Instant Pot Duo 7-in-1 Multi-Cooker 3L - Brushed Stainless Steel, Small Pressure Cooker, Slow Cooker, Rice Cooker, Sauté Pan, Yoghurt Maker, Food Steamer Pot and Food Warmer, Dishwasher Safe

I have been using the Instant Pot for some time now, and it has significantly simplified my cooking routine. One of its standout features is how effortlessly it cooks rice—perfectly fluffy and evenly cooked every time, without the need for constant monitoring. Beyond rice, the Instant Pot supports a wide variety of cooking methods, such as pressure cooking, slow cooking, steaming, and sautéing, making it a versatile addition to any kitchen.A major advantage is the abundance of recipes available online, allowing me to experiment with different dishes ranging from soups and stews to curries and even desserts. The controls are user-friendly, with clear settings that make it easy to adjust cooking times and pressure levels as needed.In terms of efficiency, the Instant Pot operates smoothly, and I haven’t encountered any performance issues. Additionally, its power consumption seems quite reasonable—I haven’t noticed a significant increase in electricity usage, which is a great bonus for regular use.Overall, my experience with the Instant Pot has been excellent. It saves time, reduces the effort needed for meal preparation, and consistently delivers great results. I would highly recommend it to anyone looking for a reliable, energy-efficient, and multifunctional kitchen appliance.

"Sooo... These Instant Pot things... Are they really as good as everyone says they are? Do they really cook things much more quickly than 'normal' cooking does, and are they safe?"If the words above sum up how you're feeling at the moment and you're reading review after review from Instant Pot owners (mostly) saying that they're the bees knees and have revolutionised their kitchen, but still need some convincing - come along with me and I'll lead you skipping and grinning down the path to Instant Pot ownership. Well, ok, you don't have to skip or grin - I'm not gonna pressure you.I only just became the proud new owner of an Instant Pot on Monday and cooked my first meal in it yesterday, which has been an absolute revelation - and I'll tell you why; it's all about the motherflippin' LENTILS, baby! You know how it can take an absolute age for lentils to get soft when they're boiled in a conventional pot-on-hob situation? Well, I was looking through recipes to try in my Instant Pot and discovered that it was apparently possible to make a lentil dhal in just 20 minutes in one of them - so that was me utterly convinced that I needed to give it a shot.Now, before I go any further, I should explain that until yesterday I'd never once cooked anything in a pressure cooker so I was totally in uncharted territory. I'd always read that pressure cookers were noisy, dangerous and terrifying things, so it was not without a little trepidation that I followed the instructions to do the first pressure test to make sure my IP was working as it should. This simply involved popping some water into the inner pot, closing the pressure valve and turning the gadget on for a few minutes. As the pressure built inside the pot, it obviously started to make some noise - there's a valve on the lid that closes once enough pressure has built up, and until it does that there's some hissing noise (which I found mildly unsettling initially), but once it closes, all you can hear is a gentle bubbling noise from inside the pot. Now, the most unsettling thing to a noob pressure cooker user is that in order to get to the culinary delights cooking inside the Instant Pot, you need to release the pressure via the valve on the top of its lid. This causes a fair bit of noise and clouds of super-hot steam to erupt from the valve so you need to be careful - thankfully, you get a couple of utensils (a small spoon/ladle and a rice paddle) with the IP that have holes in their handles that can be used to open the valve safely.Back to those lentils, I set about following that recipe to make the dhal, and used the IP's handy saute function to fry up the onions and garlic, and it was then a simple case of adding the lentils, spices and seasoning to the pot with some water to make the steam, and to then turn it on at high pressure for ten minutes. In some recipes it will ask you to do a NPR (natural pressure release) for a length of time, and in this case, I left it for ten minutes before opening the valve. What I ended up with was the most delicious home-made dhal I've ever had - waaay better than any I've attempted in the past - and cooked far more quickly than I would ever have thought possible.I attempted another recipe for a Brocolli pasta concoction last night which went a wee bit squiffy - which was my own fault for deviating from the recipe instructions, leaving me with a pot full of mostly uncooked pasta. A quick blast in the microwave fixed that, but the pasta sauce was delicious. The interesting thing about cooking with the IP is that the food from it seems to be far more intensely flavoured than usual - and this has a lot to do with the fact that cooking via pressure causes the flavours to permeate right through everything. Another good plus is that food retains far more of its nutritious value as it doesn't escape via the steam as per conventional cooking.The only downside I'm probably going to find - as with any new cooking gadget - is that there may be a few culinary disasters before I crack the techniques of cooking under pressure, but that's to be expected and won't be any fault of the pot itself.Summing up, I'd say that I'm completely bowled away by the Instant Pot. The high praise for it is not unwarranted, and I'm desperately excited about trying out more stuff in it - you can cook cheesecakes, dried beans and pulses cook ridiculously quickly (no more soaking for hours, yay!) and it seemingly makes cooking these days with our busy lives far more convenient as you can use one pot to do everything. Of course, it doesn't completely replace the oven and hob - you can't bake, fry or grill in it - but there are a heap of accessories for it that will make making soups, stews and all sorts of other things in it quick, simple and mess-free.Ladies and gentlemen, we have a winner.>>>UPDATEI've had a few more bashes at cooking recipes in my IP and the results have been mostly good, but I've hit a few problems; but these are all part of the learning process. The problem I've had is getting the food to water balance right; if there's not enough water or the consistency of the liquid in the pot is too thick, it will display 'BURN' once it has come to pressure as the temperature sensors on the bottom of the pot detect that it's became too hot. This effectively cancels the cooking process, so I've had to release the pressure, add more water and then try again. I have however managed to cook a saag aloo, a beautiful butternut squash pasta recipe and last night I cooked an amazingly tasty lentil chilli. Two out of those three ended up displaying the 'Burn' message at some point.This exemplifies the learning curve with the Instant Pot, but don't let that put you off - when things go right it utterly outstanding!>>>ANOTHER UPDATEI've now had my Instant Pot for nearly a year now and it's probably fair to say that I'm definitely getting the hang of it. One of the most useful aspects of the Instant Pot is that it makes cooking large batches of food really simple a quick. Every Sunday now, I end up cooking a huge amount of butternut squash and cauliflower curry to have for lunch for the whole week, and I've absolutely cracked the process now. I cook up a big batch of brown rice first, which cooks in 22 minutes, put it to one side and then cook the curry before dumping the rice into it. It seriously makes food prep simple as I can chop up all of the ingredients for the curry while the rice is cooking - so it feels super-efficient.

I bought one as recommended by a friend. My previous experience of pressure cooking is a very long time ago and it wasnt particularly good. The digital menus buttons are very versatile and can be varied easily with a few presses of the buttons. It claims to save time and I am not sure it does. I have cooked chops, chicken, stews, that sort of stuff. It does marvellously on all these items, you as a last resort if you dont think it is tender enough, pop it in for several more minutes, there is a bit of "getting to knowyou" about this piece of kit, which is just as i would expect, its not a big learning curve. There is loads of help on you tube. The results of my endeavours have been very good, the meat is extremely tender, the stews have been great, the resulting stock is great for making gravy or just mixing in with the veg, so losing none of the goodness, and its versatile, my roast chicken wasnt really roast, but it was a terrific chicken with a very nice skin due to my using the saute function. Time wise, do you really score by using this? the time advantage is not as great I think, as is claimed, because the cooker does take a while to get up to pressure, and a while to come down from pressure. Where you emphatically do score is the ease of cleaning. It is so easy to clean in contrast to roasting where you have all those charred greasey bits to chip off your roasting pan. I like this very much and have no hesitation in saying give it a go. My wife doesnt like it that much, but it is definitely growing on me-and there is loads of videos in youtube to give you ideas. Think about getting a bigger one, if they do it, because my chicken of 1.5 kilo gets inside fine, but a bigger bird will not, and then you got to think about the veg sitting around it and remember you cannot fill beyond the 2/3 line on the internal saucepan. but heck, that is enough for a good meal for four. Its actually cheap as well, I think under £100 for this was a good bargain.