It should not be conflated with electric pressure cookers like the Instant Pot, which costs less than half of what this Cuckoo model costs. Although labeled medium-grain, it is considered a sushi rice, and it cooks to plump and sticky short grains. We also like its retractable cord and the handles on the pot that allow you to safely lift it from the rice cooker while still warm. However, when the multi-cooker is used consistently to cook strong-flavoured foods like curries and stews, or for air- or deep-frying, it will eventually taint the flavour of rice. If you prefer your short-grain rice al dente and almost mochi-like, you might seriously consider our upgrade pick, the Cuckoo CRP- P1009 .

This is a straightforward machine – it cooks your rice with no bells or whistles, then keeps it warm for up to eight hours.It cooked totally passable rice in 25 minutes and takes up virtually the same counter space as the Zojirushi 3-Cup. We consulted Matt Slem, food technician at rice producer Lundberg Family Farms, on the proper cooking method for various grain types. These machines are dedicated to cooking rice only, with a few offering vegetable steaming and porridge functions.

Also, it has a slightly larger capacity than the Zojirushi, holding 6 cups of uncooked rice compared to the Zojirushi’s 5. The quick rice function is great for grains like quinoa, polenta, and farro that one might normally make in a saucepan. Not every pot sits on the stove the same way, the lid doesn’t fit on the stove the same way,” he said. The NS-TSC10’s quick-cook setting is around 10 minutes faster than the Neuro Fuzzy’s, but regardless we prefer the normal cook settings, which make considerably better-quality rice. Also, it took the longest of any of the mini models we tested to cook one of rice—a whopping 34 minutes.There’s little to take issue with this Zojirushi, but it’s worth noting that if you aren’t accustomed to cooking rice in a precision rice cooker, you might be surprised at how long the cook times are. None of the machines had a setting for basmati (or long-grain rice, which is too delicate for most rice cookers), so we selected the white or mixed rice setting depending on the instructions in the manual. In our tests, the Neuro Fuzzy made brown rice better than most rice cookers we tried, but the process took a bit of experimentation.

If we mismeasured the rice-to-water ratio even slightly, the grains congealed together in a gelled lattice of mush. The Cuckoo CRP-P1009S has a removable inner lid like the Zojirushi, making it easy to clean the starchy film that collects as the rice cooks.It’s a quiet machine, but that might be a downside for some as there is no beep to signal when it’s finished. It cooked faster than any other rice cooker we tested and made excellent rice across the board, but we didn’t find the rice any better than what we made with our upgrade pick. It makes the best white rice, across all grain types, of any cooker we’ve tested, and it also turns out great brown rice.

However, we reserve our recommendations for this cooker since plenty of other models simply do a better job. In the meantime, we think the timers and keep-warm settings on our top and upgrade picks are easy enough ways to have warm, fresh rice waiting for you when you get home. I spoke with 19 experts about their own favorite models, which ranged from cheap and straightforward contraptions to more high-tech machines, and then tested some out myself. Then we conducted a formal taste test with a panel of chefs and employees from the Japanese restaurant Ken Ken Ramen in San Francisco, which served bento boxes and curries.None of these frills make your rice any better, but we found them quite fun to watch, and it’s good to be alerted when the machine is about to release pressure a few minutes before the end of cooking, so you can get out of the way. According to a company representative, Cuckoo has plans to team up with other retailers for exclusive appliances, and we wanted to see how this machine stacked up against Cuckoo’s flagship offerings. This is one of Zojirushi’s newest rice cooker models, with the black cube shape similar to their top of the line AI. Our favorites were the nubbly paddles from Zojirushi and Tiger because rice didn’t stick to them as much as it did to others.