I have never heard of cooking meat in a rice cooker/steamer. I wouldn't personally be interested to try it. I love it just for rice (perfect rice every time without having to stir, monitor, fiddle with the stove) and sometimes asparagus or fresh green beans. (3 minutes on those veg.)

It's worth having just for those two things. I wouldn't recommend cooking several things at once--I'd stick with a crock pot for that.

~Amanda

I have a two level steamer which I mostly use for steaming vegetables. I can put small potatoes and carrots in the bottom and cook for awhile before adding the top segment in which I may cook broccoli or another veggie for the same meal.

I cook rice in the microwave. I cook meat in more traditional ways.

I wouldn't think that cooking meat would be a good idea, I think mostly you would only be able to cook something like Salmon or Shrimp or something that cooks very quickly. You may be able to find some information at the Zojirushi website. They have manuals and recipes there. Zojirushi is kind of the King of rice cookers.

My rice cooker has a steam basket that sits on top of the pot. Mostly I just cook rice, but sometimes I steam vegetables in the basket while cooking rice. Since the vegetables require less cooking time, I add the basket toward the end of cooking the rice.

A rice cooker, even without a steam basket, is a great convenience. Just set it and forget it at the start of meal preparation. Providing the rest of the preparations take 20 minutes, the rice will be cooked and ready to serve when you want it.

Jim

I don't know about full meals....but, you most definitely can cook Jambalaya (main course) in an electric rice cooker.

Dan
Semper Fi-cus

I think it's mostly a matter of choosing meats and vegetables that take similar or less time than the rice to cook. I can see putting in cubes of chicken, cooking it with chicken broth, adding sliced summer squash, some mushroom, and having a nice meal when it's done.

Oh man Dan, now I want Jambalaya. So, you could also do a mexican style adding tomato sauce, your favorite mexican spices, thin sliced pork, etc. I think the idea has lots of possibilities. I need to drag my rice cooker out and try some things. Christy keeps asking me not to take it out because she doesn't want to fit it back in the pantry in the spot it's in now, but I think it's a good idea for summer. I'll just have to find a more accessible place for it to 'rest'.

Yes, I use one but I've only used it for rice, veggies and to make "hard boiled" eggs.

Over the course of a year I will cook literally hundreds of pounds of rice. Most of that is cooked in 20 pound batches in large cast iron kettles. I also own and regularly use several electric rice cookers in various sizes. The largest will cook 3 lbs of rice. I like to cook Cajun style potatoes in my electric rice cookers because of the "special flavor" that develops in them. It comes from the "browning" that occurs during the cooking cycle. The taste is very unique and absolutely delicious.

With that said...........

THE MOST HANDIEST rice cooker of them all are my "microwave" rice cookers. I am single and use a 6-cup rice cooker the most. I can cook 1 to 6 cooked cups of rice in it......which meets most of my needs. It is made out of inert high temperature plastic and has a lid & insert that by design, allows steam to "circulate", creating the perfect steam cooking environment. It has locking handles to keep the lid secure. It comes with a graduated cup for measuring the rice and water.....and it comes with a rice spoon for fluffing it up. And best of all; since it is made out of inert high temperature plastic, you can store any left over rice in the cooker right in the refrigerator. AND since it is made out of that high temperature plastic, cooked rice CANNOT STICK. So cleanup is super simple. And when you want to use that leftover rice, just put a couple of TBS of water in the container and heat it backup in the microwave for a couple of minutes. Rice will taste as good as if freshly cooked.

These microwave rice cookers are very VERY cheap.......only 6 dollars at Walmart. They are made by Miracle Ware.....with Main-Stays Home the brand name. These do not take of much space on the shelf. Don't let the cheap price fool you.....this is a well made, high quality product and it will cook rice perfectly every time with absolutely no attention.

Again, this is "THE BEST DEVICE" for cooking perfect rice every time...since sliced bread. IMO, everybody should have one of these microwave rice cookers. Now the electric rice cookers are great too. However, they take up much more room and you should not store any leftover rice in its aluminum cooking pot in the refrigerator. And they are not as easy to clean up since rice will stick to the aluminum cooking insert.

My microwave is used only to boil water, warm up leftovers & TV dinners, make roux, and cook rice. It is used most often for cooking my small batches of rice........only takes 15 minutes to cook a batch......and takes less than 1 minute to clean it.

Dan
Semper Fi-cus

I never liked the texture of rice from a rice cooker.

I have used my bread maker's bake cycle to make rice.

The best for me I have found is to use my pressure cooker to "steam rice". You can make any quantity you want, up to the capacity of your PC. You can make one table spoon of rice, if you need only one table spoon.

With a PC, you can easily make corrections. If the rice is too hard, just add more water and put it back in the PC and cook again,

dcarch

Mannnnn, I am a master at getting rice to the proper texture. You get that way from cooking literally hundreds of pounds of rice per year. When it is cooked properly each rice grain should split along the kernel seam. This will cause it to puff a little. That is what gives rice the right "mouth feel" that is so important in Jambalaya cooking competition. There should be absolutely no trace of any hardness in each grain of rice. There is no such thing as "al dente" rice.

After the timer off bell rings on an electric rice cooker....wait a few minutes then gently stir the rice by lifting from the bottom to the top. Don't stir rapidly to mix it....just gently lift it from the bottom to the top. Kind of like folding something into a meringue. This will open up some steaming holes. After this gently mixing, push the on (cook) button again. When it goes off the second time......the texture should be perfect. This "second heating" is what causes the rice to split at its seams. This is the step that most people simply do not know about and it does affect the texture of the final cooked rice. Most people are perfectly satisfied with its first texture....that follows after the gently stir and NOT pushing the cook button the secnd time. IMO, YOU MUST at least MIX the rice and let it set for 10 minutes before serving. It takes a rice Jambalaya cooking expert like me to tell ya about this trick. Mess up the texture of rice in my area and you might as well move back to Canada....the ancestral home of the Cajuns. Most Cajuns will refuse to eat rice that is not cooked properly.

If that texture still is not to your satisfaction, you need to adjust the "water to rice ratio" (by volume). That is very easy to do. That ratio can vary anywhere between 1:1 and up to 2:1....it just depends on "HOW" the rice is being cooked. And, it is perfectly OK to add a bit more water to the rice cooker and push that button again......if the texture was not to your satisfaction.

You can also manipulate rice "texture" by using different size grades of rice. The short grains will cook softer.....and the extra long grain ones will cook drier, with each grain separate.

Cajuns know so much about rice, that they can look at a rice field and tell you exactly how much gravy it will take to cover it after it is all cooked. Or, exactly how many tons of red or white beans will be needed for that amount of rice!!

Dan
Semper Fi-cus

Could those of you that have posted tell me what brand of rice cooker you have and why you like it? I've been searching on Amazon for a cooker and don't know what to choose.

I own and use three Hitachi electric rice cookers of varying sizes.....with the 23 cup being the largest. Been using these work horses for years. They will produce excellent cooked rice. Never had the occasion to use any other brand of electric cooker........

Dan
Semper Fi-cus

Thank you, Dan. :)

Well, we kind of got off topic (but thank you, Dan for a great lesson in rice making!)
Thank you Ark girl. I'll look into the Jojirushi site.
I've been told by some people that you can easily cook a whole meal in one and it's much healthier than, say a crockpot (where everything kinda sits in the liquid).
I'll be trying things out, probably during the winter when grilling season is over. Nancy