I'm not one for writing reviews but after almost being dissuaded from purchasing this product by reading a slew of dumb reviews (like who decides to bake a potato in a rice cooker or who is confused at reading the simple instructions?) I decided to write one in the hopes that you will find this and this will help you make a decision whether to purchase or to not. I'm a simple guy who is terrible at cooking rice and has to feed a family of 6 regularly (not including the occasional guest that pops in unexpectedly). This rice cooker is awesome and I question why I waited so long to buy one. Sure, you could get a better one by dropping a couple hundred bucks on a fancy model but for what this does, it does it well. It takes about 35 minutes to cook rice for that many people. Yes, you can cook it faster by doing it the old fashioned way, but I find it very convenient to put the rice on first and just forget about it while I'm cooking the rest of the food. It makes juggling the stove much easier and frees up a burner slot so I could cook something else instead of micro-managing rice. The cup provided with the rice cooker is 3/4 the size of a regular cup of rice but even still one cup per person is more than enough. Put your rice in in and then fill the conveniently marked bowel with water up to the number of cups you used. For example, place 6 cups of rice and then fill with water up to the "6" marked line on the inside of the bowel. Easy-peasy. You DO have to rinse your rice off before you start the cooker to get rid of extra starch but this process only takes a minute or less and you don't need special tools or anything. I just put in the rice, add a bit of water, swirl it around, carefully drain the water out (the water will turn milky white), and literally rinse and repeat until the water is more or less clear upon draining. The rice comes out fluffy and great with nothing burned on the bottom of the pot. I've also cooked other things in the rice cooker as well like a beef stew and chili. Each time I cut up the meat, tossed it in, chopped up veggies, added water and spices, closed the lid and hit the "slow cooker" option. It says it will take 7 hours but a pot roast (cut into 3-5 inch cubes) only took about 4 hours to cook and the meat was just falling apart. SO GOOOOD! The instructions are simple and whenever you use this rice cooker please use the cup provided for easy measuring. Other than that it was worked great, cleans super easy, easy to operate, and does what it's supposed to do. You won't be disappointed. Hope this review helps! Also, feel free to ask me some questions if you have any. I'm no scientist but I might be able to help as well. Read more
Very easy to use and cooks rice perfectly. Automatically keeps rice warm and is easy to clean. Great for daily meals. Read more
The Aroma Housewares ARC-5000SB Professional Plus multicooker is a very good multicooker. With that said, I've considered returning once and still may return. The reason I'm thinking about returning (no fault of the cooker) is the cooker is a little larger that I thought when I purchased it. I'm in the process of consolidating my countertop cookers. I have a rice cooker, a 1.5 quart slow cooker and a 3 quart slow cooker. All of these cookers are manual. I'm would like to ideally replace them with just one cooker as long as the cooker does an adequate job and fits well. When I bought this cooker, I was under the impression that this is a 4 quart cooker as that is what's listed by Amazon. But that's incorrect as this actually is a 5 quart cooker. So, it's a little large to sit on my counter top all the time. As for the cooker besides it size,, it has a logical layout of preset buttons. The ones I've use are brown rice, steam and slow cook. A main reason I bought this cooker is it has both a low and high setting on slow cook mode. I've tried two other cookers but each only had a single temperature setting. Once didn't slow cook hot enough and the other was too hot. It is nice to have a cooker that has both settings. The cooker includes an instruction booklet, a rice laddle, and a plastic steamer basket. The booklet is understandable (not broken English like in some). The rice laddle works fine. The steamer basket works well as for withstanding the heat but I did not notice the hole are a little large say if yo wish to steam older rice. Bits of rice might all through. Not too bad, but noticeable. A big disadvantage to this cooker (like so many) is the design of having a lid that doesn't detach for cleaning. The only part of the lid that detaches is the plastic vent underside the lide. This mean to clean the lid the popular way is the wipe down under the lid. I found that instead of wiping, I'd slowly have tilt the cooker about 90 degrees enough to put the lid under soapy water while taking care to not get any water in the cooking element. That approach works but is awkward to do. I was overall happy with the results of cooking with this multicooker. Brown rice turned out good (though not as good or fast as when I used a pressure cooker). The water markings on the inner pot were pretty much not readable so I had to add not referring to them. As a steamer, that turned out good too and it's nice to have preset 5,10, 15 minutes of steam time at a touch of a button. As a slow cooker, the cooker performed well in making spaghetti sauce started off first on low then changed to high for about the last two hours. Here is what I like and dislike of this multicooker: -------------------------------------------------------- Likes: - low and high settings in slow cook mode that performed well - efficient pre-programmed buttons to press - stain steel outer covering - does a good job cooking brown rice Dislikes: - non removeable, difficult to clean lid design - inner pot water markings not legible - inner pot not stainless steel - steamer basket not stainless steel There are some shortcomings to the multicooker. The biggest one is the non-removeable lid that make the lid difficult to clean. But that's not enough to penalize a star since (unfortunately) that seems the consensus of most multicookers. The cooker does a great job as a cooker handling different tasks. Though I may end up returning and looking for something that better fits size wise on my countertop, I give the Aroma Housewares ARC-5000SB Digital five stars. Read more
Simplicity. Built extremely well and gets your rice perfectly cooked. Read more
Very nice rice cooker works great has many options Read more
I love this cooker. I bought the one with the professional ceramic coating because I don’t like non-stick surface coatings. But it’s already scratching that’s why four stars. It’s a wonderful cooker. I wish the instructions were more clear. They’re very hard to understand and confusing. But all in all it does a beautiful job. You just have to experiment a bit. I wish there were a ceramic or stainless steel option for the cooking vessel. Read more
I absolutely love this rice cooker! It makes cooking rice so easy—perfectly fluffy every single time without any hassle. The 20-cup capacity is amazing for family meals or gatherings, and I also appreciate the versatility. It’s not just a rice cooker; it doubles as a slow cooker and steamer, which makes it a true all-in-one appliance in my kitchen. The digital controls are straightforward and very user-friendly, and the stainless steel design looks sleek and modern on the counter. Cleanup is quick and simple too. Overall, this rice cooker has exceeded my expectations—I highly recommend it to anyone who loves convenience and delicious meals! Read more
