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Zojirushi’s rice cooker is so smart and intuitive that it converted me into a rice cooker fan.

“That’s the ‘Lamborghini’ of rice cookers,” my friend said, pointing at the UFO-shaped appliance unfurling a plume of steam on my kitchen island. He was looking at my Zojirushi rice cookerwhich has—deservedly—developed a bit of a following. While I’ve never driven a Lamborghini myself, I agree that this rice cooker has the horsepower, features and élan to set it apart from its competitors.

Zojirushi 5.5-Cup Micom Rice Cooker and Warmer

$267 $219 at Amazon

To understand why the Zojirushi has had such an impact on me, you need to hear one confession: I’m a meal prepper’s nightmare. I’m easily bored, and if I make a week’s worth of meals on Sunday, I’m whimpering into my lunch by Wednesday. This rice cooker, though, makes cooking for the week easier with less meal fatigue: It’s brilliant for batch ingredient prepping.

The spacious Zojirushi, which can hold almost six cups of uncooked grains, is designed with a fuzzy-logic microprocessor that adjusts temperature and cook time to different types and amounts of food. All I have to do is scoop the amount of rice, quinoa, oats or farro into the nonstick pot, add the corresponding level of water marked on its interior (no rice-to-water ratios to worry about!), and select a cooking program. Every grain of rice I’ve made has come out standing straight up, a sign of perfectly fluffy, clump-free grains; oats and farro have been delightfully toothsome. These grains become the base for meals all week, whether I’m reheating a sumptuous bowl of steel-cut oats for breakfast, throwing together a farro salad for lunch or serving salmon and sushi rice for dinner. Any leftovers at the end of the week are repurposed into fried rice or shortcut mujadara.

If I haven’t batch-prepped a carb, improvising meals is still easy. I can fill the cooking pot with rice and water, then insert the steam rack above it, loaded with frozen dumplings, a handful of shrimp or some green vegetables. I can set it and forget it, then open the Zojirushi for a nutritious, filling meal that’s kept warm until I’m ready to eat.

I’ve been testing Cuckoo’s comparable rice maker alongside this one, and while it’s about half the price, it’s not half as intuitive as the Zojirushi. In fact, I remain stumped as to why the Cuckoo’s display screen doesn’t provide an estimated cook time—I was continually caught off guard by cooking cycles ending later or earlier than I’d expected. I love that the Zojirushi doesn’t give me surprises when I need one part of my day sorted.

The Zojirushi isn’t without downsides: If I store the machine with the steam rack stacked inside, the included measuring cup also doesn’t fit. And I’m not crazy about the fact that the pot has a nonstick coating, which can degrade over time with some associated risk. But I’m willing to overlook these (and am on the hunt for a stainless steel pot insert!) because of the Zojirushi’s stellar performance and thoughtful details. I hope you’ll also be charmed by the tune that plays when a cooking cycle starts or ends. The cooking pot is a breeze to clean by hand, and the retractable cord makes it easy to store the rice cooker without stuffing a tangled nest of cords behind it.

So if you want to infuse some freedom into your meal prep, or make on-the-fly dinners a breeze, a rice cooker might be just the ticket. The Zojirushi may be pricey, but after using it for months, I get why it deserves its “Lamborghini” moniker—it just works, every single time, with no guesswork and perfect results. And the more meals I want to eat at home throughout the week, the more the Zojirushi rice cooker is worth just about as much as a sports car to me.

Shop More Rice Cookers at Amazon

Cosori 10-Cup Rice Cooker

$100 $83 at Amazon

Cuckoo Micom 6-Cup Rice Cooker

$130 $88 at Amazon

Dash Mini Ceramic Rice Cooker

$25 at Amazon

KitchenAid Compact Grain and Rice Cooker

$250 $200 at Amazon

GreenLife 3-Cup Rice Cooker

$40 at Amazon

At the time of publishing, the price was $219.

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