The all-popular Instant Pot is an exciting culinary trend—and for good reason.
The long and short of it? Instant Pots are truly cooking made easy. With this guide, you will be able to decide if an Instant Pot is right for you. Here’s the 411 on Instant Pots, Instant Pot recipes, and what to consider before buying one.
What Is an Instant Pot and How Does It Work?
An Instant Pot is a multicooker, which means it can perform multiple types of cooking and do so much faster than the conventional methods. That makes it incredibly economical for saving space in your kitchen and time in your day.
These electric cooking gadgets work by heating water past boiling and trapping in the steam. A dish that would have taken several hours to cook in a crockpot or an oven may only take an hour in an Instant Pot.
The removable inner pot is easy to clean and marked with fill lines to make measuring simple.
Instant Pot cooking features include:
- Slow cooker
- Pressure cooker
- Rice cooker
- Steamer
- Saute pan
- Warmer
Instant Pots typically come in 3-quart, 6-quart, and 8-quart sizes. Most family kitchens will do well with the 6-quart size. Prices range from about $50 to over $250, but again, most home chefs can pick up an Instant Pot of mid-level price.
What to Consider Before Buying an Instant Pot
In general, Instant Pots are great for soups, stews, grains, beans, and meat with that fall-off-the-bone quality. An Instant Pot won’t give an oven-crisped texture to veggies or meats, but it will create a juicy, flavourful pulled pork in under an hour.
As a multicooker, an Instant Pot can technically replace your steamer, crockpot, pressure cooker, and rice cooker. That’s a lot of freed-up counter and cupboard space!
However, do keep in mind that using the Instant Pot’s slow cooker setting may result in slightly drier food than if you use a standard slow cooker.
Also, Instant Pots are great for people who don’t want to plan meals far in advance—no more bleary-eyed, 6 a.m. dates with your crockpot. With an Instant Pot, you’ll be able to toss in the ingredients after work and still get dinner on the table before anyone gets hangry.
Finally, for anyone with safety concerns about the appliances in your kitchens, Instant Pots are indeed safe. However, keep in mind that the contents of your Instant Pot will be under high pressure and very hot while cooking, so it’s important to follow all instructions for proper use.
Instant Pots come with safety features like a pressure cooking lid, sealing ring, and steam release vent. You will be able to choose based on your recipe whether to allow the pressure to release naturally, or whether you will manually release it all at once.
Common Instant Pot Dishes
The Instant Pot is your go-to kitchen gadget for making rice dishes, soups and stews, lentils and legumes, and tasty, tender meat. Use it to make quick work of vegetable sides or pull-apart meats for all your sandwich and taco cravings.
Below is a list of excellent recipes for each category to get you started.
Baked Goods (Yes! Cakes!)
Meats
Pasta
Rice Dishes
Soups and Stews
Veggies
Other
If you’re looking to save time or counter space, an Instant Pot may be your new best friend. Its versatility plus speedy and delicious results make this a kitchen gadget worthy of any kitchen.
