A few months ago I was pursuing Pinterest and came across a post for something called an Instant Pot. (Although, at that time I read it as Insta-Pot.) Curious, I flipped over to Amazon to see what this thing was.
A pressure cooker, eh? Don’t those things blow up houses?
Instant Pot recipes were chalked full of weird lingo such as NPR, quick release, etc. The talk of all the different settings, cleaning of valves, and cooking adjustments quickly overwhelmed me and I left the site, never to return.
Until a few months later. I came across another post talking about how the Instant Pot changes lives. People started talking of time savings, easy cooking, easy clean up – I was intrigued. Within an hour, I had ordered one off my beloved Amazon. Two days later, it arrived on my doorstep.
Pleasantly surprised by how easy the Instant Pot is to use, I was even more impressed with how it cooks. I’m not the only one. I convinced both my office mates to take the plunge. Now we sit around, discussing new recipes and different ways to use it.
Here’s what you need to know about the Instant Pot:
Time
So many people tout The Pot as a time saver. There are some recipes that are quicker – such as a roast – but I find that it changes my time. For instance, I have a meatball recipe I make a lot, and it usually takes me 45 minutes start to finish. The entire 45 minutes I am doing something. With The Pot, I make the meatballs, make the sauce, throw it in The Pot and walk away. So my time spent on dinner goes from 45 minutes to 15.
Intimidation Factor
Yes, there is a small learning curve to The Pot, but trust me, you can figure it out by reading the manual – which they have written at an easy reading level.
The Food
The biggest reason I love The Pot is because the food that comes out of it is amazing. That especially goes for meat. Our favorite thing to cook is a roast. I can cook a roast – start to finish – in about an hour and 15 minutes. (This includes prep, letting The Pot come to pressure, and depressurizing.) On top of that nice time savings, the meat is so tender and juicy, it literally falls apart. Like, I have trouble getting it out sometimes because it falls apart under the pressure of my tongs.
Another favorite is frozen chicken breasts. Throw 3-5 frozen breasts in along with 1-2 c of chicken broth. It takes about 5 minutes to come to pressure, then cook for 10 minutes, then depressurize for 10 minutes and you get perfect, juicy chicken breasts that shred super easy. I will freeze the shredded chicken and use it for sandwiches and salads.
Convenience
The Pot has a ton of settings, including a sauté function. What this means to you is that you can truly do one-pot cooking, which as well all know, makes clean up so much easier.
It’s Not the Oven
In the summer, this is huge! The kitchen is so much cooler when we use The Pot. I’m assuming the electricity to run The Pot is much less than the gas it takes to cook a meal on the stove.
Another Kitchen Appliance
I know, we all have a million kitchen appliances that we bought thinking they’d save us time, only to collect dust. This one though, does not. I actually moved my crock pot into storage because whatever I used to cook in the crock pot, I have adapted to the Instant Pot.
Have YOU tried The Instant Pot yet?
Comment with your favorite Instant Pot Recipes!
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