Top positive review
5.0 out of 5 starsIt's true. It makes a lot of things quick and easy. And a lot of foods quickly and easily.
Reviewed in the United States on November 5, 2018
For a long time, I wasn't a believer. I mean, I'm all for electronic gadgets in the kitchen. If I want to cook something for hours until its delicious and tender, I've got a traditional slow cooker. If I want to feel fancy when I'm preparing perfectly-cooked meats, I've got my Anova sous vide, and a wireless meat thermometer for the grill. But friends and family were always like, "Oh but you gotta get an Instant Pot!" But no, I didn't _have_ to get an Instant Pot.
Eventually, though, there was a sale, and I bought one. Now, I didn't really have any meaningful concept of the differences between the sizes and models. This 8 quart Duo Plus came up as a daily deal thing, and I bought it. It was a good price. And you know, it can make like 2 gallons of yogurt or porridge or something, so...great...whatever.
I'll be the first to admit that I didn't count on the sheer size of the thing. At the time, it was just my wife and I and our two-year-old daughter. When I unboxed this 8-quart monstrosity, I experienced a moment of trepidation, a fear of ridicule from my wife, who would point out that we don't need a really really ridiculously huge pressure cooker for just us. But I moved on from that anxiety, and I set about putting this thing to work.
The first time each of us used it, we felt what I'm sure every other pressure cooker rookie feels at first—the crippling fear that you're about to die in a horrific high-pressure home explosion, and that your family will always be embarrassed to explain that they were related to one of _those_ statistics. But, as I'm sure most pressure cooker owners do, we survived.
And it didn't take long before we realized (my wife especially, since she does a lot of the cooking) how fantastic this giant culinary autoclave really is. Cook an entire dinner of roast chicken with red beans & rice in one go? Done. Steam a whole mess 'o veggies when some friends show up with their gaggle of kids for dinner? Easy. Meatballs. Tamales. Artichokes. Corn on the cob. All quickly and (perhaps most significantly) very simple. And there's just a single pot to scrub at the end! Then just throw it back in the pantry until next time.
Last night I think I reached my true peak of giant Instant Pot appreciation. I cooked two racks of BBQ pork back ribs. I thought about just taking the meat to my dad's house and letting him do them in the smoker. But that would have taken like 10 hours! I could have tried the sous vide, but that would required me to cut up the ribs into ziploc-sized portions, to come up with a way to cook that much meat together in a bigger cooler than I usually use, and to then clean up the mess and cook for at least a few hours to get a good texture. And who has that kind of time when there's football to be watched and naps to be taken? Want to know how long I spent preparing this meal in the Instant Pot? We wanted to eat at 6pm. I boldly began my process at 5:00.
- Five minutes unwrapping and rubbing the meat and stuffing it all into my countertop sauna. I'll leave the visualization to you.
- Twenty minutes as the Instant Pot got up to cooking pressure.
- 25 minutes cooking + 2 minutes decompressing (and filling the house with delicious porky aroma)
- Five minutes painting on some sauce and letting everything sizzle on the grill.
Seriously. Delicious, perfectly cooked barbecue ribs—enough to feed at least eight people—ready in about an hour.
So yeah. I'm a fan. And even though it's comically large when we're just cooking for ourselves, I'm glad I got the 8 qt monster after all. I haven't even explored all of the fancy other options and space-age things it can do. But I will. If only because I can. Thanks, Instant Pot! <insert smile with tooth sparkle and "ding" sound>
