I have seen in recent posts people advocating the use of a pressure cooker.
But, the only use I can see is it cooks some things faster.
But how much faster and is that really worth having a bomb in your kitchen?
I get people do not want to have two hours of cooking every night. But how much time will a pressure cooker reduce that? 30 minutes?
Not to mention low and slow recipes benefit from low and slow. There is no fuss…put the stew on or whatever and let it cook for a few hours. Do we need to shave an hour off?
I guess what I am asking is…does a pressure cooker do something better when cooking some dishes or is it mainly a shortcut that is rarely needed?
It’s great for beans. I can cook an amazing pot of bean & beef stew in an hour. Basically, anything you use an instant pot for on the pressure setting, you can do in a pressure cooker.
I’ve also made an excellent beef chili/stew type meal (no beans) using chuck roast cut into chunks that comes out beautifully tender in under an hour. There’s a lot to be said for cutiing down on cooking time after work.
They’re very popular in Indian cooking, slthough many people have probably switched over to instant pots now.
A pressure cooker is not “a bomb in your kitchen”; as long as the relief valve is not jammed it will relieve pressure long before the canister will rupture. Modern pressure cookers will not let pressure build up beyond a certain level, and will not permit the user to release the lid without first relieving pressure.
Pressure cookers permit thorough cooking of thick cuts of meats and whole birds without overcooking, and producing more tender meat than baking or broiling, to the point that it will ‘fall off the bone’ or easily shredded. They are good for cooking lentils, rice, and vegetables with dense texture more quickly, making soups, stews, and sauces without having to stew for hours at a simmer, and virtually necessary for cooking efficiently at high altitude.
That can happen if you don’t clean the pot and make sure that the relief valve is clear, or try to use a pressure cooker to can food at higher than recommended temperature. If used properly, it is less dangerous than many implements normally found in the kitchen.
A lot of kitchen equipment is dangerous if you don’t handle it correctly. I have an Old Hickory carbon steel knife that will effortlessly remove your fingers. The glass-top electric range could do serious damage if you lean on it while it’s still hot (and it stays hot enough to brand you long after the coils no longer glow red). The KitchenAid mixer would hardly even slow down while removing your arm at the elbow joint if you reached in while it was running. Hell, even the kitchen sink has hot water that comes out at about 210°.
I’ve got my boiled egg times down pretty well on my stove. 10 minutes gets it done for hard boiled. I suppose a pressure cooker could do it in less time but is it really worth using one to hard boil some eggs a few minutes faster?
That would be me. Nothing cooks a hardboiled egg like an Instant Pot. It is in the peeling of the egg that the Pot excels.
I’ve tried all the suggested stovetop techniques to obtain easily peeled eggs, but none of those methods achieve consistent, smooth peeling like the IP.
I use the actual pressure cooker part for beans/peas and rice primarily. It cooks beans hours faster, and rice twice as fast as any rice cooker, with half the water. (Beans it uses about 2 cups less water, based on recipes I’ve seen.)
They all have built-in over-pressure release valves these days, so the bomb issue seems to be mitigated. Heck, mine seems to intentionally let out some extra pressure every single time I cook. (So I know it’s working). Plus, they all naturally let the pressure out once the cooking stops, which is why some recipes tell you to let the pressure come down naturally.
Mine also doubles as an air fryer and slow cooker. So I get a lot of mileage out of it.
Same here. Also used for beans and custards. Occasionally for a cheesecake.
Used once for banana bread but I missed the baked edges so that was just the one time.
Since I’m one of the few (at least per the other threads) who have and use both slow cookers and electric pressure cooker / Insta-Pot devices, I’ll mention one point that’s implicit, not explicit to the thread. Slow cooked dishes, whether in a slow cooker, simmered in a dutchie or stock pot on the stove take a good bit of pre-planning. Often, if an inspiration or need strikes you (say from the concurrent Pot of Beans thread!) doing everything the low and slow way means you have what you sudden want or need the next day, rather than the same day.
Most of my stocks and stews that I do as all-day or overnight cooks in the slow cooker can get done in 2ish hours in the pressure cooker. So, yeah, if you want something falling apart tender in a more restrictive time frame, it’s great! Or if you’re suddenly needing to cook for a bunch of people on short notice, again, easier. And of course, if you’re cooking for the holidays and need the oven and rangetop for everything else, putting your beans/stews/etc in the pressure cooker is also a help. But all that being said:
I use the 5-5-5 method (cook 5 minutes; release 5 minutes; ice bath 5 minutes) for hard boiling eggs in the pressure cooker. The time saving is minimal over stove top. But it’s more consistent and makes peeling easier by creating a layer of air between the shell and white.
Other than the eggs that I Instant Pot every week, I haven’t been using it much of late.
However, just today I decided to cook my chicken wings in the IP rather than my usual method of baking in the oven. They came out crispy and tasty. Noticabely better than the oven wings.
I’m not motivated enough to prep for dinner at breakfast-time using a slow cooker. An hour or two beforehand using a pressure cooker suits me fine.
In my experience the difference in taste and texture between slow cookers and pressure cookers is minimal-to-none. They both tenderize and enhance flavor, just by different means. At worst, a bit more seasoning may be required for pressure cooked food to equal slow cooked. Clean-up is virtually the same.
I use my Instant Pot often, with reliable results. I’m confident in the safety of modern pressure cookers. They used to be scary, but now they’re not.
It’s not really faster, because you have to wait for it to come up to pressure, and then come down again. But I can steam 36 jumbo eggs at a time, and the peels will ALWAYS fall off easily. The actual at-pressure time is only one minute. I don’t know how long the whole process takes - maybe 12 ish? - including pulling the rack and running them under cold water.
Did I mention how easy they are to peel? My family goes through three dozen in a week, easy. They are just so convenient.
The pressure is also good for forcing marinades into meat. Just prick the meat deeply and place in the pot with the sauce. It will come out beautifully saturated. So you can cook lean meats like chicken breast and they come out juicy.
It will save you money because you can buy cheap cuts of meat and they always come out tender.
And a meal that you forgot to take out of the freezer will be done in an hour instead of four hours. Not only is it done faster, but you can walk away and do something else while it cooks. You don’t have to give it another thought.
Well pressure cookers do that low and slow cooking but in a much shorter time. The results are to me very like a crock pot, but just a lot faster. And that’s part of the reason, when you want that low and slow crock pot type meal but either don’t want to cook for hours or don’t have time to do so.