Cuisinart CRC-800 8 Cup Rice Cooker Review

Price Range: Moderate

Rice Quality: Good

Benefits & Features: Few

Performance: Fair

Pros vs. Cons: Balanced

Overall Rating: Fair

The Cuisinart CRC-800 Receives 2.5 Stars on Amazon’s customer review. We have the smaller version which seems to perform better, but since this larger model is giving so many folks other small problems, we can only give it a "Fair" rating.

Like the smaller CRC-400, this Cuisinart 8 cup rice cooker has an attractive and stylish stainless steel design, offers simple one-switch operation, and can also steam food with the included dishwasher-safe stainless steel steaming basket.

It makes good quality white rice along with decent quality mixed, wild, or brown rice, has a glass see-through top lid for monitoring rice, and automatic keep warm function that detects when the rice is finished which allows the rice to stay at a ready-to-eat temperature until served.

The performance although mediocre, deserves an overall "fair" rating, and not just because of spill over issues.

Why Does it Boil Over?

Ok, let us briefly discuss this issue which is responsible for a majority of poor reviews/feedback.

As mentioned on the main Cuisinart page, we own the smaller CRC-400 model and can concur that this can happen (as with all rapid-boil top lid rice cookers). The larger 8 cup Cuisinart rice cooker seems to share identical "problems" since it is pretty much built the same, but...the complaints appear to be more frequent with this model.

Instead of explaining in detail why this is happening, which is mostly due to the small steam hole that allows excess pressure to build, we'll provide a quick way to help solve this.

Start by rinsing the rice well, and then:

1. instead of water cook with chicken or vegetable stock...or add healthy Herb-ox cubes if using water. Adding a little cooking oil also helps.

2. do not fill passed the maximum water level. Remember that brown rice requires more water, so you are only limited to about 6 cups (18 or so cooked) using the Cuisinart CRC-800 rice cooker.

======= Update =======

Two users experimented with the Cuisinart CRC-800 and state to use the steaming tray as your lid, or to substitute the glass top lid with foil.

Aside from that, once the rice is finished you will hear the lever make a "thump" when the cooker switches into warm mode. At this point, give the rice a quick stir to help avoid the bottom from crusting over.

Pros

Cons

Where to Buy a Cuisinart Rice Cooker

Available at Amazon.com

For the price vs. the cons it is not a great buy, and before spending your money we will have to recommend other choices or at least compare it to other 8 cup models first.

We're surprised the smaller CRC-400 4 cup model works somewhat better.

Measurements: approx. 9 x 9 x 10 Inches | 8 Cup Capacity (approx. 24 Cups Cooked Rice)