Can You Cook Soup in a Rice Cooker? Yes (With Caveats)

Beyond Rice: The Versatile Cooker

A basic rice cooker operates on a simple principle: it boils water at 212°F (100°C) until the water evaporates or is absorbed. Once the temperature inside the pot rises above 212°F (because liquid water is gone), a magnetic thermostat trips and switches the machine to “Keep Warm.”

Because of this mechanism, a rice cooker is perfectly capable of acting as an electric soup pot, simmering liquids and softening vegetables and meats.

How to Cook Soup in a Basic (One-Button) Cooker

If your cooker just has a “Cook” and “Warm” switch, cooking soup requires a little supervision.

For more on this topic, see our guide on How Long Does Rice Take to Cook? Timing Guide for Every Method.

1. Add your broth, chopped vegetables, and pre-cooked meats to the pot. (Do not try to brown raw meat in a rice cooker; it doesn’t get hot enough).
2. Press “Cook.”
3. The cooker will bring the soup to a boil.
4. The Catch: Because the soup will never boil dry, the cooker will never turn off automatically. It will boil indefinitely until you intervene.
5. Once the soup is boiling, you must manually flip the switch to “Keep Warm” to let it simmer gently, or just unplug it when the vegetables are tender.

For more on this topic, see our guide on Why Does My Rice Cooker Bubble Over and Spit Water?.

How to Cook Soup in a Fuzzy Logic Cooker

High-end cookers (Zojirushi, Panasonic) are controlled by microchips and have specific temperature profiles.

The “Soup” or “Slow Cook” Setting: Many of these cookers have a dedicated setting for soups. This setting will bring the liquid to a near-boil, then drop the temperature to a gentle simmer for a specified amount of time (usually 1-3 hours), functioning exactly like a slow cooker.

What if I only have a “White Rice” setting? Do not try to make a large pot of soup on the standard “White Rice” setting in a fuzzy logic cooker. The computer expects the water to be absorbed. When it isn’t, the cooker may overheat, bubble over aggressively, or trigger an error code and shut down.

The Rules of Rice Cooker Soup

1. Do not overfill: Never fill the pot past the halfway mark when making soup. Boiling broth foams up significantly more than plain water. If you fill it too high, it will erupt out of the steam vent and ruin your counter (and potentially the electronics of the cooker).
2. Pre-cook raw meat: Rice cookers do not get hot enough to safely sear raw meat or render fat. Brown your beef, chicken, or sausage in a skillet on the stove before adding it to the cooker.
3. Dairy goes last: If you are making a cream-based soup, do not add milk or heavy cream until the very end, while the cooker is on “Keep Warm.” Boiling dairy will cause it to curdle and separate.
4. Beware of odors: The silicone gasket on the inner lid of a rice cooker absorbs smells easily. If you make a heavy garlic and onion chili in your cooker, your next three batches of white rice might taste faintly of chili. Wash the inner lid and gasket thoroughly with baking soda and water after making pungent soups.

Recommended Rice Cookers

If you’re looking for a reliable rice cooker for this recipe, here are our tested picks:

• Zojirushi NS-ZCC10