[smaccona]

We bought an Instant Pot two years ago because everyone seemed to be raving about them, but we only used it a handful of times - we tried recipes that came with it, recipes online, recipes from friends who had one. They were all hugely underwhelming. The one pot roast we tried was dry and flavorless. It didn’t seem to matter what seasonings we tried, the result was subpar.

We do have a couple of other crock pots / slow cookers which we use to make great dishes like pulled pork etc. It’s just the Instant Pot which hasn’t worked out for us.

Other Instant Pot users: what am I missing? Is the main advantage supposed to be that you can prepare meals fast because it’s a pressure cooker? Or should I pull it out and give it another shot?

[ska]

On pressure cookers: in general they are the most helpful for taking a recipe that you would simmer/braise for many hours and shortening the time. If your meat is coming out dry, you may have cooked too long, but more likely it's the wrong cut - stews can work really well.

Other things: it will make a really decent stock in less than an hour. It can do wonders with dry beans. If you want to try again, these guys are mostly pretty reliable as a starting point: https://www.seriouseats.com/pressure-cooker-recipes.

[orev]

New tools should be looked at as opening up new things you can cook. Pressure pots excel at dry beans, soups, and stews. If you don’t cook those, you won’t see the benefits. 1 hour in a pressure pot vs 8 hours in a crock pot is a game changer.

Pot roast seems like a bad fit since with a roast you’d typically want the roasted outside in the dry heat of the oven. You also need things that have enough water that will generate enough steam to build up pressure, so low moisture things won’t turn out well either.

[d4rti]

I pressure cook with the Instant Pot, as well as using it as a rice cooker (which I consider to be worth it in itself, we eat a reasonably large amount of rice).

Best sources are the pressure cooker recipes on Serious Eats [1], I especially recommend the Pho Ga [2], the Mushroom Risotto [3] and the Bolognese Ragu [4].

Another good source is hippressurecooking (I use the book[5] rather than the website [6]) - the book is worth it for the of method and time alone for e.g. beans, and the recipes are not as good as the Serious Eats ones, but many are good (I like the Filipino Chicken Adobo). I've used it in combination with other sources, as a way to adapt to the faster pressure cooking times (Urad Dal, using the ingredients from Ottolenghi, but method from Hip Pressure Cooking. Mind you if I have the time, I tend now to make the Dishoom House Black Dal).

1: https://www.seriouseats.com/pressure-cooker-recipes-5117325 2: https://www.seriouseats.com/30-minute-pressure-cooker-pho-ga... 3: https://www.seriouseats.com/pressure-cooker-mushroom-risotto... 4: https://www.seriouseats.com/pressure-cooker-ragu-bolognese-s... 5: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Hip-Pressure-Cooking-Laura-Passagli... 6: http://www.hippressurecooking.com/

[SideburnsOfDoom]

This is exactly my worry: My heart says "get an instant pot, they're so cool, so versatile, you could cook so much with so little effort"

But I don't get one, since my head says: "Where would you put it in the small apartment? And anyway you're well fed already. It doesn't fill a gap."

I guess if you're really busy and/or have a lot of mouths to feed then they're better value?

[nickd2001]

Its particularly useful for a time-starved family. We often put a whole chicken or piece of brisket (beef) or turkey drumstick in it in the morning, with a load of herbs out of the garden such as bay leaf, rosemary, sage, chives, then leave it all day and its magically cooked by dinner. Can be PITA to wash the pot afterwards that's the only caveat. Main benefit is when you got a family, doubt I would've bothered when single. One more thing- you can cook liver in it and that tastes good that way especially with something acidic like tomato or onion added. Liver is something dirt cheap that a number of UK school kids were traumatised by as fairly disgusting, but done in a slow cooker that way, we all enjoy. ;)

[charlieyu1]

Instant Pot is great for Asian soups/broths, you can get a soup done in an hour where it would have taken 5 hours using traditional cooking. In fact I haven’t really used it for anything else

[gwd]

> Other Instant Pot users: what am I missing? Is the main advantage supposed to be that you can prepare meals fast because it’s a pressure cooker? Or should I pull it out and give it another shot?

I don't like to use the pressure cooker for meat, for exactly the reasons you state. For one, higher heat of an oven produces different chemical changes, which generally taste better; for two, with pressure cooking, a lot of the fat seeps out of the meat and ends up in the broth, leaving it tough and tasteless. I feel the same way for potatoes and sweet potatoes -- I much prefer the flavor which the higher temperature of the oven brings.

That said, my wife actually prefers chicken / potatoes / sweet potatoes cooked in the pressure cooker; so when we buy a chicken, if I get to it first it's baked, and if she gets to it first it's pressure cooked. :-)

Where the pressure cooker shines is cooking grains and beans: quinoa, freekeh, chickpeas, black beans, kidney beans, lentils, etc. They all take a really long time to cook on the stovetop; but take quite a reasonable amount of time on the pressure cooker. (In fact, we bought our pressure cooker when we were experimenting with a "plant-based" diet.). But then you're not done: you still have to add fat and flavoring.

[Ekaros]

It also depends on the cuts of the meat. Pressure cooking is good for those that you would anyway simmer for long time. Thus shortening this time.

Workable alternative would be Sous-Vide which allows lower temps but much longer times. Even up to days.

One meat I have sometimes done as apartment dweller is ribs and then oven for glacing.

[chpatrick]

I think the pressure is the best thing, you can just chuck food into it that normally takes a long time to cook and it'll be done in a fraction of the time, then it'll just keep it warm until you're ready to use it. It's great for rice and yoghurt too. I use mine all the time.

[causi]

I gave up on trying to do anything useful with an Instant Pot when I realized I couldn't see the food cooking inside without opening the lid.

[askvictor]

It's a different way of cooking; closer to baking than stove-top cooking. You need to get the quantities right. If you follow some recipes for a bit you get the hang of the ratios required for a lot of things, or just continue to use recipes.

[gwd]

Baking at least you can open the oven to take a quick look, and even use an oven thermometer to see how well done it is. (I've recently discovered that you can use an oven thermometer when baking bread, which has been amazing!)

With a pressure cooker, it takes several minutes to depressurize, and the required seal precludes using a wired oven thermometer. So you just have to kind of guess and hope, which often means things are slightly over-cooked (since that's safer than slightly under-cooking).

[SideburnsOfDoom]

> Baking at least you can open the oven to take a quick look,

I find that baking falls into two categories:

1) Pie or roast - No closed cast-iron pot in use, so you don't need to open the oven, you can see in through the glass.

2) Baking bread in the closed cast-iron pot with the lid on, do not open the oven or raise the lid during this phase!

In neither case do you "open the oven and take a quick look"

[ska]

> Baking at least you can open the oven to take a quick look

This can really affect what you are baking, not always a good idea.

[SideburnsOfDoom]

That seems like a drawback, but not a showstopper to me?

[aqfamnzc]

The main thing is the quick pressurized cooking. But for me, and I use mine regularly, it's the repeatability. Boiled eggs are super easy once dialed in, and rice cooking too. The slow cooker part has worked better for me after buying a slow-cooker style lid for it (rather than the locking pressure lid, or no lid.)

[askvictor]

This instant pot is for when you haven't got enough time to slow cook your slow-cook-meal. Also really good for rice, grains and legumes. Depending on the model, can be good for fine-temperature control things like sous-vide. I use mine to make yoghurt a lot (paid itself off within a year just from that)

[dools]

So far I’ve done a brisket in the instant pot with good results, made a whole chicken stock, and use it regularly as a rice cooker. I haven’t expanded beyond that yet but so far it’s served me well in the instances I’ve used it just by looking up a couple of quick recipes

[nickd2001]

Its all too easy to overcook meat in it. hence why flavourless. Have you tried Brisket? That's more difficult to overcook, simply because it takes longer to cook so if you put it in in the morning, by dinner you'll be hungry before its overcooked ;)

[walthamstow]

My IP is used solely for cooking soaked beans, which it is brilliant at. It also does brown rice very well, better than my rice cooker.

That's it, though. Don't use it to cook real food.