Brown rice can be cooked in an electric rice cooker, but which model should you buy? Which electric rice cookers are the best for cooking brown rice? In this review, we look at a few of the best electric rice cookers for cooking healthy and tasty brown rice.
Benefits Of Brown Rice
Brown rice is a healthy whole grain because it still has its bran and germ. Therefore, it has more nutritional content and is more healthy when compared to white rice. Brown rice provides more fiber, vitamin B and minerals such as magnesium and phosphorus.
Brown rice has a lower glycemic index than white rice because it contains lots of fiber and causes a slower increase in blood sugar levels. However, brown rice is more expensive than white rice because there is a much lower demand for it. Brown rice has a shorter shelf life due to the natural oils in the layer of bran, which get rancid if stored too long. White rice can be stored for much longer. Nevertheless, brown rice is probably the healthiest rice you can eat.
Cooking Brown Rice In Rice Cooker
An electric rice cooker makes the process of cooking brown rice easier. You might use an analog electric rice cooker with a simple on/off switch to cook brown rice. However, it is very important to use the rice measuring cup that is included with the rice cooker. This rice measuring cup is the same size as a 3/4 standard US cup (about 180ml). As a general guideline, you might add two measuring cups of rinsed, uncooked brown rice into the pot. Fill the inner cooking pot with 3 measuring cups of water.
The rice cooker cooks the brown rice for about 30 to 40 minutes and turns off automatically when all the water is gone. Do not let the brown rice sit in the pot on the keep warm function, but rather switch off the cooker and remove it immediately. Check the product manual of your rice cooker, it should provide guidelines for cooking brown rice.
A digital rice cooker has a control panel with menu options for cooking both white rice and brown rice. However, keep in mind that a digital rice cooker takes much longer to cook brown rice. Most digital rice cookers start with a soaking cycle at a low heat to soften the brown rice grains before cooking it. Therefore, the total cooking time for 2 cups of uncooked brown rice might be up to 90 minutes!
Aroma Rice Cooker For Brown Rice
There are a few Aroma digital rice cookers with a button for brown rice. This makes it difficult to recommend a single model as the best Aroma brown rice cooker. For example, the Aroma ARC-914SBD is a very popular, inexpensive digital rice cooker with a brown rice setting. Most people seem satisfied with the brown rice it cooks, but a few people did not like it. Nonetheless, it is a cheap digital rice cooker with a brown rice cooking button. You can learn more about it by reading our Aroma ARC-914SBD review.
The Aroma ARC616SB is an egg-shaped digital rice cooker. It has menu options for white rice, brown rice, sautéing, soup, oatmeal and cake. There are separate buttons for slow cooking or steaming food. Most people like the way it cooks brown rice: it is neither soggy nor burnt. Keep in mind that a digital rice cooker usually takes more than an hour to cook brown rice. You can read our Aroma ARC616SB review for more information.
Cuckoo Rice Cooker For Brown Rice
We decided on the Cuckoo CR-0631F digital rice cooker because it seems like the best option. It has a 3-liter or 6-cup uncooked rice capacity. There are menu options for cooking brown rice and GABA rice. The only drawback might be its pink and white color scheme (more details at Amazon).
Panasonic Rice Cooker For Brown Rice
The Panasonic SR-DF181 is a 10-cup uncooked fuzzy logic rice cooker. There is also a 5-cup uncooked rice model available (SR-DF101). Its microcomputer controls the cooking process by increasing or decreasing the amount of power used. There are six menu options to choose from: White, Brown, Quick Cook, Steam, Porridge and Soup. Its control panel provides a one-touch menu button for cooking brown rice, which provides good results (learn more at Amazon).
Tiger Rice Cooker For Brown Rice
We have chosen the Tiger JBV-A10U, which is a 5.5-cup micro-computerized rice cooker. There is also a 10-cup uncooked model available if you cook a lot of rice. Its control panel has menu buttons for Plain, Synchro-Cooking, Brown and Slow Cook/Steam. You can read our review of the Tiger JBV-A series to learn more about these Tiger rice cookers.
Zojirushi Rice Cooker For Brown Rice
The Zojirushi NS-TSC10 has a 1-liter, 5.5-cup uncooked rice capacity (there is also a larger 10-cup version). Its cooking functions are controlled by a microcomputer, which uses fuzzy logic to cook brown rice to perfection. It is worth the price when you taste the rice (view price on Amazon).
You can also read our Zojirushi NS-TSC10 review to learn more about its features and to see what we like, or dislike, about it.
Conclusion
To conclude, most electric rice cookers that have a digital control panel with buttons should be able to cook brown rice. In fact, there should be a button for the brown rice setting on the control panel, or it might be found by pressing the menu selection button until you get to the brown rice setting. Therefore, you should not have a problem with finding an electric rice cooker that can cook brown rice for you.
Thank you for reading our buying guide to electric rice cookers for brown rice.