Rice Cookers

TIPS to Choose the Right Rice Cookers

How do you choose the right rice cooker to last a lifetime? You’ll need to pinpoint your personal cooking habits and preferences.

1. Identify your Size Requirements

Firstly, understand how many cups of rice – the standardized cup that comes with rice cookers – you will cook on a daily basis, not on occasions when you have guests over (more on that later). This is important because rice cookers come in various sizes. A 3-cup rice cooker is the smallest capacity common for major brands such as Panasonic, Tiger, and Zojirushi to carry. The next common size up is a 5-cup and the biggest size (for household use) is 10 cups. For some brands, there are 4-cups and 8-cups available. Each cup of raw rice will yield two bowls of cooked rice:

• 5-cup rice cooker = yields up to 10-bowls of cooked rice
• 10-cup rice cooker = yields up to 20-bowls of cooked rice.

So here’s our first tip. If you only cook about 1-2 cups of rice daily, a 3-cup rice cooker would be the most suitable size for you. If you cook around 2-5 cups of rice, a 5-cup cooker would be most suitable. And finally, if you cook any more than 5 cups, then a 10-cup cooker would be most suitable. 

A common concern that we often hear in the store is, “what if we have guests over”? If you have guests over and you frequently have guests over, consider buying a slightly larger capacity rice cooker. Why shouldn’t you buy a larger rice cooker which is much larger (ex. 10-cup) for when you have guests over? Well, you could buy a much larger rice cooker, but because you would not cook that much daily, it would damage the inner pot of the rice cooker and shorten its lifespan. Furthermore, if you only cook a small amount of rice in a large rice cooker, the heat will not be evenly distributed and the rice will not come out as well.

BONUS TIP: Do not try to keep your rice warm in a rice cooker overnight, this will dry out your rice. They are only designed to keep warm for 4-5 hours. If you cook too much and want to have the leftover rice the next day, put the extra rice in a container and put it in your refrigerator. You can re-steam the rice in your rice cooker or microwave the next day.