Prices average around $35, but we also brought in a $270 Zojirushi model—which announces that your rice is ready by playing “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star,” among other (less whimsical) features—to see how it stacks up. Consumer Reports’ testers rinsed and cooked small and large batches of long-grain white rice as well as batches of long-grain brown rice following the rice cooker manufacturers’ directions. We used the rice measuring cup that comes with each cooker and adhered to the fill lines on the pots to measure the amount of water to use. (All the cookers also come with a fluffing paddle.) A panel of several trained tasters and a few lucky CR staffers sampled each batch of rice in a blind side-by-side taste test. The ideal batch of rice was cooked evenly top to bottom—no mushy or crunchy pockets—with soft, fluffy grains. Tasters also compared how rice tasted when cooked in a rice cooker vs. a multi-cooker. Larry Ciufo, CR’s lead tester for rice cookers, says all the machines easily made white rice that earned top-notch or near the top ratings. “But we saw a lot more variation in taste, texture, and cooking time with brown rice,” he says. Testers also factored convenience and the control settings into the Overall Score, assessing how easy the machine is to clean, the clarity of the controls, how audible the alerts are, whether it automatically switches off, and how clear the water line markings are on the pot. “None of these machines were an all-out fail,” Ciufo says. “Even the ones that ended up at the bottom of the ratings still make rice better than a multi-cooker.” Because most of the rice cookers perform well overall in our tests, we break down four of the top models below by their various attributes. For more details and our complete test results, see our full rice cooker ratings. Despite the name, the Zest is actually a 4-cup rice cooker. (The “8-cup” refers to cooked rice; most rice cookers go by dry measurements.) Like most of the rice cookers in our ratings, this one earns a very good rating for cooking rice, but it’s on the slow side, turning out white rice in a little over 30 minutes and brown rice in about an hour. One taster said the brown rice made in the Zest had a good texture and a nice bite. Many tasters found that while the white rice was cooked through, it often came out too sticky. The Zest has a steam setting (and steamer insert), plus programs for making quinoa and oatmeal. In addition to the keep-warm setting, it has a handy delayed-start function for planning ahead or soaking grains, and cooking status indicators to let you know how much time is left before you can chow down. This pricey 3-cup rice cooker consistently makes beautiful rice, earning a strong rating for cooking rice, but takes its sweet time—almost 45 minutes to cook white rice and a whopping 90 minutes to cook brown rice. Still, it’s the all-around best-performing and most foolproof rice cooker we tested. It’s also the only rice cooker in our ratings that uses induction technology, which generates a magnetic field that turns the pot itself into the heating element. Heat is distributed throughout the pot instead of radiating from the bottom like traditional rice cookers. We also like that it’s intuitive to use. It has set programs for cooking white, two types of brown, rinse-free, and sushi rice. Plus, there are additional programs for mixed grains, rice porridge, quick-cooking, and delayed start. It’s the rice cooker to have if you love cooking all kinds of rice. The pot and removable inner lid are also easy to clean, and the white markings on the dark pot are the easiest to see of the bunch. It’s also worth noting that this is the only model among the ones we tested that has buttons for users with visual impairments. The start button has a raised dot, and the cancel/reset button has a raised dash. Its audio alerts are also quite loud (the default is the song “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star”), so you know exactly which appliance is beckoning you into the kitchen. The Aroma performs quite well in our tests, earning very good scores across the board, but some batches of brown rice came out slightly undercooked and some batches of white rice came out slightly mushy. It’s not a fast cooker, either—white rice takes about 45 minutes, and brown rice cooks in about 55 minutes. If you make seasoned rice, you might find this model worth seeking out for its sauté mode. It’s the only cooker we tested with this function, which can be used to soften onions, garlic, or other aromatics, and toast spices before adding rice and water to the pot. In addition to the white and brown rice settings that we tested, it has programs for quinoa, oatmeal, quick rice, steaming, and slow cooking. It also has delayed-start and keep-warm functions. It comes with a steamer tray and a five-year warranty, which goes far beyond the usual one-year warranty for rice cookers. For a basic, one-button machine, this compact model produced perfectly tender, chewy rice. In fact, it’s the best of the bunch—earning a stellar score in that test—and the fastest. It took half the time to cook rice compared with most of the other models we tested. Points were docked for convenience, though, because it lacks programs, a keep-warm mode, and audio cues when the rice is done (it automatically turns off). But if you’re looking for the simplest rice cooker without any microcomputer, touchscreen, or alerts, this is a good choice that takes up little space. It’s the kind of starter rice cooker that seems made for college students.
Perry Santanachote Perry Santanachote is a multimedia content creator at Consumer Reports. She has been with CR since 2019, covering nothing in particular. Not having a beat allows her to work on whatever’s trending—from parasite cleanses to pickleball paddles. Perry is a main producer of Outside the Labs content at CR, where she evaluates products in her tiny Manhattan apartment. Which brand is best for rice cooker?6 Best Rice Cookers of 2024, Tested and Reviewed. Best Overall: Zojirushi Neuro Fuzzy 5.5 Cup Premium Rice Cooker.. Best for Beginners: Zojirushi 3-Cup Rice Cooker.. Best for Small Spaces: Dash Mini Rice Cooker.. Best Budget: Aroma Rice Cooker.. Best for Brown Rice: Tiger Micom 5.5-Cup Rice Cooker.. What is the best affordable rice cooker brand?The best budget rice cooker: Tiger Micom Rice Cooker JBV-A10U. At only $99 dollars, this is one of the cheapest Micom rice cookers on the market. Testers gave the machine high marks for well-steamed, intact grains of white and brown rice. Why is Zojirushi so expensive?Induction technology allows the rice cooker to fine-tune the temperature and instantly adjust heat levels in case of human measuring error (too much or too little water), and it's why this rice cooker costs so much more than conventional models. Do low carb rice cookers really work?According to product tests conducted in response to the request from local consumer affairs centers, the carbohydrate content of rice cooked with the low-carb rice mode was smaller than that of rice cooked with the normal rice mode, but the actual carb reduction rate was far less than the claimed rate. |
