Imagine you are super hungry and you want rice as soon as possible or maybe you want your rice to be prepared for eating any time of the day. So, waiting for the rice to be ready is going to be 15 to 20 minutes or no time at all.
Imagine another situation where you live alone and you want your favorite soup, stew or broth or delicious rice, millet, or meat dishes in one pot without compromising the taste. But you don’t want to be tensed about getting burnt or overcooking. This is where a slow cooker or a crackpot comes useful.
People get confused quite a lot with the usage of rice cookers and a crackpot. There has been a lot of debate throughout the decades that is the best appliance to cook among these two.
Heating technique: Rice cooker vs Crackpot
In the case of a rice cooker, the technique of heat used can be either inductive heating or getting heat from the built-in hotplate beneath the rice pot. In cultures where rice is the main dish for most meals of the day, a rice cooker is a must-have item. While it can cook other items than rice but most people don’t use it that way because of its quick heating and auto cut-off in some models as that may not be the correct type of cooking for the food you are preparing.
Crackpots otherwise known as a slow cooker as the name suggests are a perfect appliance perfect for slow cooking. The heating coils in this appliance get heated a lot slower than the rice cooker. Crackpots are used in households because of its advantage of saving money and electricity while cooking food with preset timers. You can set the timer and leave it to cook or go to work without worrying. That’s why it is preferred by a lot of home cooks to make meat stews, ox bone soups, fish soup, or that is cooked for a long time including foods that can be cooked in a short time.
Which one is better?
The short answer is it depends on your usage and what type of cooking you do.
Rice Cooker aims to cook or boil perfectly with the short amount of time possible making it convenient for boiling rice, lentils, millet, and other grains.
On the other side, crackpot uses the method of slow cooking which has been seen as a very healthy way of cooking. It circulates the heat evenly and making sure all of the food is cooked evenly.
Maybe many people use both rice cookers and crackpot for similar purposes that are boiling grains and also can be used to cook additional things such as fried rice, porridges, lentil soups, and chicken soup and different broths.
Advantages & Disadvantages:
Rice Cooker
Advantages :
Cooks the rice instantly with easily programmable settings.
Most rice cookers come with features for keeping the rice warm up to 12 hours. This makes it easy to make the rice at once for the whole day.
Many models have features for also steaming vegetables, fish.
Disadvantages:
The bottom rice can burn if you are not careful.
The size of the cooker can be confusing. It’s hard to choose the right size. Make sure to go through the details before buying.
Crackpot
Advantages :
You can cook all the one-pot dishes of any duration.
Crackpot is a great electrical appliance for slow cooking. Most models come with timers to preset and cook making slow cooking trouble-free.
You can stir, saute, simmer and boil food. If you are slow-cooking there are very low chances of overcooking or burning.
Disadvantages:
If you want to cook rice or other grains quickly, that’s not possible.
Sometimes cooking meat or vegetables for a very long duration can cause loss of micronutrients.
Now, you can easily decide the usage of both appliances. It is important to understand their differences and benefits to use them both correctly. None of them can fill in for the other.
