Should You Buy an Instant Pot?

Yes, I'm late the Instant Pot party. I generally like to get a feel for how a product is doing longevity- wise before diving in. After a year of the Instant Pot gracing my Facebook and Instagram feed from friends I knew and trusted, I reluctantly succumbed to the Black Friday sales.

My hesitancy is not that it's a lot of money, it's that I already have a rice cooker and crock pot. Real estate in my kitchen is at a premium – would this be worth it or would it sit in our garage like our twice-a-year used deep fryer or juicer? In case you were wondering what it does, it's a multi-functional programmable appliance that works as a slow cooker, rice cooker, pressure cooker, steamer, cake maker, yogurt maker and more.

In the first two weeks these are the different items I tried in it:

Boiled eggs (best one to start with)
Macaroni and cheese
Applesauce
Rice
Lentil Chili
Meatballs and Marinara sauce
Steel Cut Oats
Dark Chocolate Pudding
Mashed Potatoes

Dark Chocolate Pudding from Dinner in an Instant

What were the pros of the Instant Pot?

1. I could set it and leave it. This is the biggest benefit for me as there is no stove watching/stirring. I can cut up potatoes and put them in for 8 minutes at high pressure and leave the house. When I get home I just mash them up and they're still warm (when the cooking is complete it goes into warm mode).

2. Compared to a slow cooker it did save time for meals like chili, steel cut oats and making applesauce. You can have steel cut oats and applesauce within half an hour (most of the time is pressurizing) and both were delicious. Chili? One hour.

3. Compared to stove top it was a big time saver for dried beans.

4. It saves money on energy usage. Their website claims that there is a 70% reduction in energy usage – this is a big one for me.

5. Easy to clean about 90% of the time. The only tricky ones were the mac 'n cheese and rice.

6. They are often on sale under $100 and I feel that it is priced appropriately.

Meatballs in Marina Sauce 

What are the cons of the Instant Pot?

1. We have a 6 quart because we want it to fit well with our cupboard space. It would be difficult to make food for a larger group. I had to do two batches of meatballs (they were raw meatballs so if I filled the pot they would've stuck together) and two batches of the chocolate pudding. If we had the space I would have purchased an 8 quart but for a family of five and not making a double batch of a recipe, this is big enough.

2. Rice was terrible. Crispy on the bottom each time we made it. We have a rice cooker that has always worked perfectly and we were hoping we would be able to swap it out. If you have a rice solution, let me know. (Edited to add: a ratio of 1:1 water:rice at 4 minutes on high pressure is perfect! Do not use the rice setting).

3. Not a huge time saver over stove cooking for many items (ex. eggs, potatoes, pasta) due to the time required to pressurize. Many recipes can take anywhere from 5-25 minutes to pressurize before cooking.

4. A lot of recipes recommend sauteing your meat/onions etc in the pot. Nope. Not happening. The surface is way too small for me to do more than 1 lb of meat with onions and garlic. If that's all you need to put in saute-wise, go wild. It should reduce the warming/pressurizing time afterwards.

5. The pressure needs to be released naturally or manually and I'm hesitant to let my son cook with it in case he forgets to release the pressure or burns himself on the vent.

Was it worth it?

Yes. This is not as life-changing as I had hoped but the "set it and forget it" aspect is key. You might argue that a slow cooker is similar except in this case you can go from dried lentils to chili in under an hour which saves you time and money. The two items I am looking forward to making over the next few months are chicken broth and yogurt – the yogurt makes me a bit nervous, have you done it?

Are you an Instant Pot-ter? I'd love to hear your favourites.

Love,
Louise

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