Instant Pot DUO MINI 3L Electric Pressure Cooker. 7-in-1: Pressure Cooker, Slow Cooker, Rice Cooker, Sauté Pan, Yoghurt Maker, Steamer and Food Warmer, Black,silver

"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. >>>UPDATE I'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 UPDATE I'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.

Having decided to wait to order the new instant pot I await with anticipation its arrival and having never used a pressure cooker I look forward to learning all its different functions. In the meantime I have been making yogurt, cooking one pot meals and reintroduced vegetarian meals for the family. Last night I steamed three christmas puddings which were not cooked until 2.30 am.This is where I am hoping that the instant pot will come into its own allowing me a much faster cooking method and a saving on the ever increasing electricity bill. I will update this review as soon as I have tried all the functions of the instant pot. Update 25\1\14. Thank you so much to Instant Pot, ordered on a Tuesday received on Friday delivered to Ireland, before due date. Thank you again. For me it has been a great learning curve, I have never used a pressure cooker or rice cooker before. Yes, I was nervous starting off, I have made mistakes but am enjoying the learning curve. I started with the Initial Test Run as recommended in the user manual, everything worked out great. Straight into a recipe from instant pot site, Arroz con Pollo which I made with pieces of turkey breast, the taste was superb, the turkey done to perfection. Next I tried steaming some straight from the trees cooking apples for canning. After two minutes the over heat display came on so I vented the Instant Pot, the apples were cooked perfectly,there was nothing stuck to the end of the pot, yet Instant Pot detected the lack of liquid and did what it was suppossed to do, my pot talks to me and I can assure you it never said anything bad about my culinary skills. Next I tried making yogurt, boiled the milk in the jars, let it cool to correct tempereture, added starter yougurt and probiotic, 6 3\4 hours later yogurt was set, it normally takes 8 hours in my yogurt machine. Boiling milk for yogurt on the hob always results in milk sticking to the pot. I find the saute function is excellent with the added benefit after 30 minutes you can press saute again and keep going if cooking in batches. What I especially like with this type of cooking is all the nutrients and vitamins from vegetables are incorporated into the rest of the food whereas usually water from vegetables is discarded, carrotts, celery brocolli, parsnips taste amazing compared to those boiled on the hob. Slow cooked Irish stew tasted so much better than usual with the family asking what I did different, I said I used Instant Pot. Chilli Con Carne, with beans soaked overnight was a feast compared to hours of cooking beans on the hob. I also tried the Perfect Brown Rice from the recipe book and indeed it was perfect, it did not even begin to stick to the pot. In the ten days or so since I started using Instant Pot I have used my oven once to bake oat cakes, all dinners were cooked in the pot. I do a lot of baking so I am looking forward to expermenting with Instant Pot for cakes etc. I did buy the extra pot and lid and think its very versatile ie dinner resting in pot and making yogurt in the other one. The lid is great with the slow cooker allowing you to see if you need to reduce temperature. I tried steaming some vegetables but they took longer than I thought to cook, I placed a glass bowl on the rack, I think the problem is that the end of the glass bowl I used was very narrow. If anyone has purchased a steaming basket I would really appreciate your thoughts on how they work, what quantities you can use and is it possible to cook something underneath the basket. So far I am really enjoying using the Instant Pot, I can see it will be invalible at christmas when I will have people staying. My advice from my experience so far is this is a great product, I am by no means an expert but cooking is a hobby for me, the food tastes amazing compared to conventional methods and it greatly reduces the clean up afterwards.

Simple to use and generally very happy with cooker. I wish it had a low heat setting for growing yeast in cold weather. The lowest heat is for keeping food warm and this gets too hot for the culture.

Ich habe meinen 6-Liter-Instant-Pot bewusst mit diesem kleinen Exemplar ergänzt. Die Qualität und Verarbeitung ist genauso hochwertig wie beim großen Bruder. Von der Größe her eignet er sich super für Beilagenkartoffeln, Reis oder auch Bolognesesauce. Was den Instant Pot an sich angeht, bin ich restlos begeistert und habe die Investition bereits mehrfach drinnen, da ich mir viele Bestellungen beim Lieferservice gespart habe. Weil man oft einfach nur Zutaten in den Topf geben muss und ein paar Knöpfe drücken, kann ich mich deutlich häufiger zum Kochen motivieren. Den Herd selbst schalte ich nur noch selten ein. Ich ziehe den original Instant Pot billigen Nachbauten vor, weil er einen Edelstahl-Innentopf hat und nicht wie viele Nachahmer einen aus bedenklichem Aluminium. Topf und Deckel können problemlos in der Spülmaschine gewaschen werden. Es sind tolle Zubehörteile dabei wie beispielsweise ein hochwertiger Reislöffel und ein passender Schöpflöffel für Saucen. Jederzeit gerne wieder!

J'avais déjà le 6L dont je suis ravie, utilisé pour pratiquement tous les repas. Celui ci sera un cadeau pour une famille plus grande. Je ne suis pas une grande cuisinière et grâce à lui j'ai pu faire des plats que je n'aurais jamais osé faire (daube......) la viande ressort toujours très tendre. Ma soeur qui l'a aussi fait souvent un poulet entier dedans et c'est toujours top. Je me sers souvent du mode steam (cuisson vapeur) c'est très rapide et le gout des aliments ressort bien. Vous ne serez pas dessus du popot ^^. La cuve en inox un rêve. Et vous trouverez un groupe facebook en français qui vous donnera plein d'idées recettes et de petits conseils pour vous aidez. on peut adapter tous les livres de recettes des robot cuiseurs.

Da quando e’ Arrivata non faccio altro che usarla! Posso dire con una sola parola che e’: MERAVIGLIOSA!🤩peccato non averla scoperta prima......ho una famiglia numerosa e sono una donna che lavora.... mi piace cucinare in modo SANO e SALUTARE e.... questa Istant pot ti permette di cucinare in poco tempo , stando anche fuori casa...E’ RIVOLUZIONARIA .👏🏻🎉

Too bad I gave it to my mom. I need to purchase an new one :D

Super product