Zojirushi Rice Cooker Review
We love our Instant Pot, but we have never used it to cook rice. Since discovering the Zojirushi rice cooker this is our only way to cook rice. This is one of our best kitchen appliance purchases.
An Instant Pot can act as a rice cooker and we hear it does a good job. However, the Zojirushi rice cooker is easy to use and cooks amazing rice. In addition, we serve many of our Instant Pot dishes with rice so we need both the Instant Pot and the rice cooker at the same time.
Zojirushi is a Japanese manufacturer of appliances. In San Diego we have many Japanese markets that carry Zojirushi products. We have become huge fans. In addition to the Zojirushi rice cooker we own a Zojirushi bread maker and a Zojirushi hot water heater.
Of course, rice is a staple of Japanese cuisine so they have perfected the technique. The Zojirushi is a smart machine in that it can detect when the rice is properly cooked. You simply add the rice and water, select the type of rice and press start.
When the rice is properly cooked the machine goes into a keep warm cycle. The rice can be kept warm for hours in the cooker. According to Zojirushi it is fine to keep the rice at the warm level for up to 12 hours.
Another advantage of our Zojirushi rice cooker is that soaking of the rice is done automatically. For some rice cookers the soaking process is an entire step that can be time consuming.
All this technology has fancy names like Neuro Fuzzy Rice Cooker and Micom. I am not sure what this means but out rice cooker is Neuro Fuzzy and slightly more expensive than the Micom Zojirushi unit. The units come in various capacities. Our unit is 10 cups (the ZCC-18). A smaller unit has a 5.5 cup capacity.
Our version is the ZCC18 10-cup version. Smaller versions will be less expensive.
You can also do porridge or oatmeal in the rice cooker. There are different settings for brown rice, semi brown and sweet rice. For white rice you can set it at regular, softer or harder. We almost always set it at regular and push the button.
There are many rice cookers on the market and we admit we have only tried Zojirushi. However, we are extremely satisfied going on a decade of regular usage. Reviews on Amazon are stellar, so I am confident we are not alone in our opinion.
A Zojirushi rice cooker is relatively expensive for a kitchen appliance. However, considering we have used it at least once a week for about ten years, this is an investment that has paid off.
For a complete meal that uses both the Instant Pot and the Zojirushi rice cooker check out our Japanese Curry Recipe.
