I’ve got a pressure cooker and a slow cooker. Does an instapot do anything that these two can’t do?
If you have a manual pressure cooker, the convenience of the instapot could be worth it. Throw stuff in, lock the lid, and set the time. You can walk away and come back whenever you want.
The cycles built into an instapot are very convenient. They alter between different pressures and heats to give excellent results for the type of food you are cooking. I would not want a manual pressure cooker at all, and love my instapot.
Also, the Instant Pot has a saute function, so you can brown meat/onions/veggies right in it, and then go to pressure cooker or slow cooker. No browning in a frying pan then moving food to the slow cooker. Also sometimes I pressure cook something and then switch to slow cooker for an hour or two to mellow out the flavor. Also, you would never leave the house with a regular pressure cooker on the stove, but you can set the IP to pressure cooker and leave. When it’s done, it goes into a “keep warm” mode for TEN HOURS. I live alone and I love mine.
they’re enough of a multi-tasker where it’s reasonable to have one. I’m one of those people who can’t ever get rice done correctly, and instant pots are supposedly pretty good at that as well.
The saute function would be cool. Can you brown meat in an instapot? How about cooking dried beans?
I like ours for pretty much the same reasons (though I haven’t used the slow cooker myself). I cook a lot of beans. Put the dried beans in before I leave for work, set the timer, and they’re ready when I get home. Beans from scratch went from being a weekend only meal to a weeknight one.
What is the smallest instapot available? I don’t need to make a gallon of anything at a time.
Dunno about the meat, since we’re vegetarians, but I’ve browned lots of onions and other things in ours.
It makes dried beans pretty foolproof. I used to think that canned beans were good enough. They are not. Cooking them from dried is so much better, and the IP makes it easy.
I use ours for dried beans all the time. I find I need about 20-25% more time than most internet recipes suggest but the Instant Pot still finishes while I’m walking the dog and getting the rest of dinner together.
I’ve never had a problem with cooking rice, but the instant pot turns out a consistently PHENOMENAL pot of rice.
X cups water, X cups rice, X pinches of salt, X tablespoons oil.
I always put the salt, rice, and oil in, give it a good stir, add the water, then hit the rice function (10 minutes at pressure). Consistent results so far whether one cup of rice or six.
Absolutely, I will brown meat, onion and garlic for a beef stew, add the rest of my ingredients, and have a great pot of stew with tender, flavorful veggies in an hour or so, counting time for pressurizing. Dried beans cook up nicely, don’t even need to pre-soak, just have plenty of water in the pot.
ETA:
I too did find I needed to add a bit more time than most recommendations, unless one likes al dente beans.
you can get a 3 quart one, but if you’re going to use the pressure cooking function you really should get one larger than you think you need. that way if the food bubbles/foams there’s less risk it’ll get into the valve and clog it.
I’ve been thinking about getting an Instant Pot and because I live alone, thought that the three-quart one would be best. But now I’m thinking that most of the recipes are probably designed for the six-quart one (which seems to be the default size) so that’s what I’ll probably get.
This comes up a lot (especially around Prime Day - which you just missed! (but maybe they’re still on sale?))
Here’s some other threads for ya:
https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=869764 (Jan 2019)
https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=847266 (Jan 2018)
https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=830791 (July 2017)
https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=831792 (July 2017)
https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=807680 (October 2016)
Yes, definitely get the bigger one. I got an Instant Pot Mini (the three quart one) for my birthday last year. The giver thought the same thing you did, that since I live alone the bigger one would be overkill. I really don’t use it all that much precisely because of what you said – most recipes don’t fit in it. I’d rather not cut the recipes in half because I generally like to make extra food so I have leftovers to eat during the week. And the saute feature doesn’t work as well in the small one because it’s so small you end up crowding the pan unless you’re only making a tiny amount, so your food ends up steamed rather than browned. I mostly just cook rice in it. It is really nice for making rice in; I can just put the rice and water in and start it and then go off and make my stir-fry or whatever without having to worry about the rice, but I’d probably use it for a lot more if I had a bigger one.
Thank you both.
Another question. There are multiple models. This one has ten functions, another one has eight, or six or whatever. Which functions are necessary and which can I live without?
I haven’t got one, mostly because I already have a pressure cooker, a slow cooker that I can brown stuff in, and a rice cooker. It seems a bit excessive to buy a fourth gizmo in that case, since it doesn’t do anything those things already do.
But if you only have one of the three, or you really like automation, then it is probably a good buy.
Thanks all! Yep, just missed Amazon Prime.
I may wait until our pressure cooker dies before getting one.