New York Times:
Whether you’re hungry for perfect chickpeas from dried beans, succulent roasts in a fraction of the time, or a comforting soup ready when you walk in the door, a multicooker, which can act as electric pressure cooker, slow cooker, rice cooker, steamer and even yogurt-maker, can help. The Instant Pot is the best known of the multicookers now on the market, though other manufacturers, like Breville and Fagor, make models. We’ll show you how to master them, with valuable techniques for getting the most out of the machine.
I got one of these a few months ago and I love it. I make rice, steam/roast vegetables, sear meat, make stews and pot roasts, and even cheesecake in it.
I got one just before last Christmas and haven’t done much but Mac & Cheese in it (granted, at least five batches of Mac & Cheese), but my mom has used hers (bought last month) heavily for making soups.
Roasting and “Searing” in one is doing yourself a disservice – the oven or a pan will respectively do a MUCH better job than an electric pressure cooker.
They’re excellent for slow-cooking things (or making slow-cooking faster with pressure), though.
(I use mine for making beans rapidly, or for turning four or five hours of slow-cooking short ribs and oxtails into an hour.
Rice, eh, I guess? I just use a pot, but somehow lots of people have trouble with rice?)
Sent mine back. It’s a huge gimmick. Don’t fall for the contrived internet hype.
Really? Could you elaborate?
It’s not a gimmick, but a large percentage of the things you can do in an Instant Pot can be done easily, or better outside of an Instant Pot. If you have a bare-bones kitchen or don’t have much experience cooking, I could see how it might come off as the miracle device it’s hyped to be.
I’ve got a pretty good kitchen set up. I guess I can skip this then.
Don’t take his word for it. 🙂
There’s lots of things an Instant Pot can do that *aren’t* done more easily outside of one. For example, the pressure cooker element of it means some meats can be cooked in 1/2 the time – can’t do that outside of a pressure cooker. My Instant Pot also makes yogurt – that can be done outside of one but certainly not “more easily”. The Slow Cooker aspect of it is great as well, put a bunch of “stuff” in the Instant Pot before you go to work, come home to a full meal ready to serve.
Yes – there is a lot of hype around them but they are not *just* that, nor are they useless.
I find an Instant Pot saves me time, effort, and energy. That’s good enough for me and certainly not “hype”.
Thanks, I’ll just do more research on my own, could be worth it.
They can be. I wouldn’t buy one simply to have one but the convenience of the speed of the pressure cooker and the ability to cook “tough” (but cheap) meats in the slow cooker has saved us time and money.
I don’t have a crockpot anymore, so it could be worth it, for the slow cooking alone.
Yeah I love that feature. I’ve got tonight’s supper slow cooking in the Instant Pot as we speak. 🙂
I do miss it. “let’s see, toss in come carrots, salt, pepper, broccoli, some chicken, what else?” Get home after work, or wherever, “dinner is served”.