Make your life easier with this non-stick Rice Paddle

One of our best purchases this year was a strong and reliable rice paddle. We cook a lot of rice as you can imagine on pretty much a daily basis. While we make rice for sushi and onigiri, most of the time we make Japanese dishes with Japanese short grain rice served by itself. Incidentally, we recommend TK Trading if you are looking for a supermarket that sells high quality Japanese rice at a discount. Of course, the rice cooker is extremely important when cooking rice, however the humble rice paddle can set your rice apart in terms of presentation and will make your life so much easier when washing up afterwards.

What is a rice paddle?

If you have not come across one before, it looks like a wide spatula with a miniature handle and has a larger, more rounded head. In Japan, they are called “Shamoji” and can be made from wood or bamboo, however usually in Japan you’ll find they are made of plastic. Rice paddles are designed not to scratch the surface of your non-stick rice cooker and allow you to serve rice without it sticking to the paddle. If you are still using other types of equipment to move rice around, you will know the process can be painful. Apart from maneuvering rice, a good rice paddle will not crush the rice when you try to stir it or fluff it up. It will also allow you to scoop rice onto your plate or into bowl with ease.

When searching for a good rice paddle, we quickly came across this paired set from Inomata on Amazon. It was really good to see it has 4.6 stars out of over 4,500 ratings and also that it’s made in Japan. Here are some of the product specifications in the table below.

Purchase and unpackaging

From the photos we saw on Amazon, we felt these were authentic rice paddles and they certainly looked like the genuine article. Once they were delivered we found they certainly were. Here is the packaging that they come in. It was comforting to see the Japanese design and also the description in Japanese. Some points we noticed when reading are:

• Although the product details list it as dishwasher safe, the packaging suggests to wash after use with a sponge and dishwasher detergent.
• The max temperature it can withstand is 120 degrees.
• It should not be used when cooking for example in a frying pan when heating things up.
• Inomata’s head office is listed as being in Osaka.

Inomata Rice Paddle Review

5 stars out of 5 stars! We are extremely happy with the Inomata paired set that we bought. Although there are two rice paddles, we only use the larger one and it’s extra easy to scoop up rice out of the rice cooker. We actually have been using an old rice cooker on it’s last legs, and it’s been rather time consuming scooping sticky rice from the bottom of the cooker when serving. We found this paddle was very different and we are able to gather up most of the rice grains on first attempts. This means much less work when cleaning the cooker after. The rice looks much better presented with this rice paddle too and you can craft the shape of the rice in your bowl with minimum effort.

As others have commented in their reviews, the rice paddle is strong and sturdy. We have been using it for over 10 months and it still looks brand new. Probably this is because we are hand washing the rice paddle each time we use it as suggested on the packaging. We would fully recommend buying this paired set on Amazon especially if you are fellow rice lovers!

Product details

• Set of 2 Plastic rice paddles
• Longer paddle is 7 and 1/2 inches long
• Shorter paddle is 6 and 1/4 inches long
• Non-stick surface will make rice serving easier
• Dishwasher safe
• Made in Japan

We hope you found this review helpful! We’ll be creating more lifestyle and shopping reviews in the future like this one on a ramen bowl we purchased from the Japanese Shop UK. Also if you bought the same rice paddle it would be great to hear your thoughts and comments.

Here is an image of the ramen bowl to give you a quick idea: