Review: Zojirushi Food Jar 

Posted on by

Shortly after we had Ollie, I was getting all excited about starting him on solids when he was about 4mths old. I had just bought the Philips Avent Steamer and Blender and was thinking about all the types of puree that I could do with it. Haha. Kan cheong much?

Of course, we would progress from purees to rice porridge right? So I did a little research and read about a couple of food jars available on the market. Basically narrowed it down to the three popular brands: Tiger, Thermos & Zojirushi. All three brands had their pros and cons, namely price and how long they could keep food hot for. I was toying between Tiger and Zojirushi, mainly kinda baulking at the price of Zojirushi food jars. Long story short, I did end up getting the Zojirushi at a hefty $65 for a 350ml jar.

my 3yo food jar

my 3yo food jar

3 years on, how do I feel about it? I absolutely love it. It has kept Ollie’s food piping hot for 8 hours (longest). I kept porridge in there for more than a day and it was still hot. It packs a fair bit of food tho QT is proving me wrong with his mad appetite. I had to buy another 450ml food jar as a spare to keep up with his food demands.

L to R: 350ml, 450ml, lunch warmer

L to R: 350ml, 450ml, lunch warmer

Apart from these two food jars, I also own a Zojirushi lunch combo set, consisting of three microwave safe containers, one large cylindrical container and two smaller boxes. I won it so it was a major bonus!! Haha. The cylindrical container sits in a metal case which helps to keep food warm, and I have been able to keep freshly cooked porridge warm in that container for a good 4-5 hours.

Now, what prompted this post is that I recently discovered one other thing I could do with my food jars! I can cook porridge in them! OMG *mindblown*. I had read about it somewhere but never thought much about it until we planned to make a trip to the West to visit some family and do some travelling. Thing is..QT doesn’t have much teeth and I am not very hopeful he is going to be able to eat much other food with just 5 teeth. So I have to be prepared to bring cook him some porridge whilst we are travelling. And I am NOT gg to buy a slow cooker just so I can cook him food lor. I need luggage space for shopping!!

So…off I went testing the “urban legend” or not. Put the washed rice in, filled the jar up with boiling hot water, close and wait. Well..the thing is I didn’t know how long it would take to cook. So we just left it on the countertop and promptly forgot about it. We only remembered it 1.5 days later, and even then we couldn’t remember why we left porridge sitting in the jar. Hahahaha #FAIL. We had to restart the experiment again. FOL.

cooked porridge in a jar

cooked porridge in a jar

10341983_10203222213586622_3839549734086815399_n

consistency without the excess liquid

This time we checked back at 4 hours and the porridge was cooked! The porridge was a teochew muay consistency, which was suitable for 11mo QT. Major yay! A quick check with my sister who bought the jar for me from Japan, there are some recipes that one could try “cooking” with the jar but most of the ingredients had to be pre-cooked. I did try adding in some uncooked pumpkin to see if it would cook together, but nope. AFter 4 hours, the rice was half-cooked and the pumpkin was barely cooked. Boo.

What I have done so far was to continue pureeing the veggies and meat, and freezing them into ice cube portions. I would take cubes out with me in a separate container with the porridge still cooking. Once it was cooked, I would throw in the half-frozen puree cubes into the jar. This would heat up the puree and help to cool down the cooked porridge. Win!

I will probably try to see how else I can add in ingredients to “cook” in the jar to make it a truly one pot meal. Just need to find the time to experiment!

Category: Reviews | Tags: , , ,

19 comments on “Review: Zojirushi Food Jar 

  1. Hi there,

    I was googling on food jar for my 5mo and was brought here. Read that you brought your food jar and frozen cubes with you while you went traveling. Would you mind sharing with me your tips on ‘cooking’ on the go and packing those frozen cubes during your travel? As my family has planned for a vacation overseas and we will be bringing my little one along. She will be 7mo by then and the thought of letting her having rice cereals throughout the trip is making me upset and feeling guilty. Thought my in laws were saying that it’s hassle-free and nothing to be paranoid about… I would still prefer to make her fresh food. 🙂

    Looking forward to hear from you soon.

    Thanks in advance.

    • Hi Angeline,

      Thanks for dropping by my blog!

      Just to give you two scenarios that have worked for me with the food jar:

      1) Using frozen puree works if it is first trip out

      I have used the frozen puree cubes for day trips to like USS or the drive from Singapore to Melaka, or feeding on board the plane. I would take a mix of frozen puree cubes and put it in a container (like Avent storage cups). The porridge would be cooking on the go so when it is time to feed, it would still be super hot. The cubes are usually still half frozen, so it would help to cool the porridge down a little when feeding.

      2) during the holiday itself
      During my trip to Vancouver earlier this year, i brought uncooked rice along with me. I would cook the porridge on the day itself in the food jar. The veggies & meat i would prep the night before. Alternatively, what i did was to bring along or purchase those food jars that had meat n veg, or check out the Wakodo instant porridge (ntuc finest). They don’t really taste nice on its own but if you mix with plain porridge it is not too bad. They come mixed with veg n meat/fish. So I brought abt 4 packs of it for standby.

      Hope this answers your qns! Anything, feel fre to email =)

      Cheers,
      Justine

  2. Hi Justine,

    Thanks for responding back.

    Just curious on how you prep the meat and veggies during the holiday? Cause I would be staying at the hotel and I don’t think I can cope with bringing a travel cooker along and have them packed in my luggage.

    Was it the same like cooking the rice?

    Many thanks again! ?

    • Ahh if you are staying at the hotel,will be a bit difficult. I was staying at airbnb so i had the facilities to cook. I did try putting uncooked pumpkin inside but i had to cook it twice. Means 3 hrs later, change hot water again and cook. Only then was it somewhat cooked. I put it with the porridge, cook for 3 hrs and nothing came out cooked ??.

      Some mommies did swear by an electric lunchbox tho. Unfortunately, my use of the zojirushi jar to cook rice, is combined with use of jarred food. Some of the ingredients need to be half-cooked in order to cook with the rice.

  3. Ahh… No wonder. Thanks for the tips though. I guess I should start experimenting to cook food using the boiler I can get at the hotel room. So that I can mix it with the porridge thereafter. ??

  4. Reading this 🙂 and so tempted but oh so pricey!! ?? but oh so convinient!! Hahaha. Arrggh. The struggle. Haha. Thanks for the review!!!

    • can get cheaper from Qoo10! And more designs also. But super useful lah!!

  5. Hi i would love to get the Zojirushi food jar but this model is currently not available in SG as it is still new. Q0010 has it but they won’t warranty it.

    Were you not afraid of the product went faulty went you ask your sister to buy from you from Japan last time?

    • Hi Grace,

      I bought my first Zojirushi food jar from Takashimaya in Singapore and have not looked back since! To be honest, because I really do believe in the product, so I didn’t bother about the warranty. We used the first food jar quite extensively for at least half a year and even the rubber seal did not give up on us. So I didn’t bother about warranty when I bought my second one! =)

  6. hihi, i chanced upon your website when I was searching on food jar. Can u let me know the model number of the food jar that is able to cook porridge.

    • Hi Grace, the model I used is SW-EAE35/50 (grey one). From what I understand, the red jar is not available in Singapore yet.

  7. Hi, how much rice and water did you use to cook the porridge? Also is for how many feeds?
    How much did you buy for the jar? Thank you

    • Hi Yvonne!

      For the 350ml zojirushi food jar, I used 1/4 cup (dep on the type of consistency you want and how watery you want it to be), and I filled the jar with boiling water until below the neck of the opening. For 1/2 cup rice, I think I could give about 2 feeds when my lo was 8 mths old. at 15mo, it was basically slightly more than one feed.

  8. Hi do you have any reviews for the lunch jars ? You know, the one with 3 stack or 4 stack containers

    • Hi Nanda,

      I have no personally tried it myself but have had colleagues used it. It seems to keep it warm enough but not piping hot like the food jars. My ex-colleagues still had to warm up the individual containers in the microwave to make it piping hot. Hope it helps!

      Cheers,
      Justine

  9. Hi Justine,

    Do you know how long we can keep the food inside before it goes bad?

    Because I usually cook in the morning and put in in my food jar for lunch ~5 hours later and am wondering if I can cook at night for next day lunch, ~15 hours?

    Thanks! 🙂

    • Hi Samantha!

      humm..technically speaking it shouldn’t go bad if it is sealed shut and unopened until you want to eat it. By the way ah..this is based on my logic and not proven okay, so at your own risk ah hehe. I have cooked plain porridge in the jar itself and forgot about it until 1.5 days later (i.e, cook in afternoon and remember it next day evening!) and it smelt fine and was still warm but it was plain porridge lah! With meats and veg..it could mean your veg would overcook and you end up with the overcooked veggie smell and that might make your meal smell bad?

  10. Hi Justine, thanks for the review. I was wondering if there is any difference in the quality between the red and the grey zojirushi jars u have? Or issit just a size diff only? Thanks!

    • Hi! There isn’t a difference, hehe it’s just the size really. The silver coloured jar is 350ml, red jar is 550ml I think.