The history of cooking can be traced back to prehistoric times, and cooking with rice cookers only started after World War II.

After the defeat of Japan, some of the factories of the major arms dealer Mitsubishi switched to civilian products. In the late 1940s, Mitsubishi developed the first electric rice cooker, which was actually a cooker with an electric heating device. Because it was not automatic and required real-time care, this kind of cooker was very unsuccessful. Panasonic and Sony have also developed similar pots, but they were unsuccessful.

Before Christmas in 1956, Toshiba trial-produced 700 rice cookers with so-called "timing functions". The timing principle is to add water to the outer pot to control the heating time. When the water in the outer pot evaporates, the heating stops, and the rice in the inner pot is also cooked. Toshiba adopted the approach of door-to-door sales. This time the promotion of rice cookers was successful. One month later, Toshiba produced 200,000 rice cookers. Four years later, half of Japanese households purchased this kind of pot. Nine years later, this timing design was replaced by other timing designs. New electric rice cookers generally have a temperature control device installed at the bottom of the outer pot. Before the temperature of the inner pot reaches 100 degrees Celsius (212 degrees Fahrenheit), the heating device works at full capacity. Until the excess water in the pot is absorbed by the rice and evaporated, the temperature of the inner pot will exceed 100 degrees Celsius. At this time, the temperature control device will stop the heating device or switch to a heat preservation state of about 65 degrees Celsius (150 degrees Fahrenheit). This invention reduces the time and manpower that many families spend on cooking.

The rice cooker is mainly a daily kitchen appliance used for cooking. The rice cooker is a non-fire cooking, which is safer than cooking with an open flame. As the functions of rice cookers increase, in addition to basic cooking, they also include porridge, stew, steamed vegetables and dim sum. Rice cookers are still being developed, and they have the function of baking cakes, while those in the UK and other places can be used for French fries.

In 2005, the world's output of rice cookers was 85 million, of which the output of mainland China was about 60 million, and the rest came from Japan, South Korea and other countries. Since the main producing area of ​​rice cookers in mainland China is Guangdong, rice cookers are gradually replaced by Cantonese rice cookers in Mandarin.