Rice cookers come in two main types - $20 cheap ones and $200 electronic fuzzy-logic things. (I’m not counting basic metal pots, clay pots, or pressure-based ones.) I have no trouble cooking rice on a stovetop, using a metal pot with a decent lid, but I’ve used rice cookers in a couple of vacation places I stayed and decided to try one, and I’ve found that I like the “put stuff in the pot and ignore it” aspect. Mine was about $30, medium-sized, and included a steamer basket.
Recommendations based on using cheap rice cookers - “Don’t do what I did”
- Really cheap ones like mine have two settings - “cook” and “warm”. Some cheap ones also have an “off” setting, which lets you leave the pot plugged in when you’re not using it. Get that, if you can.
- The top can either be open with a pot-lid that you put on it, or it can be hinged with a clamp and an inner lining. Get the kind with a pot-lid. The lining on the clamp one is annoying to clean, and if you’ve got leftover rice and want to put it in the fridge, you’ll need a lid, and it won’t be the same diameter as any of the pot lids in your kitchen, and you’ll end up going back to the store and spending $3 for a lid anyway.
