3 Easy Rice Cooker Meals
By Brandon Muhawi
Senior Food Writer at Pro Home Cooks
A rice cooker is a worthy investment even if only to cook plain, white rice. The convenience of making perfect, fluffy rice each time without fail cannot be understated. However, any rice cooker beyond the bottom-line models is packed with advanced technology (thermal sensors, fuzzy logic, or even induction elements) that should be utilized to your advantage in the kitchen. That rice cooker is capable of prepping complete meals in a single pot while simultaneously producing perfectly cooked rice. Not to say these types of rice dishes couldn’t be made on the stovetop, but the rice cooker’s game is convenience.
These recipes are not designed to replace the delicious, slow-cooked rice dishes that are made on a stovetop or in an oven, but instead, act as convenient meals for busy evenings or even as meal prep on a Sunday afternoon. The recipes utilize lots of pantry items or fridge/freezer staples to put together an easy and delicious meal in very few steps. There has been a recent surge of rice cooker meals around the internet, most of which fall into the congee or fried rice categories. Those are delicious dishes, but for this post, we wanted to branch out of the East Asian food idiom and inspire some rice cooker meals with different flavors.
A few tips when making these recipes or coming up with your own rice cooker creations:
- Use liberal amounts of salt. These dishes are mostly rice, and what might seem like a normal amount of salt at first will likely be underseasoned. Don’t be afraid to adjust with more salt after everything is done cooking.
- Avoid the “Quick” setting on the rice cooker. Using the “Plain” (or similar) settings on the rice cooker might take an extra 3-5 minutes of cooking time but will help ensure everything in the pot cooks evenly.
- Measure the liquid before adding other ingredients. If you add other ingredients first, the lines on the side of your rice pot are now inaccurate due to the added volume. Alternatively, you can measure the liquid separately, though your rice pot lines are designed specifically for the best ratio in the rice cooker.
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