You Can Cook Oatmeal in a Rice Cooker
Oatmeal lovers, I have good news for you: if you were excited when oatmeal was added to your arsenal of grains, you may not be able to resist when you learn that there is another way to prepare it. It turns out that oatmeal can be easily cooked in most rice cookers. (Assuming you have free time.)
Why cook oatmeal in a rice cooker?
This cooking method is a great solution for those who multitask and have a busy morning schedule. This is especially great if you want to feed a group of three to six people or if you’re preparing a large batch of food. Keep in mind that this works best with a more advanced rice cooker that has multiple settings (we’ll talk more about this later).
Cooking oats in a rice cooker is beneficial because it’s an automatic cooking method, so it’s perfectly safe to walk away from it while it’s running. It’s easy to set up and allows you to immerse yourself in other tasks while you wait for breakfast. If for some reason your stove is broken or you don’t have one, then this electrical appliance can certainly help.
How to cook oatmeal in a rice cooker?
Oats act similarly to rice: they continually absorb water until they burst and fall apart. In this case, plan enough space for the oats to swell as usual, and be as precise in measuring the ratio of liquid to oats. I used Bob’s Red Mill steel cut oats (amirite for Golden Spurtle fans?) and followed the cooking proportions on the back of the package. One cup of oats to two and a half cups of water worked well for me, although you can reduce the liquid to half a cup if you prefer a stiffer oatmeal.
Cooking oatmeal in a rice cooker works, but there is one drawback.
The resulting oatmeal was as perfect as it gets: creamy, hot, and thick in consistency. How I like it. However, I encountered a couple of obstacles along the way. As I mentioned earlier, I have a small rice cooker. It’s old. Besides, it’s very simple. My rice cooker offers a choice between on and warm, and until I added oatmeal to it, that was all the setting I needed.
Naturally, I turned it on and left. About 20 minutes later, I was looking through my spice cabinet when I heard a distinct sizzling and gurgling sound. Turns out my rice cooker was spewing starchy oat juice. If you’ve ever cooked potatoes, pasta, or other high-starch foods and accidentally covered them for too long, then you know what it looks like: bubbles from the boiling water turn into starch bubbles that layer on top of each other and form eventually push yourself out of the pot. To avoid this, you’ll have to cook uncovered, or at least with the lid half-closed, but this isn’t really an option for a rice cooker since it uses steam to ensure even cooking. This makes the rice cooker method best suited to newer machines with medium and low heat options—more settings than just “on” and “warm.” (Some now offer special “bunting” settings, which is nice.)
Single burner rice cookers may take longer.
If you have an old rice cooker like I do, you have two options. You can cook it over high heat (which is “on” for me) for 10-20 minutes (while keeping a close eye on it) and then turn the heat down to “warm” (to avoid an oat volcano) for another 50 minutes. , stirring occasionally. Another option is to set it to “warm” from the start and wait until a significant portion of your life has passed before you can enjoy oatmeal.
New rice cookers may be less messy
I made another batch, this time with oats, in a more modern rice cooker. Oatmeal becomes softer when cooked, so keep this in mind if you change the type. I used a simple 1:2 ratio of oats to water and added it to the rice cooker container.
Some rice cookers have an oatmeal cooking mode, which is very convenient. Of course I haven’t. Instead, there are mixed grain, porridge or instant cooking modes. The first two take over an hour, but I think that’s too much for some oats. I pressed “quick cook” and was careful not to let the oat juice spill out.
Luckily, the ventilation system on my Toshiba seems to be more advanced than the other stove. There was no mess and when the timer went off my oatmeal was ready. I didn’t eat right away, but the machine automatically pressed the “reheat” button. When I finally got around to it, I hadn’t cooked anything yet, and it turned out to be a very cozy start to my day.
This method of cooking oatmeal is not as quick as cooking it in a saucepan on the stove. Ultimately, I think it makes sense if you’re leisurely preparing a big breakfast or if you’re seriously unhappy with standing over the stove.