The "I Love My Rice Cooker" Recipe Book: From Mashed Sweet Potatoes to Spicy Ground Beef, 175 Easy--and Unexpected--Recipes

Cooking with a Rice Cooker

The rice cooker, invented in Japan in the 1950s, was one of the first electric food-preparation devices to make its way into home kitchens, which made it an instant hit. Celebrating their sudden liberation from the famously boring act of standing over a pot of rice, many home cooks began to wonder: a metal pot, sitting atop an electric heating element that progressively heats, simmers, boils, and finally cooks whatever is placed inside—what else might this gadget be able to prepare?

The answer, it turns out, is almost any dish that can be prepared in a pan over the stovetop. As millions of home cooks now know, it’s entirely possible to cook an entire beef stew in a rice cooker, or a seafood soup, or just about anything else. It’s all about choosing the right recipes—congratulations!—and getting comfortable with some new and easy-to-learn techniques.

By now you’ve heard all the raves about rice cookers and how easy it can be to prepare tasty, healthy, and satisfying dishes using just this one appliance. But if you haven’t done much one-pot cooking, just how that’s possible can be confusing, maybe even a little intimidating. If that’s you, good news—we’re happy to tell you that the opposite is true, and that cooking with your rice cooker is one of the simplest and most accessible ways to prepare a meal.

Anything worth doing takes a little bit of preparation and practice, even something as straightforward as using a rice cooker. So if you’ve been using your cooker just for rice, or even if you’ve just unboxed your first rice cooker, we’ve prepared this chapter to help you get started with this exciting and efficient way of cooking.

If you’ve already begun to explore your rice cooker’s abilities, know your way around your machine, and are looking for new recipes to unlock its full potential, feel free to move right along to the recipes beginning in the next chapter—or to read on for tips and information that just might help you better understand what your rice cooker can do!

What Can Your Rice Cooker Do?

As millions of home cooks are learning, the simple, traditional rice cooker can cook almost anything a home cook would or could prepare in a pan over the stovetop. As with any other kitchen appliance, your dishes will improve as you get to know your own rice cooker. While all traditional rice cookers are based on the same basic engineering, different brands and models have their own unique features and quirks. Some cook hotter than others on the same settings, so Low or High in one pot may not be the same as in another. Most rice cookers are designed to accommodate temperatures of 210°F to 250°F, with some electric cookers able to manage up to 285°F.

Is it really true that a rice cooker can cook anything you could make over the stove? Well, almost. However miraculous, a home rice cooker can’t do quite everything—you’ll notice from the temperature specs that even the hottest rice cookers don’t reach 300°F and aren’t capable of high-temperature cooking. That’s for safety reasons, among others, and it explains why you won’t find recipes for roasts or deep-fried dishes in this book.

If you’ve recently purchased a brand-new rice cooker, we urge you to take a moment to read through the provided owners’ manual. Most are concise and to the point and won’t take long to read, and it’s an important step in getting to know your rice cooker.

Types of Rice Cookers

The two most common types of rice cookers are the On/Off style and the Keep Warm version. In preparing basic rice, an On/Off cooker follows a preset timer and heating process that results in properly cooked rice. When it reaches the end of the cycle, the cooker turns itself off. This is the original, most traditional, and, if you can find one, usually the most affordable type of rice cooker—no frills, not even a Done light to signal that the rice is ready. These basic cookers do not normally offer nonstick pots or steamer units, but if you only want to cook rice, it will serve the purpose.

Unless your rice cooker is a family heirloom or something you found secondhand, your model probably has at least one more function, and it’s the one that unlocks the potential of the rice cooker as an invaluable cooking appliance.

Keep Warm Rice Cookers

The Keep Warm rice cooker achieves a high heat, then reduces the heat when the rice is done, maintaining it at a warm temperature. Most Keep Warm cookers sold today offer the ability to switch between the Cook and Keep Warm settings manually. This setting makes it possible to adjust and control the heating element beneath the cooking pot, and it was the introduction of this kind of rice cooker that unleashed the machine’s full potential as an everyday cooking appliance with capabilities far beyond just cooking rice.

Most recipes in this book are prepared for Keep Warm cookers that allow manual switching between the Cook and Keep Warm settings. When a recipe says to turn your cooker to High, it refers to the Cook or On setting. Keep Warm is used for medium heat and to simmer.

A Note on Newer, High-End Rice Cookers

In recent years some enthusiastic foodies have become enraptured by new rice cooker technologies. Known as induction and fuzzy-logic cookers, these devices have taken rice-cooking automation to the next level of simplicity and consistency. These machines really do prepare something like the perfect pot of rice—but they also carry price tags to match, and are out of reach for most consumers. The trade-off with induction and fuzzy-logic rice cookers is that they are more or less just that: rice cookers. They don’t allow for heat adjustment once the lid is closed, and in fact most don’t operate at all with an open lid: few of these hi-tech machines can be used to prepare foods they weren’t preprogrammed to cook, let alone complete meals.

Basic Rice Cooker Features

If you’re new to the world of rice cookers, you’ll want to experiment with and explore your new machine before diving into the recipes in this book. Let’s start with a look at the basic dimensions, features, and principles of the On/Off/Warm rice cookers:

Rice Cooker Size

Rice cookers are measured by the maximum number of cups of rice they can produce at a time. The smallest cookers on the market today prepare about 3 cups of rice; the largest can cook up to about 24 cups at at time, and unless your household goes through a gallon and a half of rice, soup, or really anything else every couple of days, this is probably not the right machine for you. The recommended rice cooker size for a family of three to four is the 8-cup version, which can cook up to 10 cups of rice and allows enough real estate within the inner pot to do other cooking besides cooking rice.

The Pot

The home rice cooker was first introduced as an extremely simple contraption—a metal pot atop a heating element with a switch—and is still based on this same principle. The two biggest differences between the early machines of the 1950s and the ones in our homes today are temperature control and the range of materials from which pots are now made. That range is almost as wide as that stovetop pots and pans: anodized aluminum, nonstick, even ceramic and stainless steel pots have all become common. The aluminum models conduct the highest possible level of heat in a rice cooker, but the nonstick variety is by far the most popular because it makes cleanup a snap.

The Lid

Some rice cookers feature metal lids or covers; others use glass. The glass lids make it a bit easier to peek in on whatever’s cooking, but only if you’re the extremely disciplined type—most of us lift the lid to check on our dishes, and that’s almost always okay. The notable exception here, of course, is when you’re actually cooking rice itself, in which case you’ll want to leave that cover in place until the rice is done!

Steamer Trays

Depending on your model, your rice cooker may have come with a steamer basket or perforated metal tray that sits above the pot to allow steaming while whatever’s in the pot is cooking. Steaming can also be done independently of other cooking, by boiling water in an otherwise empty pot.

Warm Switch

The rice cooker automatically shifts to Warm when the thermostat reaches the cooker’s preset temperature limit (usually 210°F to 250°F, or 100°C to 120°C). Most Keep Warm modes operate at 150°F or above, allowing them to safely keep rice warm overnight if not much longer. This switch is the key to easy rice cooker cooking because it allows you to adjust and control the cooking temperature yourself. For most dishes, you’ll start with your rice cooker set to On or Cook. You’ll switch the cooker manually to Warm when the recipe calls for simmering or medium heat.

Fuse Protector

Nothing is more important than safety when operating an appliance, especially an appliance like the rice cooker, which is often left unattended when it’s making rice. All rice cookers sold today come with a fuse protector for automatic shutoff should the internal thermostat fail.

Where to Start?

Now that you have a better sense of how rice cookers work and what features are available on your own cooker, you’re ready to start trying some of the 175 great recipes collected in this book.

You may have picked up The I Love My Rice Cooker Recipe Book because you saw a dish you just had to try—if so, why not go ahead and start there? If you’re interested in rice cooker cooking and aren’t sure where to start, flip through the recipes until you’ve found a dish similar to one you already know and love: there’s no better way to begin than with a meal that makes you happy. From there you can branch out to all the other great dishes this book has to offer. Enjoy!

Essential Basics

This is where it all starts—whether you’re brand-new to rice cookers, just got a new model, or simply haven’t yet cooked anything but rice in yours, you’ll learn a lot by trying a few of the following basic recipes. There’s a pasta primer here; a warm, sustaining oatmeal recipe; and even a Japanese-style rice porridge. Unlike the recipes in the rest of this book, these first dishes don’t share an essential ingredient or come to us from the same cuisine. What they have in common is that each of them is simple, easy to shop for, and straightforward to prepare. Rice, porridge, oats, and pasta are great dishes to start with, not only because they’re easy but because for so many of us they’re essential. You’ll come back to them again and again as you begin to cook regularly with your rice cooker. For now let’s get started with the most basic rice cooker dish of all.

Long-Grain White Rice

Brown Rice

Sushi Rice

Rice Congee

Warm Oats

Pasta

Chicken Stock

Pork Stock

Shrimp Stock

Vegetable Stock

Soybean Stock

Long-Grain White Rice

The standard measure for cooking long-grain white rice is three parts water to two parts rice, but many people also use the knuckle method—with the rice in the pot and your fingertip just touching the top of the rice, add water until it reaches your first knuckle.

Yields 3 cups cooked rice

1 cup long-grain white rice

11/2 cups water

1 Rinse the rice in cold water, straining through a strainer or colander. Add the rice to the rice cooker pot.

2 Add the water. The water should cover the rice by about 1/2 inch. Cover and set to Cook.

3 When the rice cooker finishes cooking the rice, let it sit for about 5 minutes to vent off the remaining steam, then fluff before serving.

Brown Rice

All rice begins as brown rice, which has a thick bran exterior, making it difficult for moisture to penetrate all the way into the grain. When cooking brown rice you’ll need to allow some extra time, and the proportions are slightly different, but the process remains the same.

Serves 2

1 cup brown rice

2 cups water

1 Rinse the rice in cold water, straining through a strainer or colander. Add the rice to the pot.

2 Add the water to the pot. Water should cover the rice by about 3/4 inch. Cover and set to Cook.

3 When the rice cooker finishes cooking the rice, let it sit for about 5 minutes to vent off the remaining steam, then fluff before serving.

Sushi Rice

One of the best things about going out for sushi is the amazing quality of the rice served in most Japanese restaurants. Delicate, moist, and surprisingly flavorful, the artful thumb-sized portions make diners wonder, Why doesn’t my rice turn out like that? Yes, it’s partly the rice itself, but the final product is all in the preparation.

Yields 5 cups cooked rice

2 cups sushi rice

3 cups cold water

1/2 cup rice vinegar

1/4 cup white sugar

1 teaspoon salt

1 Rinse the rice in cold water, straining through a strainer or colander. Add the rice to the rice cooker pot.

2 Add the water to the cooker pot. Water should cover the rice by about 3/4 inch. Cover and set to Cook.

3 While the rice is cooking, prepare the