Best Japanese Rice Cookers with Multiple Settings | Сomparison & Buyer’s Guide

For Japanese, rice is more than just cereal. They use it in different dishes, ranging from sushi rice and omelet with fried rice to rice soup and rice porridge. And it is very important to cook rice properly for each type of meal. The easiest way to achieve that is to use a Japanese rice cooker.

This piece of kitchen appliance is worth investing because it is designed specifically to make perfect rice for all common types of rice dishes. Such a machine helps to establish an ideal proportion between rice and water, allows for scheduling the cooking time and keeping the food warm. And more importantly, you will never burn your rice!

How to Choose a Japanese Rice Cooker

When choosing your Japanese rice cooker, we recommend that you go with trusted brands like Zojirushi. This is a well-known Japanese company with 90 years of history that produces a variety of household appliances. The manufacturer makes different types of Japanese rice cookers.

Types of Rice Cookers | Core Features

Conventional ones have the standard functionality and cook all types of rice the same way. Microcomputer rice cookers are more advanced, offering temperature and cooking time adjustment. And finally, there are induction pressure cookers that use two technologies — induction and pressure-cooking. This allows the machine to heat the entire pot while allowing moisture to better penetrate the rice grain.

Other things to consider include the volume and material of the cooker bowl as well as extra features. Choosing the right bowl volume depends on the amount of rice you are going to cook at a time.

For small families, a 5.5-cup bowl is more suitable, whereas the 10-cup size would be ideal for larger families of up to 10 members. Zojirushi has both options. If you cook rice for no more than 3 persons at a time, go for the 5-1/2-Cup Neuro Fuzzy Rice Cooker. It comes with a bowl that is 7.5 inches in diameter and 4.8 inches deep.

A larger model, like the Rice Cooker NS-TSQ18, has the capacity of up to 10 cups or 1.8 liters.

As for the material used, stainless steel bowls are the most recommended ones because they ensure uniform heating. Aluminum options come at a lower price but have the drawback of heating unevenly. Additionally, you should also consider the coating material inside the bowl. Bowls with non-sticky surfaces will last longer and produce better results.

Best Japanese Rice Cookers | Comparison

Both models employ Fuzzy Logic technology that allows the machine to adjust the heating time and temperature to make ideally cooked rice. A microchip and a small thermal sensor will do the job for you, adapting the cooking to the type of rice you are using.

The NS-ZCC10 has settings for white porridge, sweet, mixed, semi-brown and brown rice as well as a quick cooking function. The NS-TSQ18 cooks nice fluffy white rice and flavourful brown rice, has a steam menu setting, and allows you to bake a rice cake right in the machine.

These Japanese rice cookers are made with durable stainless steel, an LCD display, a delay timer with 2 settings, a beep signal, and are loaded with beneficial features. In particular, this includes auto keep warm, extended keep warm, and reheating cycle features. Apart from differences in capacity and menu settings, these machines have some other distinctions.

Unlike the NS-TSQ18, the smaller yet highly efficient NS-ZCC10 is equipped with a bowl of a spherical shape, something that ensures a more even heating. Besides, this model has a foldable handle for easy transportation and can be mounted to the wall. On the other hand, the NS-TSQ18 comes with a BPA-free steaming basket that will let you steam food while cooking rice. The machine is 3 times heavier but has a detachable lid for easy maintenance.

Apart from being highly efficient, Japanese rice cookers are easy to use. First, you put the washed rice in a bowl that comes with the cooker. Depending on the amount of rice, add some water, select the right setting, and click to start. After the rice is cooked, it is recommended to steam it for 5 to 10 minutes.

Products with 5-star rating

Testing & Customers Reviews

Here are the reviews from YouTube bloggers who tested the rice cookers and have found them effective and worth buying.

IRE: "In this video I'll be reviewing this rice cooker by a well-known brand Russell Hobbs, the number is 19750. It's a 1.8 litre rice cooker.

We've got a very nice stainless tool design, plastic handles. We got two modes: the warm mode and the heat mode, as well you can choose it. So, after heats up we will go to the warm mode and it will stay like that to keep the rice warm. This is the gloss lid, that you stay on top, small holder where all the air comes out for that way. It also comes with this is a tray for steaming fish and vegetables. It comes with a nice nonstick removable bowl as you can see here. So, after it's done, just clean it easily. It also comes with a spatula and measuring cup.

It had 700 watts built in. It's a rice cooker and just look stylish, does the job okay and I would highly recommend. It's affordable.

So, this is the Russell Hobbs 19750 rice cooker 1.8 liters and I do highly recommend this and at this rice cooker."

Maxwell: "It's a Zojirushi Ns-Zcc10. I bought this one 5 or so years ago. As you can see it's got makings for sushi, porridge and regular white rice. If you turn it around, it also has semi brown, sweet rice, brown rice, and the same white rice on this side.

The menu's pretty simple, it starts out with the white rice, the regular sushi rice and that's two settings in one go. You can use the timer settings on it, but I've never used  that.

So, this is three of those cups of rice already and what I'll do is I'll fill it up to the three line marker. You can always add either oil butter or broth, even coconut oil or simple. I'm going to use the white rice regular duty setting. And we'll see, how long it takes to those three cups of rice. When it's done it will automatically go to keep warm. What you want to do, when it's finished, is you want to open it up let the steam out and use the special spoon they gave you.

There you go it took about an hour to finish cooking the three cups of rice I put in. You can leave it to keep warm, if you want, but if you want to let it cool down. So, you can put in the refrigerator or, whatever, you just press the reset button and it will beep letting you know that it's cleared it out. This is what it looks like, when you take it out of the pan, nothing burnt, unless you leave it in there for a very very long time."