I have a cheap-o rice cooker that works fine for me. It came with a plastic cup to measure 1, 2 or 3 "plastic cup" units of rice. Water is added to match the '1', '2' or '3' mark in the cooker bowl. It was great until the cup vanished.

Now how to pour in the right amount of rice?

Do all rice cookers use the same standard "plastic cup" unit? By any luck, would it be exactly 1 cup, or 1/2 cup, according to a standard measuring cup? Maybe I could dump rice and water into the bowl in any amount as long as they're in the right proportion by volume. Meeting the '2' or '3' mark isn't important, actually, just getting great rice in the end.

The actual model I'm using is CKRVRCM061 and yes, of course I could google it, but it would be great to have a general answer which could apply to any cooker I or anyone will use in the future - for those of us with a talent for losing small important items!

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    It's always the ratio that matters, never the absolute amount. See Proper ratio of Water to Rice Also, your question title is definitely inviting "google it" answers/comments; if you want a general answer then you should make it clear that it's a general question, not specific to your model personally. – Aaronut Mar 26 '13 at 1:12
  • I think your title is a large part of the problem with your question. "How do I get the right amount of rice?" is the real question (you don't actually need to know how big the plastic cup was), and that's answered by the question Aaronut linked to, right? – Cascabel Mar 26 '13 at 2:01
  • The optimal ratio seems to be somewhat dependent on vessel geometry etc ... which means it doesnt scale 1:1 for the same vessel. – rackandboneman Dec 12 '17 at 13:19

10 Answers 10


Assuming you bought a rice cooker designed by a Japanese company (and apparently even other brands tend to meet that market's expectations), the measurement is 1-gou, slightly more than 180ml, which, by no coincidence, is also the typical measure of a wooden sake, cup, and is closely associated with a historical sake bottle size (approximately 1.8l)


It turns out that this amount, 1 gou of dried rice, neatly corresponded to a typical serving of rice. In practice, most contemporary Japanese eat about 1.5-2 gou per day; 1 gou of dried rice cooks up enough for 2 Japanese adults for one meal if you have several side dishes. There are other measurements that derive from the gou (or perhaps the other way around), such as the koku, which was considered the amount of rice that a single person would consume over the course of a year.

This is one of the human-centric forms of measurement that has survived the metric push; you can find various examples of this in many otherwise metric-converted countries. It turns out some studies show that those metrics often make certain categories of estimation easier for people.

Edited to cover the concern about matching the right amount of water:

It's worth noting that you don't need perfect precision for the amount of water, as long as you cook with the full cycle and not one of the express cooking modes. I can't remember the exact scientific principle behind it, but perhaps something to do with osmotic pressure. Some people use the remarkably effective method of measuring a certain amount of space between the dried rice and the water based on the size of their forefinger segment or thumbnail. It apparently works well for almost any imaginable size of pan (though you can have other problems with a pan too wide to have the rice cover the bottom). (Some types of rice do prefer more water than others, but within a single type, you have a fairly flexible range for the water ratio)


The plastic cup that came with my rice maker was 180 ml (3/4 cup). It's an odd size, but that's the standard.

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    Does a cup with three lines suggest 60, 120, 180 mL or 180, 360, 540 mL? (Also this is ridiculous.) – Cascabel Mar 26 '13 at 16:31
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    180mL for the full cup. – rackandboneman Aug 11 '16 at 10:19

I have an Aroma brand cooker (Got Rice GRC-003) and also lost the measuring cup. Their site tells you if you ever lose the cup, use a standard 3/4 cup and observe the water marks in the pot.


Hope this helps.

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    and 3/4 of a U.S. measuring cup is 177.5 mL, so really close to the 180mL mentioned in the other answers. – Joe Aug 11 '16 at 1:07

I have an Aroma automatic rice cooker. Its directions says "The measuring cup provided adheres to rice industry standards (180ml) and is not equal to one U.S. cup (240ml)." 180ml is equal to 0.76 U.S. standard cup, so use 3/4 cup standard measure of rice to their water measure line in the steaming pot and it should cook correctly.


I'm struggling with this too, as I replaced my rice cooker cup. However, as someone else pointed out, ratio counts. It's one cup of white rice to one and a half cups of water. Doesn't matter if it's American standard cups or Japanese metric cups. The proportion is what counts. And it's one cup of brown rice to two cups of water. So, if you're using the 180 Gou as a measure for rice, then use 180 Gou plus 90 Gou for water (for white rice).


Your rice cooker is probably metric, so I'd think in terms of milliliters rather than cups. Now if it were me, I'd use the link in @Aaronut's comment to make rice and forget about it, however if you want a pretty good estimate then simply measure out how much water it takes to fill to the 1 line, then divide it by 3. Again, use ml, it's much more precise.

  • Of course, you'd have more than 2x the water to rice if you used that method -- you have to account for the amount of water that'd fill the void space in the measurement of rice. – Joe Aug 11 '16 at 0:50

I know its been a while since this thread has been run, however, as a rule, most rice cookers also respond well to a 1 rice to 2 water ratio, however take care as some units require a minimum to successfully trigger at the end of the cooking process.

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    A short, clear, and correct answer :) That is what I have been doing, though more like 1 rice to 2.5 water, due to the type of rice and the way I like it to come out. I find the amount of rice doesn't matter, but at first, wondered if the cooker worked properly only if it had exactly 1, 2 or 3 of that cup's volume of rice. – DarenW Oct 11 '17 at 5:04
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    Yes... I forgot about my experiences with brown (ugh ...) rice... Definitely needed more water (and a soaking period). The Chinaman in me abhors the texture of that brown stuff... It is NOT rice... :) – Adrian Hum Oct 11 '17 at 23:05
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    Ohhh... something I just found out ... The size of your original rice cooker cup corresponds to a masu - the wooden box that saki is served in. – Adrian Hum Dec 19 '18 at 4:17

I also lost my multicooker rice cup and stumbled onto this thread since I had the same problem as Daren.W. I finally figured out that serving sizes are 3/4 cup of uncooked rice. So the manufacturers provide a 3/4 cup dry measure for our convenience since standard measuring cups are 1/4, 1/3, 1/2 and 1 cup.


My rice cooker is a small Cuizen 16 cups and came with this cup, which as you can see holds 2/3 cup, or 160 ml.

enter image description here

  • I edited your answer, but it's still unclear to me what you mean with equivalence 1-2 cup 160ml. Can you edit and explain? – Jan Doggen Oct 14 '17 at 14:23
  • I can only assume you meant the cup is equivalent to 1/2 cup or 160 mL, but 160 mL is 2/3 cup, and your picture shows 2/3 cup, so... I've edited it to that. – Cascabel Oct 16 '17 at 18:53

If you measure the water before you put it in, you can use internet recipes or general ratios to calculate how much to put in. Once the little cup is lost, you may as well just forget about the lines and use standard cup measurements.

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