• I know a lot of people that love Instant Pots. I had one and used it rarely. My wife hated it. We gave it away and got an air fryer, also by the Instant Pot brand (the Vortex or something). I use that thing all the time.

    That said I’m not too surprised at this. Many people I’ve talked to express no interest in one or had the same experience I did.

    • So interesting, because we tried an air fryer (not a dedicated one, but a toaster oven with air fryer capability) and found that we just got stale food that took forever to cool. The Instant Pot is great for cooking beans, caseroles, soups, yogurt, boiling eggs, and creating other awesome, gloppy foods that my Midwestern sensibilities liked. We don’t use ours a ton, but I’m glad we have it.

      • Love our air fryer for wings, bacon (perfect, every time), breaded shrimp, reheating pizza, fries. Instant pot is key for ribs, chili, goulash, roasts, soup.

        Once upon a time we had multiples of both but I think we pared down to just one instant pot and one double air fryer. Hopefully we still have a spare one somewhere because making wings takes a long time and I can barely cook a meal for four at once in the double fryer. If we have any guests or I want to make a side of fries, need another fryer.

    •  idle   ( @idle@158436977.xyz ) 
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      1 year ago

      You have to put in a lot of upfront work with the pressure cookers. Re-thinking the way you used to do your recipes and adapting them is a lot of work I’ve found. But I will say, it was worth the time investment once you figure it out. You make fewer dishes and you use less water. And the biggest plus is probably, no more babysitting it on the stove.

      EDIT: Oh and once you figure out a recipe, it comes out the exact same way every time because it’s all so much more precise.

    •  HamsterRage   ( @HamsterRage@lemmy.ca ) 
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      1 year ago

      We bought the smallest version some years back. The idea was to use it to replace our rice cooker with something multi-purpose.

      The rice cooking function takes 12 minutes at pressure, and the Mini InstantPot takes 8 minutes to get up to pressure, for a total of 20 minutes. This is the same as a dedicated rice cooker, so it’s a wash in that respect. The big difference is that you loose very little water to steam, compare to the rice cooker. So you use about a 1:1 ratio of rice to water. The results are good.

      So our InstantPot is guaranteed fairly regular use just from that, and anything else is just a bonus.