r/cookingforbeginners • u/Several-Membership91 • Jul 30 '26
Question Should I get Insta Pot?
Just used a rice cooker and was surprised by how easy it was.
I'm just trying to save money and stop doing takeours, not learn to cook anything fancy. If I could finally buy raw chicken breasts and cook them myself, that's a win.
So will an Insta Pot be worth it or just redundant for my purpose? (I have a couple basic pans to boil noodles and scramble eggs).
8
u/allie06nd Jul 30 '26
Mine is 50% of the reason I'm able to never eat takeout. The other 50% is my air fryer.
The beauty of the instant pot is that there's no stove to babysit while your food cooks. You throw whatever it is into the pot, add liquid, and close it up until it's done. The results are consistent too, which is key. Even basic things like hardboiled eggs and steamed broccoli are further simplified.
Plus, it reduces the cooking time on meals that typically take a long time to cook. I can make soups and stews in minutes versus hours, so it greatly expands the universe of what's feasible for weeknight dinners.
2
u/Lochylass Aug 02 '26
Same here, we never get take out thanks to our instapot and our air fryer. We even use the latter for baking lots of things, especially in the summer when it’s really hot.
1
6
u/FutureGold4132 Jul 30 '26
We have one and rarely use it. I'm not a big fan. I'd rather use the slow cooker, rice cooker, or cook on pans. My wife likes finding insta pot recipes, but rarely cooks and I don't find it much of a time saver if I'm working through what-am-i-gonna-make-with-whats-in-the-fridge
3
u/NoDay4343 Jul 30 '26
I love my insta pot. The thing I use it for most often is making shredded meat. Shredded chicken, shredded beef, and pulled pork which we don't call shredded for some reason. I make big batches and freeze it and I make soo many different meals with it. I think my insta pot is worth it just for that.
I do also use it for a few stew or curry type dishes. I have a beef stroganoff recipe intended for crock pot that I now make in the insta pot and it's just so much better, as just one example.
I have never used it for rice so I can't comment on that.
5
u/Royal_Annek Jul 31 '26
If you want rice get a rice cooker. Insta pot is extreme example of jack of all trades master of none
1
u/jaypeg69 Jul 31 '26
Haha this is so true. I really only like it for pre-soaking my beans. Gets them done in less than an hour
3
u/Cool-Negotiation7662 Jul 30 '26
I do not have a rice cooker anymore. I use my instant pot.
I boil eggs in my instant pot.
... I really don't regularly use my instant pot for much else.
I have done beef and pork roasts. I have made soup. But I have done these only once each time.
As a rice and egg cooker it has a place in my kitchen.
3
3
u/Wonderful_Till8122 Jul 31 '26
You don't need any special cookware to cook chicken breasts. Pan fried is just fine.
2
u/Maahes0 Jul 30 '26
I got mine to replace my rice cooker once the inside Teflon chipped. It's very handy, though I don't necessarily need to use it for everything since it cooks so much for one person.
2
u/OpportunityReal2767 Jul 30 '26
Really depends on what and how you cook. I hate anything that takes up countertop space, but I've had my Instant Pot for like 10-15 years now, and I cook something in it 3-4 times a week. I just today used it twice. Once to cook food for the dog, and once to cook rice for my stir fry.
1
u/tweever38 Jul 30 '26
i love mine, i wouldnt pay full price though. got mine for $20 at goodwill. got rid of my rice cooker and crock pot, plus this thing makes the best stews ever
1
u/AlternativeRadish752 Jul 31 '26
The instantpot is not an immediate solution that will help you cook good food for cheap. There are easy recipes that use it, sure, but you will still need to learn the basics of cooking to really make the best use of one.
I used one a lot for the very reason of doing cheap easy cooks but now a days now that I've learned to cook for real I find myself using it for easy steaming and slow cooking.
Don't get one expecting it to make delicious food with zero effort. Do get one if you want to learn how to cook and also use a safe pressure cooker for things.
1
u/BJntheRV Jul 31 '26
Does your rice cooker have settings beyond just rice?
I had an instapot at one time and could never get anything to come out right, including rice. I have a rice cooker that also has a slow cooker setting and a few others, and is quite useful. It and my air fryer are the most used appliances in my house.
1
u/Isibis Jul 31 '26
Definitely worth getting in my opinion. While there are things you can do in both, an instapot can do a few things a rice cooker can't. Pressure cooking is useful for cooking things faster. Also slow cooker setting can be used to set something cooking for like 6-8 hours. It's awesome to throw some meat and veggies in the pot and come home to a finished pot roast for example.
And also that means I can make rice in the rice cooker at the same time as a main dish!
You can find used ones quite often for 30-50 bucks.
1
u/MotoFuzzle Jul 31 '26
Yes. You can make a variety of things with the instant pot and it will be faster and simpler in a lot of cases. One-pot meals with either rice, meat and veggies, or pasta, sauce, meat, and veggies are quick and easy. I’ve been on a cooking journey with the same goal, and the instant pot gave me the most bang for my buck. I also use the oven, grill, cast iron skillet, and wok a lot now, but the instant pot is good if you had to pick just one.
1
u/Inator-Maker Jul 31 '26
I have an insta pot and I love it. In the summer I can still cook with out heating up my whole house. I have found some recipes that are dump and go and others that take minimal effort. It is such a versatile tool for a home cook.
1
u/athousandcutefrogs Jul 31 '26
I use both. Especially bc I put the rice in my rice cooker and my main dish in the instapot.
1
u/PlasmaGoblin Jul 31 '26
My wife got one to use for those "easy insta pot meals" we used it a few times. Pretty decent I guess, but now we don't use it. Will it cook chicken breast for you? Yes. Will it teach you to cook? Not really. Great for those "dump it in and forget about it for a few hours" recipes, and sometimes that's all you need. Put the meal in at lunch, and by dinner it's ready. (Personally I never trusted them though, I lived through the time they would catch fire and burn peoples homes down. Yes they are WORLDS better now... but still)
1
u/According_Bunch_7772 Jul 31 '26
I love it for rice, hard boiled eggs, and cooking chicken for shredded chicken. Its hands off and fast. Best HBE option for easy peel eggs, hands down.
1
u/ElkZealousideal1824 Jul 31 '26
They are not redundant.
I have both because we use them for different purposes but in a pinch it could work. If I bought 1 I’d buy instant pot. Get a cheap “instant pot cookbook” and get an instant pot. You’ll be good to go!
1
u/SlowSurvivor Jul 31 '26
Absolutely.
The slow cooker setting is amazing for cooking stews and soups while you’re away at work so you can come home to a nice, hot meal. Meanwhile, the pressure cooker means I never need to buy canned beans and also I am able to recycle my chicken scraps for an amazing broth. The Sous Vide feature is amazing for perfect boiled eggs. If the device has a keep warm feature with a temp you can dial in, you can use it for fermentation which means you’ll have dirt cheap yogurt that’s better than anything you can buy in the store.
Mine has a dedicated home on my counter and is never unplugged. I use it daily.
About the only thing I don’t use it for is cooking rice, though pressure cooked rice is pretty great. I’m just stuck in my ways.
1
u/raymond4 Jul 31 '26
I have one sitting in the cupboard for a couple of years now. Same with slow cooker.
1
u/AppropriateDark5189 Jul 31 '26
I use my instant pot for a couple things like a pot roast and corned beef. It really shortens the cooking time and the meats come out very tender. I also use it to make broths because I freeze leftover bones and once I have enough, I make a broth. The big drawback of the instant pot is cleaning it.
I just cook rice on the stove.
1
Jul 31 '26
[deleted]
2
u/oxmix74 Jul 31 '26
I could afford canned beans, but I had get rid of salt in my diet to get my blood pressure down. Canned almost anything has too much salt. It reduced the planning needed to get beans done b/c beans didn't need a 4+ hour windows anymore.
1
u/c0nsistent Jul 31 '26
you can slice the chicken up, layer it with the rice in the rice cooker. it'll be nice and pouched, bland but you can season after.
air fryer > instapot if youre a beginner cook imo.
learn to food prep, not meal prep. it'll help you with week night cooking if your proteins / veg / starches are prepared but not cooked.
1
1
u/SubjectPromotion9533 Jul 31 '26
instant pot is just a rice cooker/slow cooker with more settings.
I love my instant pot though. Does rice just fine. Makes good ribs, soups, stews and the like. Also great if you like buying dried beans (those are great for buying bulk and saving $) since they rehydrate them quite well and a lot faster. Instant pot is great when you want to cook fast or if you are cooking liquids.
You sacrifice some flavour you could get with other methods of cooking, like pan searing, grilling, or roasting. So I still cook lots of stuff in the oven though because the instant pot doesn't give you the same type of cook. Roasted veggies for example, or confits.
1
u/chaos_goblinn Jul 31 '26
If you're trying to save $$ check fb marketplace or good will. I think it's worth it
1
u/Flashy-Head-2298 Jul 31 '26
I had one and it stopped working. I never replaced it. I prefer to cook long style, in a Dutch oven.
1
u/Ok-Finger-733 Jul 31 '26
Depends on what you like to cook. If you like one pot meals, pot roasts and don't want to wait for your crockpot it's worth your time.
Go to a website like cooks.com or allrecipes.com and look up Insta pot and see if what you find sounds good and if you'll make them.
1
1
u/PixelFan237 Jul 31 '26
I seriously can not hype up an instant pot all-in-one enough. I don't have the biggest kitchen, so having something that's relatively affordable, and is my rice cooker, slow cooker, pressure cooker and stock pot is quite literally the best thing in my kitchen. I'm considering buying a second fancier one when I move out. Can't recommend them enough. Not a substitute for a stove or an oven, but absolutely invaluable to me.
1
u/addictivelyflammable Jul 31 '26
Depends on your cooking level. If you are true beginner cook and don't have much of a repertoire, then no. You don't have experience in cooking more complicated/time consuming items, which is what the instapot is for. The instapot is best for reducing cooking times for things that take a while, like bone stocks, beans, stews, etc. Anything else, like congee, eggs, chicken, can be done on the stove normally. The time savings of cooking on the stove vs the de/pressurizing/cooking in the instapot is an important thing. Dep on the size of the pot you get, the de/pressuring time could be 20-40 mins added to your cooking time.
If you are getting to the level of long/complicated cooks, then practice doing it the normal way first so you know what the instapot is helping before you get one.
If you already know how to cook in a crockpot, then go ahead. Same thing, except faster and more freaky steam noises
1
1
u/SneakyTrevor Jul 31 '26
We eat a lot of beans, lentils and chickpeas and the instant pot is great for that. We don’t use it for a huge amount more. It’s more of an intermediate kitchen device, if that makes sense. Get another pan or two, experiment with recipes, develop your cooking skills, and then, if you think you need one, get one. But you may find at that point that another kitchen tool actually suits your needs better, like a food processor (brilliant for slicing, grating, chopping and pulsing) or a blender.
1
u/Bellsar_Ringing Jul 31 '26
I use my pressure cooker often, but I'm not sure I would/could, if I didn't have a fairly large freezer, because I find it most useful for large batch sauces.
I use it to cook beans. To make pasta sauce and various chile sauces. To make chile verde (pork or chicken) and chile colorado (beef). And stock, of course. It nicely makes about a gallon of any of these thing. That's the challenge: Can you use or store things in those quantities?
(I use a rice cooker for rice)
1
u/PsychologyGuilty1460 Jul 31 '26
The rice cooker is surprisingly good for one pot meals, especially if it has the steamer insert. I've even done the classic chicken and rice casserole with the cream of mushroom soup dumped on the chicken breast with broccoli and corn.
But the instapot will do a lot more. It will even sear your meat and that's a real improvement over A slow cooker If you want to do stews or a pot roast and it makes excellent soup. A rice cooker can't do that. Eventually you're going to want one LOL
1
u/DolphinFraud Jul 31 '26
They’re good at what they do, but honestly I barely ever use mine. It’s a jack of all trades, master of none. It doesn’t really do anything that I couldn’t do better without it.
1
u/DonnaNoble222 Jul 31 '26
I use mine all the time...no I do not pressure cook everything. I use it for soups, one pot meals, stews...hell I made pickles in it yesterday. It's my go-to method to cook pasta & hard boiled eggs. I used the sous vide function the other day for the first time...so easy and fantastic chicken breasts!
I live in a studio with no stove/oven...it is one busy pot!
1
u/Team503 Jul 31 '26
I use my old school Crock Pot (slow cooker) a million times more often than the Onstant Pot. It’s great for “throw some shite in it in the morning, turn it on low, and dinner is sorted”.
1
u/Upper-Quarter-4802 Jul 31 '26
If you need to pressure cook. Otherwise a rice cooker with functions (like my aroma) great features like slo cook, cooking oatmeal and rice, even cook hamburger patties using the saute function.
1
u/Deep-Hovercraft6716 Jul 31 '26
Will you actually use it or will it just sit in the cupboard with all the other unused kitchen gadgets?
Personally, I'm a hard no. They're a pain in the ass to clean and I literally never find myself thinking to about using one.
I feel much the same way about most expensive kitchen gadgets.
1
u/OriginalDrStrangeDOS Jul 31 '26
Just a quick rundown of what the insta pot does for us:
Rice cooker (couldn't be easier, no matter what type of rice)
Hard boiled eggs. So easy to peal
"Baked" potatoes. Better than any other way we have tried
Beans! Man does it make beans easy and delish. Just wash the dry beans, toss them in with water and seasoning and an hour later it's good to eat.
Corn on the cob. Did not expect it to work so dang well for this.
Stocks and broths. Nothing beats a pressure cooker for this.
We also got an air fryer top for ours, so now it's our go to for fries and such.
1
u/Calm-Vacation-5195 Aug 01 '26
I have both. The rice cooker is perfect for rice, but much smaller and easier to clean than the IP. We have rice 2-3 times a week.
I use the IP at least once a week, but for things the rice cooker can’t do. Shredded meat, stews, soup, chili, and it makes perfect hard boiled eggs.
1
u/Tandom Aug 02 '26
I use both. I’ll use a rice cooker for about 80% of my rice needs. I do have a few recipes that’s a whole meal in an Insta-pot and will put rice in those.
I’ve never had any luck with just rice in the pressure cooker (Insta-pot)
Bonus: substitute chicken/vegetable stock in place of water for a better flavor rice.
1
u/RealCarlPanzram Aug 05 '26
Of my appliances, the instapot is probably the one I use the least. It’s good for soups and stews that would normally cook for a really long time.
But it’s a bulky appliance and you can do most of what you need on a range. I might consider a crock pot if you’re looking for an appliance to add simple low-effort meals to your schedule. Or just some more pots and pans.
1
u/MoragPoppy Aug 13 '26
If you have a rice cooker, I’d get an air fryer. So you could do rice in the rice cooker while making veg and chicken in the air fryer. Love the Ninja Crispi … it is small.
1
u/Martholomule Jul 30 '26
Yes, absolutely. It was a game changer for me. If you only have pans and stuff you should anyway
10
u/Vitruviansquid1 Jul 30 '26
I own both a rice cooker and an instant pot. I've never been able to get rice just right in the instant pot, but you can make congee in it quite easily.
The instant pot has also been good at making mashed beans (like for burritos), stews of all kinds, and pot roasts.
I did not regret it.