When you have an avid love for sushi but find that you’re never near a sushi restaurant, you might find that you’re hurting for a rice cooker. When given the option between attempting to make your own sushi and getting sketchy sushi from a convenience store, you should probably go with the former.
But why buy a rice cooker—can it do anything besides cook rice?
Can rice cookers boil water?
Rice cookers can and do boil water every time you make rice. Getting the water to boil is an integral part of both the cooking and the overall texture of your rice. Since they boil water, you can use them to cook other things besides rice but make sure to clean the cooker thoroughly if you intend to drink the water.
If you can use a steamer to boil water, does that mean you can boil eggs in it? Follow along as we explain how they work and what, besides rice, you can cook in one.
Do Rice Cookers Boil Water?
Rice cookers are typically used for cooking rice for dishes like sushi, and they are often put to use in the beginning stages of a risotto, before they get finished in a pan with wine and all that fancy jazz.
Usually, if you just want to use Minute Rice, you just boil the water in the pan and then add in your rice and let it sit.
How Rice Cookers Work
Rice cookers actually cook the rice as they boil the water. The cook time will vary based on the type of rice and the quantity that you’re cooking, but the beginning steps will always be the same: you add your rice, then you add your water, then you turn it on.
Most rice cookers will automatically tell you when your rice has finished cooking. If you have a more modern rice cooker, it’ll even give you different preset options for cooking the different varieties of rice.
Some older rice cookers might not offer this option, but you can still customize timers and settings based on the type of rice you’re cooking.
What Else Can a Rice Cooker Cook?
A rice cooker can quickly become one of the most versatile machines in your kitchen if you know how to use it right. Since a rice cooker can and does boil water, you can actually use that to cook other foods besides just rice.
When you boil water, it produces steam, which you can also use while you boil food below it. The biggest things that people use the boiling feature of a rice cooker to cook are eggs, oatmeal, macaroni and cheese, and steamed vegetables.
There are a few different ways people like to cook these using a rice cooker, so we’ve listed a few ideas below.
What Else Can a Rice Cooker Make?
Even though you can cook and boil other things like soups and sauces in the rice cooker, cooking food with boiling water is the most common method, since it’s the easiest. There are a few classic things that people make in their rice cookers, using both the boiling water and the steaming basket.
Eggs
Eggs can be cooked in a myriad of ways, and a lot of them can be done in the rice cooker. The most obvious one is hard boiling. All you need to do if you want to hard boil an egg in your rice cooker is fill it with water and drop in the eggs carefully.
It’s recommended that you put your eggs in the steaming basket when you’re going to boil them, just so you’ll be able to remove them easily.
You can soft boil the eggs this way too, but you’re going to want to lessen the cook time so that the yolk doesn’t get as hard. You could theoretically also poach eggs in your rice cooker, though poaching an egg is already a daunting task.
Vegetables
You can both boil and steam vegetables in a rice cooker. To do this, you will be best off putting the vegetables in the rice cooker along with some cold water and letting them heat up together.
The best vegetables to boil in a rice cooker are carrots, potatoes, and radishes. You could also use boiling water to blanch vegetables like eggplant or collard greens.
While you’re boiling vegetables below, you can use the steaming basket up top. The basket is most often used to steam vegetables that get added to the rice.
A popular method of cooking with the rice cooker is to cook your rice below and let the steam cook your vegetables. You can combine them from there, making the perfect side or base dish and saving you the hassle of cleaning an extra pot.
Pasta
Another thing that a rice cooker is commonly used to make is pasta. When you’re making pasta in the rice cooker, though, don’t put your pasta into the cold water like you would the vegetables, or it’ll get mushy.
You can make any kind of pasta in a rice cooker, and if you use the steaming basket, you won’t even have to dirty a strainer.
Macaroni and cheese is a classic non-rice-related dish for the rice cooker because it can be done all in one place. You can boil your water and any stock you use simultaneously, creating the perfect broth base.
Then you drop in your pasta, do a little straining, and add the components for your cheese sauce right into the rice cooker. That method also works for other messy pasta dishes, like spaghetti and alfredo.
What’s the Difference Between a Rice Cooker and a Pressure Cooker?
Rice cookers and pressure cookers seem similar at a glance, but the only real similarity between the two cookers is how they look. They are almost identical; both have the same structure and even some of the same settings.
Unfortunately for people who want it all in one, rice cookers and pressure cookers are not the same. A pressure cooker is used for cooking all types of food as efficiently as possible, and in doing so, it uses pressure.
The pressure destroys harmful bacteria on your food, so you don’t have to worry about getting sick as long as you use it properly.
That aspect of a pressure cooker means that you could also use it to sterilize other items in your home. Since the lid seals tightly, it also seals in the flavors of your food.
Rice cookers are just meant to steam food and cook rice. They have specific settings for different types of rice and automatic shut-off features. Since rice cookers do boil water, they reach just above the boiling point to cook your rice, while a pressure cooker gets much hotter than that.
Can a Pressure Cooker Cook Rice?
In a pinch, a pressure cooker can be used to cook rice. However, since you don’t have timers and automatic shut-off features specifically designed for it, you need to pay extra attention as it cooks.
It’s remarkably easy to overcook rice in a pressure cooker. You might also find that the texture of your rice is different than it’s supposed to be, and some grains will explode under pressure.
Reaching the Boiling Point
Rice cookers boil the water for you. The rice is cooked as the water heats, which allows it to cook more evenly than it would if you just poured the rice into the boiling water.
However, rice cookers barely go past the boiling point of water, which doesn’t make them ideal for cooking most other foods.
Cooking rice perfectly is a hard skill to master, and it might seem like you’re reaching your own boiling point when it comes to your frustration. Always remember what kind of texture you want to achieve before you choose what kind of rice to buy and cook; from there, the rest falls into place.