It’s been nearly three years since I penned my popular post Restaurant/Cafeteria-style Hot Oatmeal At Last! Ever since then I have had an eye out for a more controllable slow cooker. I thought I had found one: the Cuisinart PSC-350. This thing has a simmer setting which is a setting between warm and low, which is what you need for oatmeal. (The typical low setting that you find is still too high.)
Anyways, I was at Target and stumbled onto a rice cooker–not even on my radar–that had a…drumroll…”oatmeal” setting! With several Target gift cards burning a hole in my pocket I purchased the Aroma ARC-616SB Sensor Logic Rice Cooker & Food Steamer ($60), ready to return it if it sucked.
I am happy to report that it works really well! It made a very tasty batch of oatmeal in about 30 minutes. I didn’t even have to use my overnight slow-cook method. My only gripe is that its delay function only works on the rice settings. Why this is the case, I don’t know. I tried making a batch and letting the automatic keep-warm function do its thing, but the oatmeal still ended up with a little bit of slightly burned skin on top.
In any event, if you’re looking to make push-button-easy restaurant-style oatmeal, I highly recommend the Aroma ARC-616. It really makes you wonder how anyone can eat instant oatmeal!