Have you gotten an Instant Pot yet? Seriously, what are you waiting for? The Instant Pot – does it all and more! I love this thing almost as much as I love my children. It makes life so much easier and Amazon has it on sale again!!

Let’s back up a bit in case you’re like me, and had no idea what an Instant Pot was.

The Instant Pot is a really safe and polite pressure cooker from Canada. It’s got not just one, not just two, but 10 proven safety mechanisms. If you’ve cooked with a pressure cooker you know that they aren’t always safe. I’ve exploded a couple in my time. In fact, it was a rite of passage growing up. My dad gave me a pressure cooker when I moved out. The kind that goes on top of the stove. I’d seen him explode one once or twice so I was prepared. It didn’t help. Good thing I wanted to paint my ceiling again anyway.

So safety is important. Just look at how wonderfully safe it is!

Did I mention polite? It’s Canadian so it has to be. Still, the box cracked me up. American products are all like plug me in and hopefully I’ll work right. Not this lovely Canadian Instant Pot, it’s saying please and thank you all over the place. Also the instruction manual, it’s got a cheat sheet since it understands no one ever reads those things. It’s also got a website which is really helpful with tips, tricks and recipes.

Getting back to safety…. The Instant Pot pressure cooker is safe, it as a release valve on it so you can let out all of the steam and not burn off your face or blast beef stew all over your kitchen ceiling, two really important features.

You may have seen those infomercials on late night TV where the guy cooks a metric ton of chicken wings in about 5 minutes. That’s the Power Pressure Cooker, the American version of the Instant Pot, though truth be told the Power Pressure Cooker could have come first, I don’t really know. It is the pressure cooker I had before I got my Instant Pot. I loved it, it is a great product (you can see a great compare and contrast of the two pressure cookers here), but my son borrowed it from me when he hosted a group of friends and I haven’t seen it since. So instead of buying another of the same I wanted to try the Instant Pot, and I am so glad I did!

So, what all does the Instant Pot do?

Instant Pot – Does it All and More!

  • Slow cook
  • Rice
  • Soups
  • Chili
  • Oatmeal
  • Stews
  • Hot dish (casseroles for you non Minnesotans)
  • Yogurt (seriously, you can make yogurt in this thing!!!)
  • And basically anything you might cook on the stove or in the oven you can cook in the Instant Pot for a fraction of the time.

Cooking with pressure allows you to cook foods faster and to retain their moisture, unlike conventional oven cooking. Because you can do it all in one pot, you save yourself all kinds of cleanup. Because you can do it in a fraction of the regular cooking time there’s no excuse to feed your family healthy meals because you didn’t think ahead and pull something out of the freezer so now you’re grabbing your keys and heading to the nearest drive thru.

Life Changing Cooking Appliance

Instant Pot (and pressure cooking) has been a thing for a couple of years now, but recently Amazon put it on sale for its Prime Day at something like $69. Normally it sells for from $100 to $159 (with the Power Pressure Cooker running about the same), so at $69 it’s a bargain, hell buy two, you’ll use them.

I got the Instant Pot IP-DUO60 7-in-1 Multi-Functional Pressure Cooker, 6Qt/1000W a couple of weeks ago (it’s the larger version, the one that makes yogurt) and have cooked in it almost every night. I’ve made pulled pork (20 minutes), Shrimp Alfredo (7 minutes), baby potatoes (7 minutes), and my favorite, a cheesy smoked sausage hot dish. All were delicious and so easy to prepare.

Instant Pot meals

The only drawback that I can see to the Instant Pot is that you cannot can with it. It’s too small at only 6 quarts (you need a 10 quart vessel to can properly). The Power Pressure Cooker does have a canning feature, so if that’s what you’re looking for be sure to check it out. I don’t can that often (though I would like to), so I’d use my huge ass canning pot if I needed to.

Have you gotten your Instant Pot yet? What did you think about it?