So… right before Christmas I decided to buy myself a gift. I had read so many good things about the Instant Pot that I just had to try it. If you are not familiar with an Instant Pot, it is basically an electric pressure cooker. My main hope was that it would speed up the process of cooking dinner. Usually it is almost 6 pm before I get home from work everyday, so it can be 7:30 – 8:00 before dinner is ready.
I was really surprised at the versatility of the Instant Pot. I was hoping for a tender, juicy pot roast in 30 minutes rather than an hour and half in the oven, but it can do so many more things! It is a slow cooker and a pressure cooker. It also sautes, steams, cooks rice and makes yogurt! When the pressure cooking cycle is complete it automatically goes into “Keep Warm” cycle for up to 10 hours. I have cooked dry beans in 30 minutes with no pre-soak, made fall-off-the-bone BBQ Ribs in less than 25 minutes and Pork Chops with Cabbage in 12 minutes. My favorite has been Chicken and Dumplings… yummy!
One thing you have to keep in mind about the Instant Pot is that the cooking times do not include the time it takes it to get to pressure or the time that it takes for the pressure to release if you don’t do a quick release. I usually use the saute function to heat up the pot in order to cut down on the time it takes the Instant Pot to come to pressure.
One little problem I had when I first got the Instant Pot was how to remove the Anti-Block Shield from the lid for cleaning. The instructions that came with it were not very clear, and the shield pictured did not look at all like the one on my lid. I went to the forums at the Instant Pot web site for help. From the forums I discovered that a lot of people were having the same problem. After I figured out how to remove the shield, I made a short video to try and help others who were having the same problem. Here is a link to that video: https://youtu.be/CsfdCAtU1oE
If you’re interested in trying an Instant Pot, I bought mine on Amazon.
Here is a link to the model that I have.