[quacker]

Ultimately, a rice cooker is a small luxury, but:

- A rice cooker frees up a burner on the stove, which is useful for those with small apartments or other situations where there are few or no burners available.

- Rice cookers are very consistent and virtually foolproof, even the cheap ones. Add water and rice, set it, and forget it. I can say I’ve over or under cooked rice on the stove at least a few times, but not once in a rice cooker.

- Decent rice cookers make far better rice than I’ve personally ever made on the stove (and I have cooked rice on the stove plenty).

- More expensive models keep rice hot (at a food-safe temperature) for hours, so you can prep well in advance of a meal. I put rice on to cook and can leave the house for hours without worrying about it, and have rice for the whole day in one batch, if needed.

- Rice cookers also cook other things and some handle different kinds of rice. Brown rice needs to be cooked significantly differently than white rice, for example.