What is the Best Sushi Rice Cooker, The Top 5 Brands

Craving for some homemade sushi for dinner? In this new post we will get to know what is the best sushi rice cooker for this delectable appetizer. Enjoy your reading 🙂

Sushi vs. Sashimi

I’m pretty sure most of you confuse sushi and sashimi all the time; however sushi is different from the latter. Sashimi is made with raw fish, usually salmon or tuna and sometimes raw meat and shrimp, served without rice.

Sushi on the other hand, is not always raw. It is rather made of rice garnished with vinegar and mixed with other ingredients (which may include cooked and uncooked fish, shrimp, meat, and vegetables).

Both are Japanese cuisines wherein sushi began around the 8^th century in Japan but the original version dates back earlier in some parts of Southeast Asia that spread to South China by means of preserved salted fish that is wrapped in fermented rice known to be Narezushi.

The fermented rice keeps the fish from spoiling for a few months which is then discarded and only the fish is eaten.

Sushi became a fast food that was invented by Hanaya Yohei in Tokyo that was called nigiri zushi. He made sushi that can be eaten using the fingers or chopsticks and did not use fermented rice so everyone in Tokyo can eat in fast-paced and in public.

Since then, a lot of sushi versions came out that everyone around the world is craving for. But did you know that there is actually a sushi rice cooker?

Sushi is all about the right combination of rice and other key ingredients that make it a perfect appetizer. Find out which type of rice is great for sushi and what is the best sushi rice cooker.

The Best Rice for Sushi

The secret to the best sushi is the rice. It has to be the perfect rice in order to compliment well with other ingredients.

Sushi rice is white rice dressed with seasoned vinegar however; there is a lot of rice being sold in the market today that are labelled as ‘Sushi rice’.

This type of rice is called sushi-meshi, su-meshi, or, shari in Japan. In the US, Calrose rice is often considered or labelled ‘sushi rice’ as it resembles the grains used in original sushi rice.

If you cannot find any sushi rice at the groceries, then choose the white medium-grain Calrose rice. Be careful in buying other sushi rice brands as well; make sure that it is the ‘vinegared’ type.

List of Best Sushi Rice Cooker

We have already learned more about sushi and what type of rice is perfect but we haven’t answered the question ‘What is the best sushi rice cooker’ yet. We know that there are so many kinds of rice cookers today and most of them have special features to showcase.

Below are the top 5 best sushi rice cookers that I have compiled according to their uses, features, and of course ability to cook the best sushi rice.

Tiger JBV-A10/18U Rice Cooker

This particular model has lesser menu settings limited to white and brown rice.

However, as said in a previous blog on best rice cookers, this doesn’t mean that it will fail on cooking rare rice varieties like sushi rice.

In fact since Tiger JBV-A10 is one of the best rice cookers for white rice, and that includes sushi rice is of course.

This smart technology has synchro-cooking function called ‘tacook’ which can cook rice and main dish at the same time.

Although, Tiger JBV-A10 is a great sushi rice cooker, you are still required to manually cook the rice perfectly enough for your sushi. It can still get better when there is a rice cooker dedicated to cooking sushi rice as well.

Aroma ARC-5000 Pro Plus Rice Cooker

As said, this model comes with a sushi setting and is provided with its own button as seen in the rice cooker’s digital control panel.

Another great quality of this rice cooker is that you can steam vegetables and meats while your rice is being cooked.

This is possible since Aroma ARC-5000 comes with a steam tray that will let you cook the meat or fish for your sushi as desired.

Zojirushi Rice Cookers

The remaining rice cookers below all came from the same manufacturer – the Zojirushi Corporation.

They are known for introducing smart innovations of rice cookers into 4 different systems:

• Pressure + Induction Heating (IH) + Micro-computerized (Micom)
• IH + Micom
• Micom
• Conventional

Zojirushi has developed these powerful rice cookers that can cook all rice varieties into perfection with multi-function settings.

Despite being a bit expensive, one cannot deny that this brand is really serious in developing intelligent kitchen investments.

Zojirushi NP-HCC10/18XH Rice Cooker

Under the IH + Micom type, this model is able to adjust its temperature according to the rice variety with multi-menu cooking settings and digital control panel.

With this, you will be able to cook your sushi rice perfectly.

Zojirushi NS-ZCC10/18 Rice Cooker

This rice cooker is developed with a neuro-fuzzy logic technology that “thinks” for itself.

This model is equipped with a computer chip, or a thermal sensor to be precise, that can detect the rice variety enabling it to adjust and calculate the temperature and cooking time.

In addition, the Zojirushi NS-ZCC10/18 was ranked by experts as the second best Japanese rice cooker!

Zojirushi NS-TSC10/18 Rice Cooker

The last one on the list and another Micom type rice cooker is the Zojirushi NS-TSC10/18 which has proven its ability time and time again in cooking great sushi rice.

Experts all around the world rank it as, if not the better, one of the best sushi rice cookers.

So there you have it. I think after reading through my top 5, you’ve noticed that the best sushi rice cooker is the Zojirushi NS-TSC10/18.

Wrap Up

However, cooking sushi does not entirely depend on the rice cooker. This kitchen equipment aids us in making the process easier and better. It still takes passion and love for cooking to make the perfect dish.

These rice cookers are all great in their own special ways and it all depends on your needs on which device is better for you. We only made your choices clear and simple.

Got any more tips, comments, and suggestions you might want to share? Do comment them down below; we’d love to hear about it!