I love to cook, but I’m not much on kitchen gadgets. Tomato corer? I use a knife. Egg steamer? What’s that even for?

But when it comes to rice, I really love a rice cooker. I had one that went in the microwave, and it worked okay. It was better than cooking it on the stove, where I always seem to either burn it or make it soggy.

When the old one died, my wife and I went shopping for a new one. We wanted it to be simple, small enough for a family of four (and easy storage), easy to clean, and cheap. You can easily spend over a hundred bucks on a rice cooker, but that’s not my price range.

We settled on the Aroma Housewares 8-cup model.  They also have 6-cup and 20-cup models, but 8-cups is about right for us, plus this model offered a steamer basket.

We were a little concerned because it claimed to do so much and yet cost so little.  We were pleasantly surprised!  It does everything it claims.  It’s easy to use and easy to clean.  And it makes perfect rice, every time.

It has settings for white rice and brown rice.  I’ve used the brown rice setting on Sri Lankan red rice, also called red samba rice, and it works just fine.  It also has a delay timer, so you can set it to start cooking later in the day, perfect for use along with a crock pot, for example, for a dinner prepped before I leave the house.

When it comes to kitchen gadgets, it takes a lot to impress me.  The Aroma rice cooker is one of the few I’ve gotten excited about.