The Best Zojirushi Rice Cookers of 2025, Tested & Reviewed

If you’ve looked into buying a rice cooker, odds are you’ve stumbled across the internet’s sage advice on the subject: “Just buy a Zojirushi.” Heard, but which one? Founded more than 100 years ago, the Japanese appliance maker sells 20 different models ranging from $55 to $800, and, believe it or not, there are differences between them beyond size and number of buttons. 

If you’re in a hurry, here’s the one-sentence version of this story: The tiny-but-mighty 3-Cup Rice Cooker offers excellent value, but the pricier and roomier Zojirushi NP-HCC10XH is superior if you eat multiple varieties of rice.

I tested six of the brand’s most popular options to get a better sense of the similarities, differences, and value each offered. Here’s what I found. 

The Tests 

• Max Quantity Short Grain Rice Test: I cooked the maximum volume of white rice that each model allowed. Most rice makers are either three-, 5.5-, or 10-cup machines, but I tested three- and 5.5-cup options, as these are more common in residential settings. I noted the cooked rice’s wetness and consistency, and I evaluated the machine’s ease of cleaning.
• Minimum Quantity Short Grain Rice Test: I also cooked the minimum volume of white rice that each pot allowed. Sometimes this number isn’t stated in the manual, so I used the etched marking inside the cooking pot. Every rice cooker I tested can cook a minimum of one cup of uncooked rice (though many Zojirushi enthusiasts say you can cook less than this with a little experimenting). Again, I evaluated the texture and consistency of the rice, and the machine’s ease of cleaning.
• Brown Rice Test: A good rice maker can whip up more than just sushi and jasmine rice. In this test, I aimed to identify significant differences between the rice cookers when challenged with a simple cup of brown basmati rice. I again rated the models on cook time, evenness of cooking, rice texture, special features, and ease of cleaning.
• Keep Warm Test: Making a pot of rice for the day is commonplace, but keeping a pot of rice at a pleasant temperature without degrading the quality of the cooked rice is a tricky task. For this test, I left cooked rice in the rice cookers and set them to “Keep Warm” for the maximum allowable duration. I then compared the quality of the rice after it sat in each of the models I tested.

Our Favorite Zojirushi Rice Cookers 

After testing, this was our clear Goldilocks rice cooker. It’s big enough to cook for a family but deft with single-person servings as well. It makes delicate and classic short-grain white rice as well as it does steel-cut oatmeal, long-grain brown rice, and even quinoa. It’s the most affordable Zojirushi to feature an induction heating system and an upgraded heavy cooking pot. To top it all off, its Keep Warm setting is customizable (meaning you can tell it to keep the rice warm, not to melt the rice on the bottom of the pot). And, best of all, it doesn’t come with a $400-plus price tag. 

Best For: This model will please anyone who enjoys a wide variety of rice and grains, along with a little flexibility in terms of personalized programming. The quality of the cooked rice scored highly across the board. When evaluating a product line for a company, our goal is to find the product that delivers the most features at the lowest cost, and this is the product from Zojirushi. 

Challenges or Shortcomings: This model is $100 to $500 cheaper than the rest of the brand’s induction-heated rice cookers, most likely because it contains more plastic parts than pricier versions The cooking pot is made of steel and aluminum, but the exterior is made of black plastic. This didn’t affect cooking, but it does feel cheaper, and I’m guessing it’s also why this machine was noticeably noisier than all but the cheapest rice cooker I tested. Think of it as the Subaru BRZ of rice cookers—a performance-first machine without some of the comfort features of its more expensive competition.

Its nooks and crannies are more prone to buildup than some other models from the brand, but nothing a minute or two of focused cleaning can’t handle. 

Key Specs

• Uncooked rice capacity: 5.5 cups
• Cooked rice capacity: 11 cups
• Dimensions: 12.25 x 9.25 x 7.88 inches
• Cord length: 3 feet, 7 inches 
• Settings: White, Quick, Sushi/Sweet, Mixed, Jasmine, Quick Jasmine, Congee, Brown, GABA Brown, Steel-Cut Oatmeal, Quinoa, Steam 
• Accessories: Rice measuring cup, spatula, steam basket
• Cooking pot material: Aluminum with PTFE (Teflon) interior coating and stainless steel exterior coating

If the $375 induction-heated, preprogrammed supercomputer rice cooker made you second-guess Zojirushi, the OG 3-Cup Rice Cooker will be your champion. It’s tiny, dead-simple, and free from the excesses of high-tech kitchen appliances. Plug it in, toss in some rice and water, flick the switch down, and wait half an hour (or less) for perfect rice.

Best For: Solo chefs or couples who can’t be bothered with a screen full of options and want their rice ASAP will appreciate this model. The 3-Cup is perfect for home cooks who are short on countertop space and time. It’s the smallest, most affordable, and fastest Zojirushi rice cooker on the market. We loved the short-grain white rice it turned out, especially because it struck a balance between moist and firm that no other Zojirushi model we tested could compete with. 

Challenges or Shortcomings: It’s not perfect. Brown rice, especially non-short-grain brown rice, was just OK in the 3-Cup, which can only handle two cups of brown rice. (It expands much more than white rice.) I’m guessing this is brown rice’s longer cooking time at work, which exposes the weakness of the simple bottom-up heating system. Beyond that, I’d recommend eating the rice fairly soon after it’s finished cooking—the Keep Warm function runs a bit hot, and there’s no way to adjust it. 

Key Specs

• Uncooked rice capacity: 3 cups
• Cooked rice capacity: 6 cups
• Dimensions: 7.5 x 9.18 x 7.5 inches
• Cord length: 3 feet, 7 inches 
• Settings: Single switch cooking; automatic keep warm function 
• Accessories: Rice measuring cup, spatula, steam basket
• Cooking pot material: Aluminum with PTFE (Teflon) coating

This rice cooker sits at the low end of the high end. It pulls together computer-driven cooking with a gentle induction heating system and every preprogrammed cook mode you could want. 

Best For: Home cooks with a passion for rice will love this machine, but if you only make rice twice a week, it’s probably overkill for your needs. The 5.5-cup version of this cooker turned out excellent short-grain rice when filled with minimum and maximum volumes of rice, then did it again with brown basmati, and again with jasmine rice. I even dumped wild rice, which the machine isn’t preprogrammed to cook, and it came out floral, tender, and delicious. (Use the brown rice setting for best results.) Beyond the settings and induction heating system, the cooking pot itself plays a role here. It’s about 50% heavier than most mid-level Zojirushi rice makers, providing better heat retention and more even heat distribution—two things that you typically want out of a vessel cooking a food as finicky as rice.  

Challenges or Shortcomings: It’s $375! That’s a lot, and there’s no real way around that. To a lesser degree, I’d note the small learning curve involved in making the kind of rice you want. This machine includes a lot of settings and features, and Zojirushi’s instruction manuals aren’t always the most helpful. (I found the answers to most of my questions on Reddit and cooking forums from 20 years ago.) 

Key Specs

• Uncooked rice capacity: 5.5 cups
• Cooked rice capacity: 10 to 11 cups
• Dimensions: 14 x 10 x 8 inches
• Cord length: 3 feet, 3 inches
• Settings: White (regular, softer, harder), quick, mixed, sushi, porridge, sweet, brown, gaba brown 
• Accessories: Rice measuring cup, spatula, spatula holder, steam basket
• Cooking pot material: Aluminum with PTFE (Teflon) interior coating and stainless steel exterior coating

Though attaching the phrase “fan favorite” to a rice cooker feels forced, it’s a well-earned descriptor for the Neuro Fuzzy. The name is a reference to the mathematical term “fuzzy logic,” which controls the rice cooking process in real time.

Best For: Though the Neuro Fuzzy comes with plenty of preprogrammed cooking modes, it’s best for folks who love Japanese-style rice: short- and medium-grain rice cooked to soft, slightly sticky, chewy perfection. 

Challenges or Shortcomings: The flip side? If you like firmer, dryer rice, the Neuro Fuzzy isn’t for you. You can cut back on water to eke out a rice texture you prefer, which kind of worked in testing, but it’s not worth it. The rice cooker excels at making fluffy rice for eating with chopsticks. If that’s not how you eat rice, there are other Zojirushi models to choose from. 

Key Specs

• Uncooked rice capacity: 5.5 cups
• Cooked rice capacity: 11 cups
• Dimensions: 13 inches x 10.13 inches x 8.13 inches
• Cord length: 3 feet, 3 inches
• Settings: Keep warm, extended keep warm, white rice, reg/sushi, softer, harder, quick cooking, mixed, porridge, sweet, semibrown, brown 
• Accessories: Rice measuring cup, pre-washed rice measuring cup, spatula, spatula holder
• Cooking pot material: Aluminum with PTFE (Teflon) coating

The sibling to the lovable three-cup cooker, this 5.5-cup bottom-up rice cooker is another no-nonsense cooking tool, featuring exactly one button. 

Best For: This is effectively a larger version of the 3-Cup Rice Cooker I chose as the best budget option, so if you want a lot of well-cooked short- and medium-grain white rice and don’t want to spend a few hundred dollars, this is probably your best bet.

Challenges or Shortcomings: Cooking at max capacity (5.5 cups dry rice), the rice we got out of this machine was fairly inconsistent: some very mushy, some firm, some nearly melted. This may be due to the limitations of the traditional bottom-up heating systems, as the rice at the bottom was moist and fluffy, while the rice on top was dry and dense.

Another quibble: The lid refuses to stay open while you’re prepping rice and water for it. 

Key Specs

• Uncooked rice capacity: 5.5 cups
• Cooked rice capacity: 11 cups
• Dimensions: 10.25 inches x 10.25 inches x 10.25 inches
• Cord length: 3 feet, 7 inches 
• Settings: Single switch cooking; automatic keep warm function 
• Accessories: Rice measuring cup, spatula, and spatula holder
• Cooking pot material: Aluminum with PTFE (Teflon) coating

This is Zojirushi’s middle-of-the-road rice maker. I scored it average to good on each performance test, which is more or less in line with popular sentiment around the product.

Best For: Someone who likes pre-programmed features and a pleasing stainless steel exterior.

Challenges or Shortcomings: There aren’t many glaring issues with this product, but in testing and in side-by-side comparisons, it was bested by some of the brand’s other rice cookers, including my top choice. 

If you’re looking for an all-around great 5.5-cup rice cooker with lots of programs and functions, my top pick, the NW-QAC10 Induction Cooker, is more versatile and scored better in testing than this model. Upgrading from this one to the winner will cost about $25. 

Key Specs

• Uncooked rice capacity: 5.5 cups
• Cooked rice capacity: 11 cups 
• Dimensions: 14 inches x 10.13 inches x 8.5 inches
• Cord length: 3 feet, 7 inches 
• Settings: White sushi, quick, porridge, mixed, cake, brown, steam, sweet 
• Accessories: Rice measuring cup, spatula, steam basket
• Cooking pot material: Aluminum with PTFE (Teflon) coating

FAQs

How long does it take a Zojirushi rice cooker to make rice?

This depends on the style of Zorjirushi rice cooker and the amount and variety of rice you’re cooking. Take our two top picks as an example: A cup or two of short-grain Calrose cooks in roughly 30 minutes in the electric 3-Cup Rice Cooker, but the same type and volume of rice takes about an hour in the induction-heated, fuzzy logic-powered Neuro Fuzzy. With rice cookers, speed is earned at the cost of consistency and quality. The speedy 3-Cup cooker simply turns on and brings the heat up until the rice absorbs the boiling water. The higher-end model’s cook time includes soaking, a ramp-up period, simmering, and a brief rest period before the rice is ready.

Please read this, then read it again: Zojirushi rice cookers do not make rice faster than any other rice cooker or cooking rice on a stovetop. 

Do I need to soak the rice before putting it in a Zojirushi rice cooker? 

This depends on the model you have. The brand’s one-button cookers do not have a presoak function, but all of the programmable options do. How do you know which type you have? If the machine only has an “On” button, you should soak the rice beforehand; if the machine features a dozen buttons or a screen, there’s no need to soak. That said, in most cases, you should still wash your rice before cooking. 

Should you buy a Zojirushi rice cooker?

Zojirushi rice cookers are reliable, consistent, and turn out high-quality rice. I’d recommend them to most home cooks. That said, if you have a strong preference for drier, more al dente rice, I’d seek out a rice cooker from a Western brand, like the Serious Eats favorite Hamilton Beach Programmable Rice Cooker.

Why We’re the Experts

• Will Price has been testing, breaking, and reviewing cooking gear for more than a decade. He’s written reviews and guides for juicers, blenders, knives, every kind of grill, and more. Before he was a product reviewer, he made cast iron cookware by hand in a garage in South Carolina. 
• For this guide, we tested six popular Zojirushi rice cookers. After months of cooking, our two favorites were the budget-friendly 3-Cup Rice Cooker and the more programmable and more powerful Zojirushi NP-HCC10XH. 
• Though our baseline tests for each rice cooker remained consistent, we also tested some of the devices’ specialized cook modes for quinoa, congee, steel-cut oats, etc.