Are there any uses for a rice cooker other than cooking rice?
Our Senior Center Thrift Shop has a new one for three dollars. It is too big to cook rice for myself but I am a sucker for spectacular deals on something I don’t need when they are at this thrift shop.
This one should go where the chefs hang out, methinks. 
Mod: Moved from Game Room to Café Society.
Gukumatz
Game Room Moderator
If it comes with a little perforated plate that sits in the bottom, you use that for steaming (pour in some water, stick the plate in, put veggies or whatever on the plate, turn on). Very handy. I also make steel-cut oatmeal in it; I like the results better than the slow cooker.
I often use mine for steaming vegetables as well as making rice. Make sure it has the steaming tray included.
i like tha idea alot… what’s the oats to water ratio?
Whatever it says on the can. 1-4 I think? Butter the rice cooker tub, add everything in cold, flip switch. I use milk for 1 cup of the liquid. Seems to take about 40 minutes. You can check it once and give it a stir, if you like.
Oh yeah, and don’t use the steamer tray! On re-read it somewhat looks like I was saying the steamer tray was used in oatmeal cooking. It isn’t.
You can wear it as a hat.
You can give it as a gift.
You can use it as a stencil to draw a curve or a really big rice cooker circle.
You can put the kitten it and take cute photos.
You can paint is many different colors.
You can use it as a planter.
You can keep marbles in it.
You can put into the far, hard to reach place in the back of your cupboard, so that nothing useful ever ends up there.
Oh my, yes, there are many many things one can do with a rice cooker!
autoclave for you aspiring back-alley abortionists.
I use mine to steam vegetables and things like hum bao, too.
Try Googling for “rice cooker meals” or “rice cooker recipes”. There’s a number of them floating out there.
For instance, here’s a book on the subject: http://www.amazon.com/Rice-Cooker-Meals-Cooking-People/dp/0970586841
I cook beans, lentils and rice in mine. I also make oatmeal in it. Warning the oatmeal is very mushy when you do this, but I like it that way. If you like oatmeal that isn’t mush this isn’t the best idea
I started a thread about this and got some excellent idea
If you don’t have a stove or hotplate, you can make soup in it. My sister used hers for that in college.
You could also make pasta or anything else related to boiling water.
I’ve been boiling lentils like peas. How do you prepare them in a rice cooker?
Thanks!
The cafeteria owner at work says they’re safe to cook with, but you have to close the lid. We had a rash of stomach flu at our school when students were using their rice cookers to eat shabu shabu.
That is completely hilarious. Dorm-room shabu-shabu. What a terrible, amusing idea.
You should ask the expert.
Even snakry, syntactically and grammatically illiterate responses can be useful sometimes. I do need an autoclave for my in vitro plant propagation experiments.