Welcome to 2019.

I have one and used it quite a bit at first, but it mostly sits in my pantry these days. It definitely makes a great pot roast.

 

I would turn your oven to 425, put the instapot in it and then come back when it stops smoking.

 

I would turn your oven to 425, put the instapot in it and then walk away until it stops smoking.

As far as I can tell, the best use of the instant pot was for cooking rice. Of course, rice cookers also serve this purpose...

 

We used an old school pressure cooker pretty regularly before getting one, and use the Instant pot quite often. Get the cheapest toughest hunk of meat you can find, add potatoes onions and carrots, some beef broth or water, and season to taste. Meat setting - awesome on a cold winter day.

On slow cooker mode. get enough small beets to cover the bottom, a bit of water, drizzle honey over them then add a healthy amount of horseradish on top of the beets.

 

My family has oatmeal every morning. I prep the ingredients the night before, set the timer, and forget about it. consistent results every time.

Any kind of stew works well, too, especially at tenderizing tough pieces of meat.

 

My family has oatmeal every morning. I prep the ingredients the night before, set the timer, and forget about it. consistent results every time.

We just use the microwave.

 

What about steaming veggies? Without over cooking?

 

Can you make whiskey with it.

 

Most folks that I know use their instapot for melting paraffin wax when lubing bicycle chains.

I use a 10$ wal*mart crockpot for my bicycle chains.

 

I would prefer an air fryer and bought one. I think a crockpot and an air fryer would be a great combo. I had a pressure cooker years ago and got tired of it pretty quickly.

 

Crackpot-

 

We have the same one in the pic. Wife likes it. She uses it a lot, but the only thing I can think of is that it does a good pulled pork in a half hour.

She also does meal prepping every month or two, and does up a bunch of Mason jars with various things in them, chicken, veg, etc. So we can grab a jar in the morning for lunches at work. Makes that process a lot faster.

It's a small enough thing that it's not a big deal to stash in a cupboard.

We have a slow cooker too, but we never seem to think far enough ahead for it unless it's chili or something.

 

We just went old school, enameled (sp?) Dutch oven off Amazon. Probably has lead in the paint. A cheap n chewy pork shoulder, and then a nice cheap piece of marginal beef were rendered delicious by said pot, low n slow. Would have had the same results with the insta, I’m sure.

 

If that's a legit Lodge there's nothing low quality there. Canadian Tire regularly has the Lagostina dutch ovens for 50% off. We have two that we use semi regularly, often cook on the wood stove during the winter months.

 

My wife snd all her friends were into instapot when it first came out. Very handy for working parents, but we stopped using it regularly after 6-7 months. It gets occasionally used. Same thing happened with the air fryer. This probably speaks more to our cooking habits than the product.

 

We use ours a lot due to limited cooking time.

 

I use ours for making soup, stews, and pot roasts. The silicon seal absorbs and retains smells, so I'm disinclined to use it for anything that isn't savoury, although I understand one can buy alternate seals for when you don't want your rice pudding to have a faint whiff of thyme and bay leaf. My sister bought me a bunch of accessories for the Instant pot, but I haven't used them yet. I have more than enough manuals to read through already.

 

Thanks for the tip about the seals. I never would have thought of replacement seals for different spices, or lack of them.

 

There are plenty of YTube vids about how to use and cook with the IPot.

 

As soon as it came out, I suggested it to my wife and she told me, why? LOL But it's true coz we already have a rice cooker, a slow cooker and a pressure cooker. Having an all in one is more of an issue for us as you can't do more that one thing with it.
On the other hand, the air fryer has been used heavily since we got it. We almost use it every day.

 

On the other hand, the air fryer has been used heavily since we got it. We almost use it every day.

We have one built into our new gas oven. Wasn't a feature I was particularly looking for, but we use it quite a bit, and it doesn't take up any extra space in the kitchen.

 

I only ever use my Instant Pot for pulled pork. In regards to large kitchen gadgets I use my Ninja Air Fryer way more.

 

We have a rice cooker that can do a ton of stuff. But we mostly use it for rice.
I have a slow cooker, which I bring out mostly Thanksgiving to keep the mulled wine steamy.

As for roasts, Dutch Oven. So good my father in law made the mistake of telling me (in front of my mother in law) “That’s the best roast beef I’ve ever had”.

I don’t want/need another gadget, but I have heard good things about the versatility of the Insta-Pot.

 

I use a slow cooker often but I’m at home. If I were back at an office job I think an Instant Pot would be really handy. My favourite use is to make broth or a spicy leafy green soup/purée. Add a few days to your life.

Onions, garlic, red pepper flakes, turmeric, and other preferred seasoning + some combination of spinach, bok choy, okra, cabbage, edamame, peas, lentils… Delicious hot or cold (but keep in mind it’s saltier when cold). Using frozen veggies decreases the already minimal prep time. Use that saved time to browse the gear listings.

 

Our Instant Pot is WAY too big. We bought the 8 quart, and the 6 would have done just fine. But it does what it does well. And, you can get air fryer attachments for them.

Our air fryer gets use for things like my homemade wings, but we are still learning it. For heating up the McCains fries, I still use the convection oven because it's less to clean (baking sheet into the DW vs. bottom plate of the air fryer in the DW and the basket in the sink). In the future, we might get the smaller Instant Pot with the air fryer rig -- I am assuming the fryer we bought is not eternal.

 

I probably use the Instant Pot at least twice a week. I absolutely love it.

I definitely think you need to play to its strengths. I cook lots of Indian food in it (butter chicken, palak paneer, chana masala, etc.). It's absolutely amazing for that kind of food, along with many other foods where one expects the spices and flavours to intermingle in a very potent way. Other cuisines I have tried are Mexican, Kenyan, Japanese, etc, along with pulled pork, chili, and stuff like that. It works amazingly well.

I have a very strong recommendation to give for anyone looking for instant pot recipes that have a ton of flavor. Look into the books of Urvashi Pitre. They're very simple to follow, and extremely tasty. But, if you don't like spice and heat, you may want to pass..

I started with this one, and then ended up getting three more of her books over the years:
Instant Pot Fast & Easy: 100 Simple and Delicious Recipes for Your Instant Pot eBook : Pitre, Urvashi: Amazon.ca: Books

I love the fact that I can clean essentially the entire mess in the kitchen from prep work while the instant pot cooks the meal.

By the way, it is my understanding that the silicone ring may retain a residual odor from certain meals, but that smell should not affect the flavor of things that are subsequently cooked in the instant pot.

Lastly, I also have an air fryer which I love, but that's a completely different gadget. I don't see the point of comparing the two.

 

My wife bought one. After awhile it turned into a rice cooker. We eventually got rid of it because it took up a lot of space.

 

It makes very good soup quite fast.

 

What kind and what recipe? (If you don't mind sharing)

 

Still waiting for the “Songs with important Instant Pot parts” thread.

Green Onions?

 

All kinds of things for the slow cooker function (if yours has that). Nice because it's relatively safe to leave unattended on the countertop vs leaving the house with the oven on (I still sear and deglaze first!).

As for the pressure cooker, the only thing I've found my old school type useful for was steaming off dovetail neck joints and cooking dried beans, but it puts me a bit on edge so it's usually in storage. Good for stock as well...

 

Love our Instapot, gets used at least once twice a week. We had one of the bucket style air fryers and liked it a lot but we now have one of the countertop oven styles. It probably gets used three or four times a week. We rarely use our regular oven anymore.