The Clay Rice Cooker That Made Me Cherish Weeknight Dinner-Making

Cooking rice is one of those simple, everyday tasks that became a constant pain for me as the executive chef of Chez Dent-Fisher.

I don’t have the counter space for a plug-in rice cooker, and cooking rice in a saucepan can be tricky: Just a bit of inattention, and you’ve got scorched rice; play it too cautiously, and you’ve got a stodgy mess.

I was given the Kamado-San cooker as a gift a few years ago, yet I used it infrequently because it required a bit of prep work, and lugging it out of the cupboard didn’t feel worth the effort. But then I started cooking four or five days a week. And after one too many saucepan rice fiascos, I elevated the Kamado-San to full-time duty.

I haven’t looked back since.

A donabe is a traditional Japanese earthenware clay pot that’s often used for hot-pot meals. The Kamado-San model comes with a special inner lid that’s designed for cooking rice, and the cooker’s slightly concave inner shape allows for some pressure-cooking, since it traps in a lot of steam. So once you get the hang of using it, the Kamado-San reliably turns out fluffy, perfect rice.

I’ll admit that the process is not as quick or painless as with a plug-in rice cooker, and the included instructions on using the Kamado-San are a bit vague. But any fault I previously found with the Kamado-San now seems like a benefit.

To get the best-quality rice, you should rinse and soak it in the Kamado-San for at least 20 minutes before putting it over heat. And those 20 minutes are the perfect chance to get other prepwork done (say it with me folks: mise-en-place!), and they can be an ideal break for taking the dog on a quick walk.

Cooking is as simple as putting the pot on the stove and letting it cook on medium-high heat for 12 minutes. For what it’s worth, I think everyone in the world has a different definition of what “medium-high heat” means, so your timing can vary from the instructions’ stated cook time. But don’t worry, the pot lets you know right when your rice is done.

As soon as you see delightful little puffs of steam rising from the small hole in the outer lid, your rice is ready. (If it’s steaming well before 10 minutes, though, the heat is just a little high.) And if you want crispier rice at the bottom of the pot, you can leave the heat on for a little bit longer. Once you lock in your burner setup, it’s almost a set-it-and-forget-it process; just keep an eye out for those puffs.

The Kamado-San is heavy, but the thick clay it’s made from holds heat extremely well, and it spreads the heat evenly, so every grain is tender. When the F train gets delayed, and my wife gets home later than expected, the rice stays warm and perfectly cooked, even if it’s been off of the heat for over 20 minutes. (I worried about carryover cooking while doing this, but thus far I’ve not run into any accidentally crispy rice.)

And if you don’t want to lug this vessel in and out of your cupboards, the Kamado-San is also a Le Creuset–level ornament that can live on your stove for weeks at a time. It can also go right to the table (accompanied by a trivet) as a centerpiece for mid-meal refills, and the outer lid has a cute spoon holder built into the top — mine even came with a little rice paddle.

Like any seasoned pot or pan, the Kamado-San requires some special care when it comes to washing and maintaining it: Avoid soap when you can, dry it well, and handle it gently. Yet I’ve found that any particularly stuck-on bits can be soaked for a while and easily scrubbed off with a sponge.

At Wirecutter, we are generally against unitaskers, and the Kamado-San would be tougher to love if it could only cook perfect rice. Luckily, though, it can do a lot of other things. Without the inner lid, it functions like most other donabes, able to handle one-pot soups, stews, and hot-pot meals with just a little tinkering and adjustment. As I’ve expanded my donabe repertoire, I’ve made a hearty beef-and-potato soup, a simple-and-delicious simmered ground-chicken dish, and a breeze of a one-pot salmon-and-rice bowl.

Perhaps best of all, this vessel becomes better-seasoned and more interesting-looking the more you use it. Every Kamado-San from Nagatani-en (the manufacturer of my pot) is handmade, so no two are exactly alike. Plus, if you cook on a gas stove, as I do, the burners give the Kamado-San distinctive tiger-stripe marks on the bottom, and small, vein-like cracks can begin to appear in the glaze of the pot; neither of these things affect performance, but they make my Kamado-San uniquely mine. (If you have an electric stove or an induction cooktop, you’re unfortunately out of luck, but there are some workarounds available for the committed.)

All of this adds to the special feeling I get when I’m using the Kamado-San week after week: It brings delight, which is something so rare in our day-to-day chores. Quotidian meals, like a salmon bowl or a quick curry accompanied by rice, now reliably make my day — so much so that when I finally get to sit down and eat dinner with my wife, we say a quick thanks to Kamado-San before digging in.

This pot is not for everyone. You may just prefer the ease and consistency of a plug-in rice cooker. But if you want to change up your routine, elevate your rice- and home-cooking game, and get a beautiful object to boot, it’s hard to beat a Kamado-San.

This article was edited by Megan Beauchamp and Maxine Builder.