Best Rice Cookers

Classic and Functional Rice Cooker – We have had a National SR-15FGH rice cooker since early-mid 1984. There were a choice of colours for it (Blue, Green and White at least, there are… Read more

likely others), but this example was originally bought in the green colour. It is also a grey-market example, having being bought overseas before arriving in Australia.

While it has been very lightly used since 1994, we temporarily put it back into daily use in May 2024, when our newer National SR-10CHN rice cooker, sadly broke down after around 30 years (due to yellowing and brittle plastic exposing the wiring), the last 15/16 years of which, it was used near-daily.

For a 40-year old rice cooker that has spent the best part of the past 30 years in semi-retirement, it has performed very well. The build quality on it is still quite good and still puts the newer budget rice cookers (from Aldi or Kmart) to shame, even today. The power cable also has a thick and strong coil (to stop it from breaking), which is sadly a feature that no longer exists on newer rice cookers (almost certainly due to cost-cutting).

However, if you are used to modern rice cookers and the coating on the rice pan, it requires some adjustment. There is no coating on it, which requires a slightly different cooking technique. It also is not a multi-function rice cooker, it only does rice and keeps it warm.

It does have the classic National 'N' logo (used between 1963 - 1987) and was assembled in Japan, so if you like 1970s and 1980s electronics, the National SR-15FGH (especially in green) is very much a good and functional choice.

We ended up with a new Panasonic rice cooker, so this SR-15FGH has now returned to its quiet semi-retired existence (it does still function). We will see how long this new one will last.

Rice perfection – There aren't many (if any) comprehensive English reviews of this rice cooker so here are my experiences. I have always microwaved my rice because it… Read more

took too long with the new fashioned rice and multicookers. However, every since my family member developed diabetes, we could no longer eat white rice which is high GI. A friend told me to look at low carb or low GI rice cookers. At first really skeptical, I realised that it's very common across many different brands in Asia, which is not surprising since they are such high consumers of rice.

After doing extensive research across different brands to the extent that I nearly lugged a whole rice cooker back from Asia, I decided to bite the bullet and try Joyoung. It's a very established brand in China but I was skeptical and it didn't help that most of the literature was in Chinese. The great thing about buying it from the Joyoung agent in Australia however is that the Australian plug and warranty, instruction manual in (albeit bad) English, and most importantly, the cooking menu is in English too.

This induction rice cooker has several functions including slowly digestible rice (remember I said bad English), 'roasted' rice, cake baking, porridge, congee, fine rice, claypot rice, steaming, and soup. After 2 months of usage, I have tried everything except the cake function - why would you want to anyway, unless you particularly liked steamed cakes?

This rice cooker is really fast (40 minutes; Instant Pot takes longer!) for low GI/carb rice and cooks a really mean Fine Rice (also 40 mins). I've also tried the roasted rice and both are insanely delicious compared to microwaved (Jasmine) rice! The fragrance and taste are truly incomparable. This is primarily due to the cast iron inner pot which unlike the usual stainless steel pots (like Instant Pot) or non-stick pots (like multicookers), is really heavy. The roasted rice function produces rice that really tastes like charcoal roasted rice. It also cooks brown rice without pre-soaking to perfection - using both the Fine Rice or Low GI Rice functions depending on what you're trying to achieve - by adjusting the uncooked rice to water ratios to roughly 1 : 1.5.

My highlight is the claypot rice function. You add the rice and it will chime (after about 25 minutes) to signal you to add the chicken and sauce. You still need to add 10 to 20 minutes (depending on bone-in or boneless chicken and cut of chicken used) with the Keep Warm function but otherwise it does a perfect claypot rice compared to all the 'rice cooker claypot rice' recipes I've tried with my multicooker and Instant Pot over the years. The best part? The pot is non-stick and the gummy sauce and stuck on rice are easy to wash off!

Size is perhaps the greatest downside with the other functions (congee, porridge, steaming, and soup). It's ok if you are cooking for 2, I think 4 adults would struggle. The soup in particular is probably only enough for 1 person once you add ingredients (e.g., chicken bones, pork bones, veg, etc). I tried putting in a 1.2kg whole chicken and it was a no-go. The pot has strict instructions not to over-fill and especially with low GI rice where it's a maximum of 3 very tiny cups (cups, soup scoop and rice paddle came with the pot) and the starchy water needs to bubble into the steaming basket on top.

Relatedly, unlike other low GI rice cookers, the starchy water is exuded on top into the steaming basket above the rice (don't ask me how but it's like distillation). Other GI rice bookers hold the rice in a steaming basket and the starchy water is 'washed' out and remains in the inner pot below the steaming basket. From a safety perspective, I was worried about removing the steaming basket (with holes!) holding scaldingly hot starchy water in order to access the inner pot with the rice below. There's an insertable handle that you can use to remove the steaming basket and scaldingly hot starchy water to pour away.

The bonus? My family member's blood sugar levels have really gone down since we started using this 2 months ago.

Best rice cooker since cooked rice – I was shopping for an expensive rice cooker that didn't take half of my kitchen counter space. Wanted to keep the cooked rice under 3 cups. Came upon… Read more

this brand. Never heard of it before. Decided to give it a go. Ordered it from an eBay reseller in AU. Definitely smaller rice cooker came with an AU plug, rice measuring cup, steamer for vegetables. I owned a few of the Panasonic brand rice cookers which I thought would be similar to this unit. I cooked one cup of Japanese rice today. Rice was fluffy, & the best part it was cooked under 12 min. Incredible! Fastest rice cooker steamer I ever owned. Definitely give this Chinese brand, model a consideration. 2billion rice people can't go wrong. This model is ideal for 1-2 people. They also have a larger unit for 3-5 people.

Good quality rice cooker – It cooks well. I only use for rice. The bowl is sturdier than most I have owned which is why I chose this product. Easy to clean. Note the lid doesn't come off for cleaning. I haven't personally found this to be an issue.

Firstly, I would like to state I know how to cook rice well on the stove using an absorption method (so im no dumb dumb) but im not so fancy to… Read more

really care about nuance taste. My primary rice for everything is Jasmine, and occasionally like sushi rice and i just need more time to do other things and not accidently burn the rice (which i do if i forget to have my stove on a timer).

I only really care about 2 things, non soggy or crunchy rice and having something thats not teflon/nonstick. I did a fair bit of research and landed on this product, internally its full stainless steel (can go in dishwasher) amd comes with a small measuring cup and spoon. Never used the steamer and dont plan to need to boilsteam (for rice). Maybe it would work for dumplings or dimsums (?).

For 2 adults and a kid making rice dishes and needing 2 servings or more leftovers, a 5 cup is working fine as we arent obease eaters. If we have partys the pressure cooker or larger stove pot would siffice, I didnt want to pay extra on something i use 5% of the time.

I like its delayed 24hr start time so i can set it during the day for dinner and it keeps warm automatically. if youre into having it sit on counter from lunch to dinner its prob perfect (not my thing). It does take 1hr to cook (regardless of fast or slow rice setting) but i factor that into making dinner even on a stovetop (cook rice before cutting veg/anything else) id i forget to put on during the day. Waiting 5 min after cooking is optional but just helps it unstick (i thought non issue we keep it on warm and it becomes easier to scrape for leftovers after we eat).

Rice comes out as good as stovetop, cant say better or worse, just consistent. Found washing rice twice then adding exact same amount of water is the right point for me (the extra water to hit 1.11 (or whatever they reccomend) water to rice ratio). I tried to cook oatmeal too in the grain setting 1:2 milk ratio, came out fine.

It doesnt add water marks to your counter while cooking which i liked. It does drop into itself/plastic parts when opened which is annoying but its not terrible.

Internal lid comes off easily to be cleaned and so the whole thing that touches rice/heat is easily cleaned. The stainless steel inner pot is surprisingly heavy.

I wasnt planning on spending so much on a rice cooker, but then again everything has a teflon/non stick coating (even those expensive ones) so i price this mid to higher range but good for longevity, only tpuchpanel is my concern (sish it were buttons). My only peeve is when cooking the touch button on on off is sensitive and moving the appliance sometimes turns off. It also have subtle/quiet been when ready.

The whole thing fits under my counter and is the size of a big toaster. The plug comes off and stowes nicely within the appliance, i would reccomend.

Great little rice cooker, used it with Jasmine and Basmati getting a very good outcome with each. Does seem to take a long time (30-40mins) but maybe… Read more

that’s the ceramic bowl taking a while to heat and the price of good rice. The only problem is that it doesn’t give you a countdown timer so you don’t really know how long you have left, which would be a really handy feature you could coordinate cooking the other parts of your meal perfectly . other than that though, Very good little unit.

Excellent rice cooker that can also double as pressure or slow cooker – It is an excellent rice cooker, but for the price, it would need to be. It is a 5 star rice cooker, but I docked one star for price, flexibility as a… Read more

multicooker and the documentation.

There are many general purpose cookers that are able to cook rice, but many do so by cooking for a fixed time, rather than cooking for however long it takes until the right moisture level drops to the ideal level, which is how dedicated rice cookers like this one cook rice.

The result is that while many multicookers can cook rice, for those that work on a fixed time it is often a little "hit and miss" making their cooking of rice a compromise. While this cuckoo unit is perfect at cooking rice, but somewhat limited with the compromise being the use for other other functions.

The use of induction makes heating very uniform.

Limitations are those like, when used as a general pressure cooker, the rate of reduction of water is that optimised for cooking rice, which is a little higher than ideal for many other foods.

There are a variety of programs for cooking different types of rice and in different ways, with an option for high speed rice cooking and cooking both with and without pressure cooking. Then there are slow cook and generic pressure cooking as well as chicken soup and baby food modes.

Construction is very high quality. The bowl is much more solid than typical for a rice cooking bowl or the inner bowl of an electric pressure cooker, and has a non-stick surface. Many people don't like non-stick surfaces, the bowl only ever reaches a very low temperature and there is no sear function, so the biggest risks of non-stick are eliminated.

One limitation is the documentation, which may be clearer in the original Korean, but is not great in English, and finding an online version is a challenge.