Is A More Expensive Rice Cooker Worth It?

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When you're shopping for rice cookers, you'll notice that you have a wide range of options, and it can be tough to decide how much you need to spend to find the perfect one for your kitchen. While the old adage that you get what you pay for certainly rings true when it comes to most kitchen appliances, it makes sense to question whether you actually need a super-pricey rice cooker. In most cases, you'll be just fine going with the less expensive option — it just depends on what you want out of your rice cooker. 

Whether you shell out a ton of money for a high-end rice cooker or you stick with a cheaper option, the science behind how your rice cooker works is generally the same – sensors in the machine determine how long your rice should cook. Some pricier rice cookers use more sophisticated technology to control temperature and cooking time. That added control can help the rice cook more evenly and avoid the kind of crunchy rice bits you might find at the bottom of a less expensive machine after it completes a cooking cycle. That said, it doesn't necessarily make sense to pay hundreds of dollars for a top-of-the-line rice cooker when a cheaper version can still do a perfectly good job of cooking rice. That doesn't mean the expensive version is always the wrong choice — let's take a look at a few times when it might actually make sense to spring for a more expensive rice cooker.

If you've found that you're struggling to get rice just right in a less expensive rice cooker (no judgment, honestly — it took me a couple of tries to get the water-rice ratio just right), it might be worth purchasing a fancier version, particularly one designed to adjust temperature and cooking time as the rice cooks. If you cook a lot of different grains, or you enjoy making foods other than rice in a rice cooker, the bells, whistles, and unique settings offered by a high-end rice cooker may be well worth the extra cash. For example, if you're committed to crafting flavorful, chef-approved congee, a rice cooker with a congee-specific setting may make sense for your kitchen.

If you simply use your rice cooker for its most basic function — cooking rice — you'll be just fine with a basic option, like the Aroma rice cooker, which can make up to six cups of cooked white rice. If you frequently cook rice for a crowd, you can simply buy a larger version, like the Aroma 20-cup model. While it can be fun to shell out for fancy kitchen gadgets, there's not much need to spend big on a rice cooker if you primarily use it to cook plain white rice. Save your cash for another high-end appliance that you've had your eye on, unless one of the special circumstances we described above applies to your rice cooking situation.