Buzz
Oatmeal fans, I have exciting news: if overnight oats were a game-changer in your morning routine, you’ll be thrilled to discover yet another method to enjoy them. It turns out you can easily cook oatmeal in most rice cookers—if you have a little time to spare, that is.
Why choose a rice cooker for oatmeal?
This method is perfect for those juggling a busy morning or preparing meals in advance. It’s especially useful for serving three to six people or making a big batch for meal prep. Keep in mind, a more advanced rice cooker with multiple settings works best (we’ll dive into that in a bit).
Cooking oats in a rice cooker is a convenient, hands-off approach, allowing you to set it up and leave it to do its job while you focus on other tasks. It's a simple solution, especially when your stove isn't available or working, and ensures your breakfast is ready with minimal effort.
How do you prepare oatmeal in a rice cooker?
Oats behave like rice in that they absorb liquid until they soften and break apart. Be sure to leave enough space for the oats to expand. Accurate measurements of your water-to-oat ratio are key. I used Bob’s Red Mill steel cut oats (Golden Spurtle fans, right?) and followed the ratio on the packaging. For me, one cup of oats to two and a half cups of water worked perfectly, though you can reduce the liquid by up to half a cup if you prefer a firmer consistency.
Cooking oatmeal in a rice cooker definitely works, but there is one catch.
The oatmeal turned out to be just how I like it—perfectly tender, piping hot, and with a thick consistency. However, there were a couple of hiccups along the way. As I mentioned before, my rice cooker is small and quite old. It's also very basic, offering only two settings: “on” and “warm.” Until I tried making oatmeal, those were the only options I needed.
Naturally, I set the rice cooker to “on” and left. About 20 minutes later, I was browsing my spice cabinet when I suddenly heard sizzling and gurgling sounds. Turns out, my rice cooker had started leaking starchy oat juice. If you’ve ever boiled potatoes, pasta, or any starchy food and accidentally left the lid on too long, you know exactly what it looked like—bubbles forming from the boiling water that eventually build up and spill over. To prevent this, you need to boil without a lid, or at least partially covered, but that’s tricky with a rice cooker since it depends on sealed steam for even cooking. So, this method works best with newer rice cookers that have medium to low-temperature settings—not just “on” and “warm.” Some even have specific “oatmeal” settings, which is a nice bonus.
Rice cookers with just one setting tend to take longer to cook oatmeal.
If you’re using an old rice cooker like mine, you have two choices. You can cook the oatmeal on high (“on” for me) for 10 to 20 minutes (while keeping a watchful eye) and then switch to “warm” for another 50 minutes, stirring occasionally to prevent the oatmeal from bubbling over. Alternatively, you can set it to “warm” from the start and wait forever—well, not literally, but a considerable amount of time—until you can finally enjoy your oatmeal.
Modern rice cookers tend to create less mess compared to older models.
I tried another batch with rolled oats using a newer rice cooker. Rolled oats cook into a softer consistency, so keep that in mind if you switch varieties. I followed a simple 1:2 ratio of oats to water and placed it in the rice cooker.
Some rice cookers come with a preset specifically for oatmeal, which can be quite useful. Unfortunately, mine doesn’t have that. Instead, there are options for mixed grains, porridge, or quick cook settings. The first two settings take over an hour, which feels excessive for just rolled oats, so I chose 'quick cook' and monitored for any oat juice overflow.
Fortunately, the ventilation system on my Toshiba appears to be more sophisticated compared to my other cooker. There was no mess, and when the timer sounded, my oatmeal was done. I didn't consume it immediately, but the machine switched to the "warm" setting automatically. By the time I got to it, I hadn't actually cooked it myself, and it turned out to be a delightfully comforting start to my morning.
This approach to making oatmeal isn't as quick as cooking it in a pot on the stove. In the end, it seems best suited for preparing a large batch of breakfast at a relaxed pace, or if you're just too uninterested in standing over a stove.
