If you're anything like me, cooking dinner requires a lot more patience than I'm willing to give it. I'm partial to making meals that take little-to-no time, simply because I'm either too hungry or just don't want to dedicate time to it.
Simple, healthy meals don't need to be bland, though! I've learned that certain kitchen appliances can help you multitask, cooking food for you while you chop vegetables or prepare other parts of the meal.
Rice cookers are one of those multitasking helpers that people seem to love and have strong opinions about (the hashtag #ricecooker has over 393,000 videos on TikTok), but I've never personally had experience with... until now.
While most of the meals I make center around — or at least include — rice, the 90-second microwavable packs from Whole Foods I typically rely on can only go so far.
So we set out to test rice cookers that would produce better, fluffier rice. Personally, the fluffier (but not mushy) rice, the better. But while testing, we learned that preferences play a large role in determining what “good rice” is. For example, fellow associate editor Kamari Stewart-Jackson prefers rice that's a bit firmer and harder than I do.
We also spoke with professional chefs and culinary producers to gain insight into what’s most important when purchasing a rice cooker and the benefits to owning one.
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What to look for in a rice cooker, according to experts
- Size: “Size is important depending on how many people you will be cooking for!” says private chef Meghan Friedmann. “If you’re cooking for an individual, then a 1-3 cup one will be sufficient.” If you’re hosting bigger groups or meal prepping, she says you may want to invest in a rice cooker with a large basin.
- Simplicity: “For me, the fewer buttons the better,” notes Kristina Downey, associate culinary producer at TODAY. “I appreciate that rice cookers have all kinds of advanced settings, but I’ve used rice cookers that literally just have an on and off button, and they deliver perfect rice every time. Simplicity is key for me.”
Why should you use a rice cooker?
"A rice cooker is truly a life saver for me," says Downey. "As a professionally trained chef, even I have a hard time getting rice exactly right on the stove. A rice cooker allows me to just press a button and forget about everything else."
"Rice cookers add benefit and value by being completely hands off," says Friedmann. "Set it and forget it, focus elsewhere."
Best overall rice cooker
White rice: 4/5 | Brown rice: 5/5 | Ease of use: 5/5 | Value: 5/5 | Overall average score: 4.75/5
With a near-perfect score, Aroma quickly rose to the top due to features like an easy-to-navigate display and its ability to produce fluffy rice without burning it. It also comes with two different spatulas — one traditional rice spatula and one more curved style that looks like the cross between a spatula and a ladle. While it might not have been the original intention, the spatula/ladle made scooping rice in and out of the basin easier.
Ease of use: Once you turn this rice cooker on, the settings were easy to navigate. It was truly a no-fuss process. A countdown timer appears when there's 10 minutes left of cooking, but there's a "keep warm" option if you're not ready to serve it as soon as it's done.
Brown rice: It took approximately 50 minutes to cook brown rice, producing a soft and fluffy batch which easily earned a perfect 5/5 score. It cooked evenly without burning and had no crunch (which is my preference), even after reheating it as leftovers later that night.
White rice: Cooking white rice in this rice cooker was an overall speedier process than most of the other ones we tested, taking about 20 minutes. Once cooked, it yielded picturesque results that "feels like what you want a batch of white rice to feel like," says Stewart-Jackson, meaning it produced smooth, great-looking rice that tasted even better than it looked.
This rice cooker earned near-perfect scores across the board, with ease of use, value and its ability to cook brown rice all receiving a 5/5. When looking at the range of rice cookers we tested and the rice they produced, Aroma earned a score of 4/5 for white rice because it was fluffy, but after taste tests comparing each batch of rice — we liked some others better.
More rice cookers tested by the author
Worth the splurge:
White rice: 5/5 | Brown rice: 5/5 | Ease of use: 5/5 | Value: 3/5 | Overall average score: 4.5/5
Growing up, my parents always joked that I favored the more expensive options compared to more budget-friendly alternatives just because it costs more. While I can neither confirm nor deny their theory, it was hard not to pick Zojirushi as the best overall rice cooker as it produced the same quality of rice as the Aroma.
Ease of use: The home screen was easy to click through. While it looks overwhelming at first glance, the menu options make it easy to switch between the different food options and settings. We only used two settings, but it was intuitive enough and pretty easy!
Brown rice: Zojirushi took the longest out of any of the rice cookers to cook the brown rice. But after 90 minutes, we were scooping soft, fluffy rice out of the basin. It was definitely one to write home about, as it was one of two rice cookers to create a batch of brown rice we were all impressed by.
White rice: Zojirushi also took considerably longer to cook white rice than other models we tested. After 60 minutes, the rice it created had a bit of a mushy consistency, which was ideal for me. While I am preferable to softer rice that you hardly have to chew, I know that this isn't everyone's favorite. You can alter the texture of the rice in the "white rice" option on the menu screen, selecting between a regular, softer or harder texture.
Tech-forward option:
White rice: 5/5 | Brown rice: 5/5 | Ease of use: 3/5 | Value: 3.5/5 | Overall score: 4.13/5
Ease of use: “You really need to read the directions fully before you start to use this one,” warns Stewart-Jackson. “But once you fiddle with it a little bit and use it once or twice, it becomes intuitive. It’s definitely the most tech-forward of the bunch but the touch screen is cool. The only con of my experience was that it’s supposed to automatically weigh whatever you put in there so the machine knows how much water to disperse, but every time I made rice (whether it was dry or rinsed), the machine didn’t register any weight. I had to push down on the bowl so it could 'measure' how much was in there and get it as close to 1 cup as I could. Ultimately, it worked out and the rice came out really good every time, but you couldn’t move forward until the machine 'weighed' whatever you put in there.”
Brown rice: Stewart-Jackson thinks Zojirushi and Aroma have some serious competition, as the KitchenAid rice cooker “made brown rice that both tasted and looked the best out of all of the ones from the bunch.”
White rice: This rice cooker produced “perfectly fluffy” white rice,” according to Stewart-Jackson. It “looked and tasted so good immediately. I was skeptical because of the auto dispense water feature and the struggle with getting the machine to register the weight but it turned out really well.”
Easiest to use:
White rice: 3/5 | Brown rice: 2.5/5 | Ease of use: 5/5 | Value: 3/5 | Overall average score: 3.38/5
Ease of use: To ensure we were using each rice cooker as intended, I read the included instruction booklets and the one for Hamilton Beach was the easiest to understand. As a novice, I appreciated how thorough the directions were, eliminating any barriers and making it a beginner-friendly device. I found the display to be just as easy to navigate.
Brown rice: This rice cooker made brown rice in a little under an hour, which is perfect for meals that call for multitasking. However, the final result was a bit of an uneven cook — with some bits being burnt on the bottom and the batch overall being partially mushy.
White rice: In 35 minutes, this rice cooker made soft rice that was perhaps a little too soft, says Stewart-Jackson. It's all dependent on personal preferences, because I found the white rice to be just right.
Beginner-friendly:
White rice: 2/5 | Brown rice: 2.5/5 | Ease of use: 5/5 | Value: 3/5 | Overall average score: 3.13/5
Ease of use: Chefman was the easiest rice cooker to operate: you simply push the singular button down for it to start cooking. But because of this, you have no control over any of the settings the others allow, like temperature and time based on what kind of rice you're cooking or food you're steaming.
This caused the rice to burn, and leave burnt, crusted residue on the bottom of the basin. Also unlike the others, rather than make a noise when the rice is done, it subtly switches from "cook" to a "warm" setting that you have to pay attention to. But the lights were so dull, social video producer Anita Chomenko couldn't tell the machine was on when it was plugged in.
But these machines aren't all bad: Elena Besser, TODAY culinary contributor, has owned a version of this rice cooker (with the "cook" and "keep warm" feature) for over five years.
"They are super simple and straightforward and you don't need to splurge on anything extra," she says. So if you're looking for a beginner-friendly option that you're not sure how often you'll use, we recommend starting with a basic rice cooker such as this one.
Brown rice: Because I couldn't "alert" the rice cooker to the fact that I was cooking brown rice rather than white rice, it was difficult to know how long the process would take. It took approximately 35 minutes between the time we started the process until we noticed the "warm" light had been ignited.
When we opened the rice cooker, the other side of the lid revealed burnt residue around the rim that took a touch of elbow grease to remove.
White rice: The white rice proved to be "more promising than the brown rice," according to Stewart-Jackson, and while it was burnt, it wasn't "horrendously so." Because of this, it was easier to scoop out of the basin compared to the brown rice.
How we tested rice cookers
We tested seven rice cookers over the course of one day at one of our test kitchens. We followed the instructions for each individual rice cooker to cook 1 cup of both white and brown rice.
We scored each rice cooker in terms of ease of use, value (cost compared to how well it worked and what other features it offers) and how well it performed while cooking brown and white rice on a scale of 1-5, with 1 being the worst and 5 being the best.
Why trust Shop TODAY?
Sierra Hoeger is an associate editor at Shop TODAY, and has written broadcast segments, Shop TODAY Awards articles and conducted other tests for Ranked, including protein bars and water pitcher filters, so she has a deep understanding and knowledge of methodology and testing processes.
Meet the experts
- Elena Besser is a TODAY culinary contributor and founder of The Lineup Dinner, a page that shines a spotlight on NYC-based chefs.
- Kristina Downey is an associate culinary producer at TODAY.
- Meghan Friedmann is a private chef and graduate of Cambridge School of Culinary Arts.
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