Dinner hack for busy families—no babysitting the stove required!
Let’s be real—some nights, we need dinner to cook itself. Between after-school chaos, homework, and “Mom, I’m hungry” on repeat, I’ll take any shortcut I can get. Enter: the rice cooker.
If you’re like me, you probably have a box or two of Rice-a-Roni sitting in your pantry. It’s an easy, tasty side that doesn’t take much brainpower—and guess what? You can make it in your rice cooker with hardly any effort. 🙌
Here’s my no-fail method that turns out perfectly fluffy, flavorful Rice-a-Roni without standing over the stove.
🍚 Step-by-Step: How to Make Rice-a-Roni in a Rice Cooker
1. Add the Rice-a-Roni
Open the box and dump the contents—including the seasoning packet—right into your rice cooker.
2. Add the butter or oil
Melted butter gives it that classic taste, but oil works in a pinch. Just use the amount listed on the box.
3. Stir and level it out
Give everything a good stir, then smooth the rice into an even layer on the bottom of the pot.
4. Add the water
Here’s the magic trick:
Instead of measuring, use the knuckle method—add water until it reaches your first knuckle when your fingertip touches the top of the rice. This usually ends up being about an inch of water above the rice layer.
✅ Mom Tip: This works for white rice, flavored rice mixes, and even quinoa blends!
5. Hit the button and walk away
Choose the white rice setting and let your rice cooker do its thing. When it beeps, it’s done! Stir and fluff it up with a fork before serving.
💡 Bonus Tips
Toss in some frozen peas or chopped cooked chicken before cooking to make it more of a meal.
Want extra flavor? Replace the water with chicken broth!
Works with any Rice-a-Roni variety: chicken, beef, Spanish rice—whatever your family loves.
If your box calls for canned tomatoes (like the Spanish or Mexican-style blends), you’ve got options:
Pour in the tomatoes with their liquid and just top off with water until it reaches your first knuckle.
Or drain the tomatoes and add them, still using the knuckle method to measure your water.
🍚 My Favorite Rice Cooker (Still Going Strong After 20+ Years!)
I’ve had this rice cooker for over 20 years and it’s still going strong. 🙌 It’s seriously one of my most-used kitchen appliances. I love it because it’s simple, reliable, and cooks everything perfectly—rice, quinoa, even oatmeal. If you’re looking for something that’ll last, I can’t recommend it enough.
➡️ https://amzn.to/3G6J6hi (affiliate link)
Trust me—this little machine has saved dinnertime more times than I can count. I use it at least once a week.
Looking for more easy rice cooker recipes?
Spanish Chili & Lime Rice – bright, citrusy side to pair with Mexican meals
Rice Cooker Ham Fried Rice – a hearty, one-pot dish with ham, veggies, and protein
Thanks so much for posting this! I recently found a Zojirushi @ a yard sale for 5 bucks. I’ve been wanting one for years but couldn’t justify the price. Now I’ve been searching all the ways I can use it and found this.
You’re welcome!
Thank you! I’m making salmon tonight and usually make it in the rice cooker (steaming tray) with my own version of rice pilaf underneath. However, someone recently gave me a box of rice a roni they couldn’t use and I didn’t really want to dirty a pot AND a rice cooker just to get the salmon and the rice a roni, if that makes any sense. Google came up with your blog when I did a search! This will save me from having to wash extra dishes! 😀
Yay! I’m so happy this will help you!
Question: Does it get mushy?
Mine didn’t get mushy, it’s all about the right amount of water.
Has anybody tried this other than the poster?
Just made this for lunch. Worked great and the rice came out more consistently cooked than when I do it on the stove. Great tip.
That’s so great to hear! Thank you for coming back and leaving a comment.
What about when it calls for the rice to be sautéed?
It still works! The sauteing just kind of makes it browned.
Instead of happy mail, would you come over and cook my rice? My wife passed away a couple years ago and I have her rice cooker. And I think I am a pretty good cook. Well, I guess it’s nice to be happy with your own cooking. Like your own dirt. It’s always cleaner than other people’s dirt. But I am making seafood Chimichangas tonight for the first time. But I will be damned if I can cook a grain of rice. And the rice thing beeps? Why can’t I just put all the ingredients into the rice cooker? Wouldn’t that save time? Well, here goes nothing. I will let you know if my house is still standing when I am done. By the way, are you married?
How much water do you think if I’d like to make 2 boxes? Thank you!
I measuer the water differently than others. I put the rice in the cooker, then I fill it with water until the water reaches my first knuckle on my pointer finger. Just touch the top of the rice with your finger and when the water hits the line of your first knuckle, that’s the right amount of water. I learned that from an old Japanese lady I knew.
The Spanish Rice flavor requires some variation from this process. This flavor calls for an undrained can of diced tomatoes added to the rice mixture. If you add the recommended one inch of water to the dry rice, and then add the can of tomatoes, you will have too much liquid and the rice will be mushy. (At least mine was the first time I did this.)
So instead, level the dry rice and seasoning mixture in the pot as recommended, and carefully add the tomatoes on top. The liquid from the tomatoes will not reach the recommended one inch or one knuckle over the top of the rice, so add a little more water to bring it up to that level. It will be less water than you would otherwise add to other flavor varieties. Now stir in the tomatoes and cook. Depending on your rice maker, the tomatoes on the bottom of the pot may tend to burn, so stir up the rice once or twice during cooking.
Enjoy!
That’s a great tip. yes, liquid is liquid, so if you have to add a can of tomatoes, you can either drain them really well or use the liquid from them and just add enough to reach your first knuckle.
Thanks so much for this! We love Rice A Roni, especially the Spanish rice one. Last night I tried the rice cooker as you advised and it worked perfectly. Read the above comments so I’ll add this: Did not brown the rice first (doesn’t make a difference), put in the rice and seasons and dumped the can of tomatoes on top. Added water but just a tiny bit less than to my knuckle because of the juice in the tomatoes. Perfectly done rice i didn’t have to stir! My only “complaint” is that we like to turn up the fire and brown the bottom but the the cooker doesn’t do that. Not a big deal and worth it to use the cooker. Thanks again.
I’m glad it worked for you!
My rice cooker only has cook and warm. Do I still use butter in it???
Yes, you can!
Hi Annette,
I’d just like to make a couple suggestions for this recipe. First of all, I recommend beginning by pouring the rice and pasta mixture into your inner pot then wash the rice mixture by filling the pot with water to cover the rice, then stir it around to agitate the excess starch into water, then pour off the cloudy water and repeat a few times until the water stays mostly clear, just like you would do with normal rice. This is partly to make the cooked rice less sticky and more fluffy, but mostly it is to allow any moths that might be in the box to float to the top so they can be poured off.
This happens more often than you might think, and if you’ve never seen a moth in your Rice-a-Roni box, it means you’ve probably eaten some without noticing. If you do see some, don’t panic. It won’t kill you. It hasn’t yet, right? You don’t need to throw the rice mixture out. Insects crawl all over your garden produce all the time and you don’t panic about that. You just wash them and get on with cooking. Same here.
Anyway, after you’ve poured off your final wash water, level the rice mixture in the pot and add additional water to bring the level to the first knuckle, as per the original instructions, or in the case of the Spanish rice, add the canned tomatoes with its liquid first and then water to the right level. Then you can add the seasoning packet(s), but not the butter. Don’t stir it in. I’ve tried this technique with 3 different rice cookers and I’ve found that if I I mix the seasoning into the rice, the stuff on the bottom tends to burn if the cooker switches to the keep warm setting for more than a few minutes after cooking. Of course, if you pay close attention and turn the rice cooker off immediately after cooking you can avoid this, but I’ve found there’s usually some distraction or another and the cooker will go to keep warm. Not stirring previously will prevent the seasoning from burning, and if you cook it with the butter some of that will leak to the bottom and may burn whether you mix it in or not. Instead, mix in the seasoning and butter by fluffing the rice after cooking. The hot rice will melt the butter just fine, it will taste just as good, and nothing will burn. Your mileage may vary though, depending on your rice cooker. If you have one of those expensive rice cookers it might be smart enough not to burn your butter and seasonings, but I only have cheap basic rice cookers.
I’ve also found that my rice cookers can cook as many boxes of Rice-a-Roni as will fit in the pot while still leaving room to add that extra inch of water, although I don’t recommend filling it all the way to the top just to prevent it from boiling over. I think filled the pot such that the level of the rice mixture does not exceed half the capacity of the pot is a good rule of thumb.
Thanks for posting this recipe. Stay safe and healthy. :).
Joseph.
Hi Annette,
I just bought a steamer yesterday and this was my first use of it. I was a bit skeptical this would actually work. I chose the chicken flavor as it is my favorite. I added the seasoning & butter as usual, and the water per your instructions. I set the timer for 42 mins per the rice instructions for the steamer. I was a bit concerned as this is a good deal longer than stove top directions. However, when the timer went off it was cooked perfectly. Not only that, the serving size was about 50% larger than on the stove top. This has to be due to the steaming process and the rice absorbing more water this way. Thanks very much! It is my new favorite way of cooking this!
I’m so glad it worked for you!