you probably don’t need one with all the features. the lowest end ones all seem to cover the basics; slow cook, pressure, rice/porridge, saute, steam, yogurt, and warmer. the ones with more “features” just seem to include more built in programs for specific foods, probably so you can set it for e.g. beans and let it take care of itself rather than using the regular pressure cook and having to figure out the time and everything. honestly you can probably give the “high end” ones a pass.
Another vote for going with the larger 6qt Instapot - I often use mine for just a single serving of steel cut oats (1/3 cup oats + 1 cup water, pinch of salt, 8 minutes on manual/high) which cooks while I take a shower and get dressed - I’ve had no problems making such small amounts in it.
Let’s not forget to mention that the Pot makes perfect hard boiled eggs every time.
I make a batch every weekend and every single egg peels like a dream.
mmm
Damn straight you can brown meat. In fact, the first time I used mine, I underestimated how hot it would be able to get. Burned the shit outta the onions I was sauteeing. I was suitably impressed.
The thing is a damned lifesaver. We got a six-quart, ten-function model two months ago. We use it at least four times a week. Everything we’ve tried has come out perfect. Dried beans, check. Yogurt, check. Spaghetti and meatballs, check. Bratwurst, check. Hard boiled eggs, check. Mini omelettes, check. Strawberry jam, check. Fresh broccoli and green beans, check. Even corn on the cob. Spouse even made pork chops and ribs (not my bag).
We make a batch of yogurt every weekend, and it lasts until Saturday, when we make another.
I love that we can add the natural ingredients we want and aren’t eating any pre-packaged preservative filled stuff anymore. It even does fish, fresh or frozen, to perfection.
Our refrigerator is full of good food that we can grab for lunches, quick breakfasts. Just pop it in the microwave and we’re good to go.
We gave two crockpots to Goodwill, which clears cabinet space.
The pots, lids and accessories are all dishwasher safe.
For a couple of working stiffs, it saves a lot of time.
We have one. My only complaint is that it is hard to find a decent recipe book for it. The one that came with it is pretty useless. I gave my wife one that came recommended on Amazon and it is pretty good, but a lot of them get too complicated.
The first thing I made in it involved browning meat, and it came out great.
We have a pressure cooker which we haven’t used in ages so the InstantPot was still handy. Since we’re both home the benefit of a slow cooker for people working is lost, and we’d rather have a fast cooker.
My only complaint about the rice cooker function is that it isn’t really any faster than doing it on the stove, and it takes up the pot. The rice we’ve done in it has come out fine, but no better than what I make.
I make a gigantic batch of rice, divide it into bags with about the amount that my family will actually eat in one meal, and freeze it. I put a little bit of extra water in each bag before it goes in the freezer. Microwave straight from freezing until hot. We like it just fine. Give it a try.
Your freezer obviously has lots more room than my freezer does.
For me, the advantage of the rice cooker function isn’t about speed. It’s that you can “set it and forget it” and go work on cooking other stuff and not worry about the rice. On the stove you have to watch for it to boil and turn down the temperature before it boils over, and then remember to turn off the burner when it’s done cooking. In the Instant Pot I just add rice and water, press a button, and then I can just ignore it until I’m ready to serve it. Meanwhile I can work on cooking whatever my actual main course is while I’m ignoring the rice. You’re right though, that means you can’t cook anything else in the Instant Pot while the rice is cooking.
If you don’t want to tie up your IP making rice, here’s a simple and easy way to get perfect rice (from a different thread):
It’s not quite as set-and-forget as the IP, but it doesn’t need to be watched as carefully and the amount of water used isn’t as critical compared the the normal way of making rice.
Haha yes, I actually have 2.5 freezers. (We had one in the garage that moved to this house, and then this house also had one in the pantry. Plus the freezer part of my fridge. They are all full.)
Yeah, the internal size is what’s important, and the 6 quart is (obviously) double the capacity of the 3 quart, but the external size difference, e.g. countertop space, is not really that much different. You get double the cooking space for just another inch or two of countertop. That’s a dealbreaker for me on the mini. And the difference in price is only like 10 bucks, at least it was at the time I bought mine (in some cases, it’s actually the smaller one that’s more expensive; go figure 
).
One thing about the Instant Pot I rarely see mentioned is its size. It is pretty huge.
So storage can be a pain in the patoot unless you have a mega kitchen.
I have to keep mine in the basement and lug it upstairs whenever I want to use it.
I’m still glad I bought one, though.
mmm
I got an instant pot for my birthday a couple of years ago.
Yes, it browns meat and sautes vegetables well. The only issue is that the pot is deep, so you have to lean over to watch stuff cook. I do “only clean one pot” stew-like things in it all the time.
I agree that the settings you want are:
saute
steam
pressure
rice
slow cook
yogurt
keep warm
It’s great virtue is that you “set and forget”. I can brew soup without babysitting the pot. And if it’s not done when I want to go to bed, it will hold it warm enough that it doesn’t spoil for 24 hours. I can pressure-cook without watching the hissing pot. It’s pretty easy to clean, too.
We’ve started making yogurt every week. We started with the best local brand of yogurt as our starter, and have been very happy with it. My husband gave me a blind taste test of my first batch, and rather to my surprise, it was a little better than what I could buy. I’ve heard that the culture can peter-out over time, but we haven’t had any issues yet. (We have had issues breaking the glass container I wanted to steam the milk in, but we’ve resolved that. Too bad, though, because it would have been a nice way to sterilize the jar that’s going to hold the yogurt in the fridge. If anyone has a recommendation for a nice 1-quart container that fits in the pot with the lid on, and that has a relatively narrow profile, to fit in the fridge, please pass it along.)
One more virtue – It’s very well insulated, so you don’t heat up your kitchen very much when you use it. Obviously, it generates heat, and even if it were 100% efficient, that heat would get into your home when you took the food out of the pot. But it’s much more heat efficient than the open stove-top, for sure.
It is large – that was the big issue for us in buying one. We gave it dedicated counter space, between the toaster and the knife rack. (And we pull it out from under the cabinets, to the front of the counter, when we actually use it – but never have to move it more than about a foot.) If I kept it in the basement, I don’t think I’d ever use it. Too much hassle. It’s heavy, too.
We use ours regularly enough that I’m glad we have it.
If you have a regular pressure cooker and a slow cooker, you don’t “need” it though as others have said, the automatic functions are helpful (I assume you mean you have a stovetop cooker).
But… you’d be replacing two separate devices with a single one. Assuming you don’t need to do two things at once, this would save you counter space.
Any recommendations for brands or models?
Well, the product was invented by a Canadian company that sells Instant Pot brand, so everyone else is just imitating their product.
Yeah, the generic term is “multicooker”. And although Instant Pot is the most well known and most popular, when America’s Test Kitchen tested them they said it actually wasn’t their favorite:
Their favorite: