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Did you just get an instant pot and just don't know what to do next? Or, do you keep hearing all this talk about the “instapot” and how fantastic it is, and want to know "what is an instapot"? This little walkthrough will give you all the info you need!
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So, what is an Instapot?
First off, it is actually called an Instant Pot
. This is despite the fact that it seems like everyone calls them an “Instapot”. Well, Dad has been calling it an Instapot forever. That is until a nice person in a Facebook group pointed it out he was calling it the wrong name. Dad really thought they were called "Instapots" and he doesn't think he is alone on that. Whatever it’s called, it’s basically like a Swiss Army Knife for the kitchen.
“It steams, it slow cooks, it makes rice and most importantly it pressure cooks.”
It's all about the pressure cooking.
The whole reason these things caught on like wildfire is the pressure cooking. Pressure cookers have been around for ages. Although, the old school pressure cookers never really caught on with home chefs. That's because they weren't easy to use and people were terrified they would explode. Dad actually had an old school one burst on him, it was not fun.
You see, the Instant Pot made pressure cooking safer and easier due to it being all digitally controlled. So, instead of having to fumble around and run the pressure cooker under cold water to get it to release you just flip a toggle on the top. Plus, it has safety features built in to prevent accidents like the one that Dad had back in the past.
How the hell does it work?
It works via magic, black fricking magic, Dad is convinced of it. Ok maybe it’s not actual magic. You see, the technique of pressure cooking goes all the way back to the sixteen hundreds and of course its French. So, this new thing in cooking is not so new.
Pressure cooking is cooking food in high pressure, thats it. It is the pressure that allows for high cooking temps, much higher than boiling, and greatly speeds up the cooking process. Things that would take hours traditionally can be done a fraction of the time. It is great for getting things tender and doing it fast.
Take ribs for example. Normally Dad's method for ribs would be to cook them on the grill or in the oven for about 3-6 hours depending on the style of rib he is going for. However, in the Instant Pot, it takes less than an hour start to finish for perfectly tender ribs.
You see, Dad told you it was magic. You can do stews, pot roasts, pulled pork all in record time.
What else can it do?
Depending on the model that you have you can do a lot more than just pressure cook.
- Rice Cooker
- Slow Cooker
- Steamer
- Yogurt Maker (only on certain models)
- Sous Vide (only on certain models)
Like Dad mentioned before it is an amazing rice cooker. It is worth getting as a rice cooker alone in Dad's opinion. Even though it has a slow cooker feature, think crock pot, Dad never uses it for that. You see, Dad has found it is not the greatest at being a slow cooker. Dad isn't sure why, but it does not seem to work as well as his old school crock pot. Thankfully, he doesn't find the need to slow cook things as much anymore when you can just pressure cook them.
Since Dad has one of the oldest and cheapest model there is, the Lux 6 quart, he can't really comment on the other features. Maybe one day the nice folks at Instant Pot will send Dad a new one to try out.
What to do now?
Now that you know what an Instant Pot is and how it works you have a few options. You can go and learn the basics of how to use an instant pot, or you can get some instant pot tips and hacks, learn how to make rice in the instant pot or go check out my instant pot recipes.
