We prefer the Neuro Fuzzy’s pot because it has handles, making it easier to lift while hot. Our timers regularly recorded shorter cook times than what the display indicated, usually by a few minutes. Before becoming a wine and spirits professional, she studied philosophy, apprenticed as a pastry chef in France, and interned at Ceremony Coffee Roasters. However, if you buy something through our affiliate links, we may earn a commission. For the 2020 update, we again tested our three picks against seven new cookers. Photo: Michael Hession1 of 3, We love these handles, which make transporting the Zojirushi Neuro Fuzzy’s hot inner pot from cooker to table easier. "Phenomenal," "awesome," "worth every penny," and "the best," are just some of the words reviewers have used to describe Zojirushi's Neuro Fuzzy rice cookers. But if you want to make one-pot stews or leave your food to cook while you’re at work, you may be better off with another kind of multicooker. The range in cooking times varied greatly among the machines. All products featured on Epicurious are independently selected by our editors. Setting your rice cooker up to cook a big batch of grains on Sunday night can make for a week of meals: filling lunch salads, quick fried-rice dinners, extra-nourishing soups and curries, crispy rice fritters, and even a rice pudding to top it all off. “And the rice needs to hold together.”. Plastic handles attached to the Neuro Fuzzy’s inner pot—a feature that many rice cookers lack—make it easy to transport a still-hot pot of rice to the dining table or to dump the contents into a pan for stir-frying. There are several rice cookers on the market, and it can be rather difficult choosing the right one. The result is perfectly cooked rice all the way through. Short-grain brown rice cooked up in pliant, distinct kernels and long-grain basmati rice was lusciously fluffy. Multifunctional Usage. Rao loves the flexibility of this control, as she can add a few spoonfuls of water if the grains seem dry or she can allow water to evaporate if the grains look wet. We looked for evenly cooked, flavorful, perfectly textured, fluffy rice. Photo: Michael HessionWe love these handles, which make transporting the Zojirushi Neuro Fuzzy’s hot inner pot from cooker to table easier. We’ve been testing electric pressure cookers since 2016 and think the classic Instant Pot Duo 6-Quart remains the best for the price. The even cooking technology works best when the rice and water levels are at half of the cooker. Wirecutter is reader-supported. All rights reserved. (And as its name suggests, the Breville Risotto Plus makes stir-free risotto and is suitable for slow-cooking.) In addition, it sports modes for delayed cooking and brown rice—though our brown rice came out a little underdone. But the result was gummy, difficult to fluff even with the rice paddle, and stuck to the stainless-steel pot (the only pot insert that the rice clung to since it was the only model that didn’t have a nonstick pot). Go … This rice cooker made the best-tasting rice, no matter what type we cooked. The Neuro Fuzzy’s rice was also very good, but it didn’t match the sweetness and texture of the rice made in the Zojirushi Induction Rice Cooker. Photo: Michael HessionUnlike the Cuckoo or Hamilton Beach, the Zojirushi Neuro Fuzzy has a removable lid that makes cleaning any leftover gunky starch a breeze. Read more about our top picks below. With the new upgrades, the ME81 is the replacement for the ME8, meaning it comes with a stainless steel bowl and a vegetable steamer. © 2020 Wirecutter, Inc., A New York Times Company, Great for frequently making short- and medium-grain white rice, Hamilton Beach Rice and Hot Cereal Cooker, Budget pick: Hamilton Beach Rice and Hot Cereal Cooker, Asian Pickles: Sweet, Sour, Salty, Cured, and Fermented Preserves from Korea, Japan, China, India, and Beyond, short-grain white rice, sushi rice, or brown rice, recommendations for the best way to do it, short-grain rice is mostly amylopectin and medium-grain is somewhere in between, Tatung 11-Cup Stainless Steel Multi-Functional Cooker TAC-11KN(UL), Zojirushi Induction Heating Pressure Rice Cooker and Warmer NP-NVC10, Zojirushi Induction Heating System Rice Cooker and Warmer NP-HCC18, Cuisinart FRC-1000 Rice/Grain Multicooker, chef and author of Asian-American: Proudly Inauthentic Recipes from the Philippines to Brooklyn, food reporter and columnist for The New York Times, sales and marketing associate, Cuckoo Electronics, restaurateur and author of Japanese Soul Cooking: Ramen, Tonkatsu, Tempura, and More from the Streets and Kitchens of Tokyo and Beyond. Photo: Michael Hession, The Zojirushi Neuro Fuzzy NS-ZCC10 has settings for many different kinds of rice, as well as an option to make your rice softer or harder per your individual taste. When you buy through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. In our 2018 update, we tested our three picks against seven cookers using medium-grain Japanese white rice (sushi rice) to start with. Photo: Michael Hession. But the quality of the rice just wasn’t great. Ad Choices, Best Rice Cookers of 2020 Tested: Zojirushi, Cuckoo, Breville, and More. “But all I had to do was measure properly and hit cook.” Luckily, even if you do get the ratios wrong, the Neuro Fuzzy can compensate for user error to produce an excellent batch of rice. Brown rice cooked in 45 minutes to an hour, almost twice as fast as in the Zojirushi and 10 minutes faster than in the Hamilton Beach. But it took around 10 to 15 minutes longer to cook our white rice, and our top pick isn’t even one of the fastest models we tried. Stovetop rice may not be the hardest thing to make, but when you’re in a pinch or cooking for many, a rice cooker will save much needed time and free up one of your stove burners. Marinating the fish will intensify the flavor and using liquids like beer, coconut milk, and broth will punch up the flavor of the rice. Cleanup is easier than scrubbing burnt-on rice from a pot cooked on the stove, too. This small rice cooker, which we also named as one of the best cheap rice cookers, can make 3 cups of uncooked rice and yield 7 cups of cooked rice. Though not the fastest machine we tested, the Zojirushi Neuro Fuzzy NS-ZCC10 is by far the most versatile, making the best white rice across the different grains plus respectable brown rice (though if you love brown rice, you might prefer our upgrade pick). Few electric rice cookers specialize in cooking long-grain rice. The best-selling model of the classic Instant Pot does it all: It’s a pressure cooker, slow cooker, steamer, sauté pan, yogurt maker, and, of course, a cooker of delectable rice. This time we first tested each with batches of Thai jasmine rice and medium-grain sushi rice—likely the most critical and the most used skill for a rice cooker. Here’s how to choose the right one(s) for you. The secret here is to begin by sautéing a bit of onion and seasonings, then adding more liquid to the rice so that the results are a creamy soul-satisfying risotto to please even the fussiest Italian. This amazing rice cooker from Oyama is designed to aid the novice chefs in the art of cooking rice perfectly. For a breakdown of the differences between a rice cooker, a pressure cooker, and a slow cooker, check out our guide. Below, the best rice cookers to come from my research: Best Overall: Zojirushi Induction Heating Pressure Rice Cooker & Warmer 1.0 Liter, Stainless Brown NP-NVC10. Its illuminated LED menu includes a fun animation of the machine puffing away during the cooking stage. After cooking many pounds of brisket, rice, and beans in six pressure cookers, we think the Fissler Vitaquick 8.5-Quart Pressure Cooker is the best you can get. Thanks to a computer chip that can sense things like moisture and temperature and can adjust cooking parameters to account for human error, the Zojirushi Neuro Fuzzy NS-ZCC10 makes great rice, even in situations where other cookers (including those with similar technology) produce starchy, congealed messes. This kind of heft is wonderful if you cook batches of rice for many people, but it’s needlessly cumbersome if you’re cooking for one or two. By comparison, our upgrade pick, the Cuckoo CRP-G1015F, made overly moist long-grain white rice. Check out our favorite models for 2020. Most rice cookers we tested came with a plastic rice paddle. But it fell short with the brown rice, which was undercooked after 60 minutes. As brown and white rice cook quite differently, we wanted to see if each rice cooker could handle both a tougher, long-grain brown rice and short-grain white rice. Sticky rice or glutenous rice needs a precise amount of heat and water to get them to perfection. Top 8 Best Japanese Rice Cookers In 2020 Reviews 1 Zojirushi NP-HCC10XH Induction Heating System Rice Cooker. COMFEE' Rice Cooker, Slow Cooker, Steamer, Stewpot, Saute All in One (12 Digital Cooking Programs) Multi Cooker (5.2Qt ) Large Capacity, 24 Hours Preset & Instant Keep Warm 4.5 out of 5 … Every rice cooker comes with a couple of key accessories: a measuring cup (don’t get confused, “one cup” in rice cooker parlance is actually a ¾-cup measure) and a rice paddle. We also found that rice cookers from Japan and Korea (such as the Zojirushi and Cuckoo brands) are optimized for gelatinizing short-grain and sushi rice. An induction heat cooker, the Tiger JKT-S10U, was in a similar boat. With the ability to steam your favorite food while cooking rice, this cooker can save time and effort. However, you might need to tweak the amount of water in your recipe if you prefer softer brown rice—we thought our batches came out pleasantly chewy, but that isn’t to everyone’s taste. © 2020 Condé Nast. Low-price cookers are often single-switch on/off affairs, with a simple lid like the kind you’d put on a saucepan. With a 5L capacity, there is enough room to make 14 servings of rice at any one time, which is great for anyone who likes to bulk cook or has a … Cut up the fruit, add a bit of juice and sugar (if needed), and close the lid. If you lose it but still want to go by the water measurements marked out on the inner pot, simply measure out ¾ cup of dry rice for every cup of rice you wish to cook. Prep fluffy rice , hearty oatmeal and tasty mixed grains effortlessly with this Instant Zesta Plus rice and grain cooker. For the first round of testing, we made two cups of Nishiki Japanese medium-grain white rice. Takahiro Hori and Yuichiro Aramki, both Japanese chefs with years of experience, headed the panel. Get in now on Amazon.com . Finally, for an inexpensive starter rice cooker that still performs well, buy the Cuckoo Rice Cooker. In our tests, the Neuro Fuzzy was one of the few machines that made sushi rice, brown rice, and long-grain rice all taste great. How long do Rice Cookers Take? The lid opens from left to right, and if you open it with your left hand, it can let out scalding hot steam directly on your arm. Though the cooker never took more than 40 minutes to make white rice, we found the burst and sticky grains it produced disappointingly poor quality for a $100 cooker. A utomatic best commercial rice cooker, stainless steel high rated rice cooker we can call it cooking master. One small disadvantage of the machine is that the rice cooker only gives you the remaining cooking time when the rice is about 10 minutes from finishing. The length of grain, the level of starch, and other inherent qualities of a type of rice, paired with your preference for soft or chewy, call for adjustments in water level, cook time, and technique. Unlike rice cookers, which become impermeable black boxes while cooking, a pot lets you experiment and adjust midway. The Aroma released fumes that smelled like burning rubber, which was another strike against it. To find out how we tested each rice cooker, scroll down. Also, this Cuckoo comes only in pink. All of the rice cookers that we tested, with the exception of the Instant Pot, have inner pots with nonstick coating, which are a miracle when it comes to using your spatula or paddle to scoop out rice without leaving residue. The results were a little too firm when we used the machine’s measurements of water and rice, but they came out a little mushy, with quite a few burst and exploded hulls, when we used the 1:1.5 proportion of rice to water that Lundberg recommended. There is a warm mode to get fresh and soft rice throughout the day, which starts automatically after the rice is cooked. In 2018, Sabrina Imbler, then a Wirecutter staff writer, conducted a round of testing. The cooker has settings for white rice (regular, softer, or harder), jasmine white rice, mixed rice, sushi rice, porridge, sweet rice, brown rice, GABA brown rice, and quick-cooking. 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