Anyone own an Instant Pot pressure cooker?
We bought one on sale during Amazon’s Prime Day. Still reading the manual and looking at recipes. I’m looking forward to hearing opinions.
I bought one last week too, and have used it about a dozen times already. Hard boiled eggs which were simple to peel (and I’ve tried everything in the past). Yogurt was a bit runny, but probably could have left it a bit longer. Meat for French dip sandwiches was fantastic. Chili with dried beans, unsoaked in 40 minutes (beans were slightly crunchy. Maybe 50 minutes next time). Steamed vegetables.
I’m trying my bolognese recipe later this week in it, but I’ve been having fun. Haven’t actually figured out where to put it because I haven’t put it away yet.
Yes, as a matter of fact I used it this evening to make pulled pork BBQ. Turned out fantastic.
Recipe? I’ve been thinking of doing that . . . 
TruCelt, it was so simple. I just threw in 5 pounds of pork shoulder (in two chunks) with a couple of cups of chicken broth. You could use the sauté function to brown it but I didn’t bother this time. I selected manual and put it on 110 minutes. When it was done I removed it from the pot, discarded fat, shredded and added Sweet Baby Ray’s BBQ sauce. It was really good!
I’ve had my Instant Pot for a couple years and it is now my favorite and most used kitchen appliance. Any time I want drop-off-the-bone meat of any type, or quick, flavorful soups and stews, or vegetables, rice, potatoes or dried beans cooked to perfection at a fraction of the time of conventional cooking, I fire up my Instant Pot. It’s a game-changer as far as I’m concerned—a culinary paradigm-shift.
Good discussion here:
I got mine on Prime day too. So far I have made:
Hard boiled eggs x 2 (still fine-tuning the time)
Taco soup (very good)
Verde chicken (very very good)
Pesto/sun-dried tomato chicken (very very very good)
Who has nailed hard boiled eggs? How many minutes? How many eggs?
mmm
For eggs I do 1 cup of water in the bottom, insert steamer basket (I just use a cheap one I bought at the grocery store), place 12 eggs in the steamer basket. Then manual high pressure for 6 minutes. It would probably be better to steam release open when it’s done, but honestly I usually forget and they sit there a while. Next step - eggs into an ice water bath for a few minutes. Done.
My way usually cracks at least one egg during the cooking. I eat that thing straightaway and store the rest in the fridge for later.
Love mine… facebook and pintrest have several pages of helpful hints, charts of cooking times etc. I cooked salmon and bok choy the other night… delish salmon was wrapped in parchment paper on the trivet and bok choy on top. I cooked something the other day I cant remember what it was but cooking time was zero … basically brought it up to pressure and natural released the steam… had to be a veg but I’m drawing a blank
I have also done baked potatoes with a finish in the stove oven to crisp up skins
One thing I’ve always wondered: If you release the steam quickly, does it change the characteristics of the food as opposed to letting the pot cool naturally. For example, if you cooked rice and then let off the pressure rapidly, would it cause the rice to burst as the water in the rice came out as steam?
Another thing I’ve wondered: What’s different about the final product if I do slow-cooking with or without the pressure lock?
filmore-- I think if you let rice sit in pot and release naturally it will continue to cook. I dont think using slow cook feature and not having it locked is fine.
I did the same, but did the quick release (1 cup water, 6 minutes high, ice water bath). They peeled easier than any egg I’ve ever had.
The saute function is pretty weak, and I don’t get much browning. I might saute in another pan if that’s important to me for a recipe.
Most pressure cooker recipes will tell you whether to let the pressure reduce “naturally” (in which case, since the food is sitting at 212deg+ for 20 minutes or so, I would think it will it continue to cook to some extent) or to release the steam quickly…I don’t know about rice, but I’ve heard you shouldn’t quickly release the pressure when cooking beans, for example, because it can cause them to generate foam which can clog up the works…I’d just stick to doing what the recipe advises.
I have a regular stovetop pressure cooker, not an Instant Pot - but I’m not sure what you mean here?
When pressure cooking a lid lock is an essential safety measure to prevent (at best) a gigantic mess or (at worst) serious burns or injury - when slow cooking there is no pressure, and no need for a lock…
In addition to locking the lid on the pot, the Instant Pot has a valve at the top which can be turned to either lock in the steam or let it out. If you’re doing pressure cooking, you close the valve so the steam stays in. You can let the pressure off by turning the valve and steam will come out. You can also leave the valve open when cooking and the pot won’t get pressurized because steam will go out of the hole. So with Instant Pot, you can do slow cooking with either the pressure valve closed or open.
One time I did slow cooking where I left the valve closed. I didn’t notice I did that until later and didn’t pay attention to if there were any subtle differences in the final product. So I was wondering if there were any differences when slow cooking with the valve closed or open.