A rice cooker is a great kitchen appliance - just add your water and preferred grains, choose an appropriate cooking mode, and leave it to do the rest. When it beeps, open it up, and you'll have perfectly cooked, fluffy rice ready for dinner with zero effort.

Not all rice cookers are the same though, which is where I come in. I'm TechRadar's homes editor specializing in kitchen tech, and I've hand-picked the best cookers for delicious rice - and much more besides. All of these appliances also include modes for a wide range of other foods, from soups and stews through to rich curries and even cakes.

Read on to find out which rice cooker is right for your kitchen, your budget, and your meal plan.

Best overall

Ninja Foodi PossibleCooker

The Ninja Foodi PossibleCooker produced the best, fluffiest rice of any cooker we've tested to date – and a lot more, besides. It has eight cooking modes, all of which produced excellent results in our tests, and makes a great addition to your kitchen for cooking grains, pasta, and whole meals.

The PossibleCooker has a six-quart pot, which is big enough for a family of four, but won't take up an excessive amount of space on your counter. It's nicely designed too, with a non-stick pot with clear fill lines for rice, oats and pasta, plus a detailed instruction manual describing the best ratios to use for various types of rice and other grains.

Cooking white or brown rice took about 30-40 minutes, and the results were perfect every time, without any tweaking of the default settings. We had great results with Ninja's own recipe for Cajun dirty rice too, which involves browning meat and softening vegetables as well as cooking grains.

Surprisingly, it's also one of the must affordable rice cookers we've tested at full price, and is often available for a discount so you can get it for even less. You'll find all of today's best prices listed below.

Read our full Ninja Foodi PossibleCooker review

Budget-friendly

Cosori 5L Rice Cooker

Unlike the other two appliances in this roundup, Cosori's cooker is designed chiefly for grains, though it also has a few surprises to offer.

It comes with a non-stick pot (which we found incredibly easy to clean during our tests), a ladle, a measuring cup, a standing rice paddle, and a steam basket for vegetables like broccoli. There's also a booklet containing charts to help you add the right amount of rice and water for your preferred grain.

The cooker itself is compact enough for a small kitchen, but unlike the others here, it doesn't let you adjust the cooking temperature. That means rice can sometimes clump together a little, and you may need to experiment a little with cooking times to get the best results. It does the fundamentals well, particularly for the price, but it doesn't perform quite as well as the slightly pricier Ninja Foodi PossibleCooker above.

What really surprised us was that the Cosori 5L Rice Cooker can bake a mean cake. Yes, really. Just mix the ingredients as directed in the cooker's manual, grease the pot, pour in the batter, and select the 'cake' preset. Just over an hour later, you'll have a delicious, moist (if slightly oddly-shaped) dessert to enjoy.

Read our full Cosori 5L Rice Cooker review

Rice and more

Instant Pot Pro

The Instant Pot Pro multi-cooker is super simple to use, and a great option if you like the flexibility of the Ninja MultiCooker, but want more straightforward controls. When we tested it, one of our favorite features was the ability to set five cooking modes as one-touch presets so you can cook your rice and other foods exactly the way you want them in seconds.

There's no avoiding the fact that it's been a tumultuous few years for the company behind Instant Pots. After Instant Brands filed for bankruptcy in 2023, Instant Pot Brands was spun off as its own separate company. No new models have been released for a couple of years, but the Instant Pot Pro is still widely available in both the US and UK - and it remains a great option if you're looking for an easy way to cook rice, pulses, chilli, stews and other dishes to perfection.

Another feature that's particularly helpful for cooking rice is the Instant Pot Pro's safe steam release valve, which helps avoid burns. An audible alarm will let you know when it's time to use it.

Brown basmati rice turned out a little too 'al dente' for our first round of testing, but it didn't take much work to tweak the settings. We also made a curry to accompany the rice, which turned out perfectly, with the meat falling off the bone, whilst also browning well without sticking when we used the sauté mode. An excellent cooker for rice and more, and reasonably priced, too.

Read our full Instant Pot Pro review

Ninja Foodi PossibleCooker: one-minute review

With the Ninja name comes an expectation of quality. From air fryers and coffee machines to blenders and ice cream makers, Ninja kitchen appliances are among the most popular on the market – with several of their products topping our buying guides lists. The Ninja Foodi PossibleCooker MC1101UK offers the level of quality you’d expect while combining the power of multiple appliances into one compact package. This multicooker offers the capabilities of a rice cooker, slow cooker, steamer, and hob in one appliance, helping reduce your need for kitchen storage space and the amount of washing up after a meal.

The PossibleCooker offers eight main functions: sear/sauté, slow cook, white rice, brown rice, pasta (without drainage), porridge, steam, and keep warm. During our testing, we found results were consistently excellent. The 6L cooking pot offers plenty of space, while the appliance itself isn’t as bulky as you might imagine. And, thanks to a thorough user manual and clear markings inside the pot, it’s easy to ensure your liquid-to-oat/rice ratio is accurate with every cook.

While this multicooker will likely become a firm favourite in your household, it’s not flawless. Some cooking functions, like rice cooking, take longer than they maybe would on the hob, though the results are worth the wait. And while using the appliance is straightforward, its small digital display is quite basic, indicating a preheating function only via symbols and offering no timer for rice cooking functions.

We also found that the non-stick coating on the inside of the pot began chipping away within a week of testing, despite carefully following the cleaning instructions. Ninja says the cooking pot and lid are dishwasher-safe, but we’d recommend handwashing where possible, especially as it’s easy to do even with stubborn residue.

Overall, for £119.99 ($129.99 / AU$249.99 for non-UK models), the Ninja Foodi PossibleCooker is an excellent value multicooker for households big and small who want more efficiency in the kitchen.

Ninja Foodi PossibleCooker: price and availability

• MC1101UK model costs £119.99 at Ninja UK
• MC1101 model available for $129.99 in US, and AU$249.99 in Australia
• Available at third-party retailers like Amazon, John Lewis, and Staples
• Regular discounts at Ninja and third-party retailers

The Ninja Foodi PossibleCooker MC1101UK (which is the model I tested here) retails for £119.99 at Ninja UK, while non-MC1101UK models are available in the US and Australia for $129.99 and AU$249.99, respectively.

This means it’s more affordable than some of the top picks in our best instant cookers list, including the Instant Pot Pro ($129.99/ £149.99) and the Instant Pot Duo Crisp ($229.99/ £229.99), but just slightly more than the likes of the Instant Pot Duo Plus ($119.99/ £99.99).

Considering the quality of the results, the pot’s 6L capacity, and the functions on offer, we believe it‘s excellent value for money. Especially when you consider what buying a dedicated rice cooker, steamer, and slow cooker would cost combined.

What’s more, we regularly see discounts on this appliance at Ninja and third-party retailers, so keep an eye out for these to pick it up for even less.

• Value score: 5/5

Ninja Foodi PossibleCooker: specifications

Ninja Foodi PossibleCooker: design

• 6L capacity cooking pot
• Fairly compact and quiet
• Minimal effort needed to clean
• Non-stick coating on pot can easily come off
• Digital display can be confusing

Out of the box, the Ninja Foodi PossibleCooker MC1101UK comes with a silver main unit (with a black control panel), a 6L midnight blue cooking pot, a glass lid, a rice cup, a rice spoon, and a steam rack, plus a thorough user manual and recipe booklet.

Immediately, we were surprised by how compact the appliance is, given its capacity. When assembled, the PossibleCooker takes up less than one kitchen counter space, making it a great choice for those with fewer storage options or a smaller kitchen work surface.

On the main unit is a fairly straightforward control panel, listing the eight cooking functions on the left, beside a small digital display. On the right-hand side are arrow buttons for function, time, and temperature, alongside a start/stop button.

The cooking pot has a black non-stick coating inside, with clear lines indicating where to fill up to with water for white rice, brown rice, and oats, corresponding to the number of cups you’ve added. The included recipe booklet provides more thorough instructions on this in its grain and pasta chart, which covers a variety of rice types (and certain pasta), alongside handy cooking tips. So, if, like me, you struggle to get your ratios right, keep it near. This recipe manual also offers guidelines for commonly slow-cooked meats and steamed vegetables, plus some recipes to get you started. We did, however, find the recipes weren’t as flavoursome as they sound, and some of the instructions aren’t particularly clear.

Using the Ninja Foodi PossibleCooker is straightforward, but we highly advise reading the user manual first to understand how each cooking function works. Though the advice given in the manual can sometimes contradict the recipe book: for example, in the manual it advises to keep the lid on during cooking, while the recipe book recommends removing it after boiling.

To use the appliance, turn it on, use the function buttons to navigate to the relevant function, and then (where applicable) adjust the temperature and timing settings before pressing start. Some functions kick in straight away, while others have a preheat period. This preheat period is indicated by progress symbols (lines) in the display window, but the user manual doesn’t make the preheating process particularly clear, or how long it will last. For searing/sauteéing, these progress symbols are followed by the instruction to add food, but for other functions, this isn’t the case. After several uses, we got to grips with this feature, but it can be confusing initially.

When running, the PossibleCooker is quiet, but lets out a loud beep when cooking is complete. The appliance has markers indicating which parts will get hot during the process (and not to touch with bare hands), and the user manual makes it clear, too. So, if you’ve got little ones, we advise moving it away from the edge of your counter and ideally positioning it near or under an extractor fan (it gets steamy).

After letting the appliance cool down, the main unit can be wiped down with a cloth, and you can hand-wash the cooking pot with ease – though avoid using anything abrasive on its non-stick coat. However, despite carefully following the instructions, the coat began to chip off around the rim of the pot, possibly due to wear from the lid, within a week. So, while Ninja claims the pot is dishwasher safe, we advise (as we do with any non-stick coated appliance) to only hand-wash for longevity.

• Design score: 4.5/5

Ninja Foodi PossibleCooker: performance

• Eight cooking functions, including rice and slow cooking
• High quality results across all modes…
• But expect a wait for some products
• Medium slow cook temperature would be beneficial

We started our testing of the Ninja Foodi PossibleCooker MC1101UK by using its white rice function. Cooking perfect rice every time is no mean feat, and this reviewer regularly gets the ratios wrong. Fortunately, the rice chart made it easy. We added two cups of long-grain white rice to the cooking pot and filled it with water to the corresponding mark.

It’s initially a bit unclear whether the appliance is on. Following the progress symbols, the display doesn’t show anything, so you’re left in the dark about how long the rice will actually take to cook. On average, it can take around 30 to 40 minutes to cook this amount of rice. We, however, waited slightly longer.. The result was perfectly fluffy rice, but it took around 40 to 50 minutes. We will caveat, however, that you can expect this wait with some other rice cookers.

We had the same results with brown rice, which has its own function. This time, we tried the Cajun Dirty Rice recipe from the booklet, which first requires you to cook 360g of brown rice (two cups) using the corresponding function. The booklet suggests this will take approximately 50 to 60 minutes, but we found it took 75 minutes altogether. Brown rice typically takes longer to cook than white, and you may wait longer than the booklet suggests, but the result was perfectly cooked grains once again. Well worth the wait, as long as you expect it. If speed is your priority, though, this may not be the appliance for you.

The Cajun Dirty Rice recipe allowed us to test efficiency and the multi-functionality of the PossibleCooker. After removing the rice, we easily cleaned out the inside of the pot with a cloth, ensuring it was dry before the next use. When you use more than one function of this multicooker for a recipe, expect extra waiting times for the pot to cool enough to be cleaned. Fortunately, the pot was quickly washed up, and I selected the sauté function (which requires a preheat) for the next section: browning off pork and beef mince.

The cooking pot essentially acts as a pot or pan on a hob when this function is selected, though the controls only let you select High, Medium, or Low temperature (giving you less control over the heat). It works a treat, though, and the digital display shows how long the pot has been heated for, so you can easily keep track of your timings. After cooking my minced meat, followed by my veg, I added stock and brought the pot to the boil before folding in the brown rice. The recipe itself was a bit flavourless, but the result was perfectly cooked rice, meat, and veg.

This multifunctionality is also useful when slow-cooking. Rather than the abundance of pots and pans I usually use for my go-to beef stew recipe, we were able to soften the veg in the pot using the sautée function before adding liquid and beef. After four hours at High temperature, we were thoroughly pleased with the results: the beef was tender, the vegetables soft but not mushy, and the sauce reduced and flavoursome without being watery or congealed.

We had similar results with a Beef Tinga recipe, a Ninja recipe accessed via the QR code on the appliance’s box. This one didn’t require using the sautée function, but allowed us to test the slow cooking function’s capabilities on the Low temperature setting. After adding all the ingredients to the pot and setting the time to eight hours, the meat was melt-in-your-mouth, but the recipe was (again) a bit bland. Our main takeaway here is that the functionality of the appliance is great, but maybe use it for your own recipes.

The steaming and pasta functions are perhaps the only ones that we had a couple of issues with. Following Ninja’s guidelines, we chose to steam 200g of Tenderstem broccoli. The guidelines tell you the amount of water to add to the pot. You then place the provided steaming rack inside the pot and place the broccoli in a single layer across it before placing the lid on top. The digital display, again, showed the progress bar indicating preheating, but it’s not entirely clear what the appliance is doing at that time. Building up its steam?

Either way, this heating time isn’t taken into account when you set your timer. So, for example, we set our timer for eight minutes as recommended, but the preheating/presteaming process wasn’t accounted for in those eight minutes, so you may need to account for that when cooking. We also found water bubbled around the lid of the pot during steaming, with a little water coming out the top. Overall, the broccoli was steamed well: with a slight crunch but not too floppy. It may have been easier to steam it the old-fashioned way, however.

Pasta, too, offered mixed results. The guidelines in the recipe book recommend the amount of water to add for the weight of pasta you’re using (the lines in the pot don’t apply to this). The booklet advises adding the pasta first, followed by the water, and then select the function. The pasta function seems to work more like the rice function, not giving you control over (or insight into) temperature or time, but telling you when it’s done.

The draw of the pasta function is that it allows you to cook pasta without needing to drain the water, but the time it takes almost makes it not worth it. After preheating for about six to nine minutes, it’s meant to take around 18 to 20 minutes to cook (again, it’s unclear if preheating is taken into account), but the appliance didn’t beep for over 22 minutes, at which point we stopped the cooking because the pasta was starting to make a skin on the bottom of the pot. While the timings were questionable, and the skin gross, the actual resulting pasta was perfectly al dente. And, in fairness, we didn’t have to drain any water.

Overall, the Ninja Foodi PossibleCooker's results are excellent, but you may need to wait a little longer than you expect from some cooking functions – and spend some time getting used to its quirks.

• Performance score: 5/5

Should you buy the Ninja Foodi PossibleCooker?

Buy it if

Don't buy it if

Cosori 5L Rice Cooker: one-minute review

Nowadays, rice cookers aren’t simply rice cookers. Many double as multicookers, offering a multitude of cooking functions that make them multifaceted kitchen appliances. The Cosori 5L Rice Cooker is one such rice cooker, offering more than 10 cooking modes that cover sautéeing, steaming, and even jams and cakes. However, this appliance falls short in what it should do best.

During our testing, we found the rice results to be overly dry, with clumps of overcooked grain. Far from inedible, but not the quality you’d expect from a rice cooker of this price range. The Cosori Rice Cooker’s other cooking functions present mixed results, too. In some cases, the results were excellent.

When it comes to making cakes, compotes, boiled eggs, and porridge, the quality is extremely high. However, we found its Slow Cook function a tad disappointing, and we wish we had more control over the temperature of some of the modes available.

The design of this rice cooker is top-notch, however. It’s exceptionally easy to clean, compact for its 5L capacity, and the digital touchscreen display is a joy to use. It’s not overly pricey either, at £119.99 / $99.99 (about AU$150).

If you don’t mind experimenting a bit to get optimal results, the Cosori 5L Rice Cooker is well worth considering. But we can’t help but compare it to similarly priced competitors offering higher-quality results.

Cosori 5L Rice Cooker: price and availability

• $99.99 / £119.99 at Cosori
• Sold at Ubuy and Amazon in Australia for between AU$197.57 and AU$249
• Available at third-party retailers like Amazon, Walmart, and Best Buy

At $99.99 / £119.99 (about AU$150), the Cosori 5L Rice Cooker is a budget-to-mid-range appliance. You get extra value for your money here, as it also doubles as a multi-cooker. While it’s not the best Instant Pot alternative we’ve tested, it’s more affordable than the likes of the Instant Pot Pro ($129.99 / £149.99) and the Instant Pot Duo Crisp ($229.99 / £229.99)

However, when stacked against the likes of the Ninja Foodi PossibleCooker, which is another rice cooker that doubles as a multicooker and falls in a similar price range at $129.99 / £119.99 (about AU$200), there’s no contest. While the Cosori Rice Cooker has its benefits, performance isn’t as consistent, nor its results as high quality, as the Ninja.

• Value score: 4/5

Cosori 5L Rice Cooker: specifications

Cosori 5L Rice Cooker: design

• 5L capacity cooking pot
• Large, touchscreen buttons
• Easily clean pot and accessories
• Lines in pot indicating required water levels

Out of the box, this Cosori rice cooker comes with a black, silver-topped main base, a 5L non-stick cooking pot, a soup ladle, a measuring cup, a standing rice paddle, and a 3L steam basket. Assembling the appliance is straightforward thanks to its thorough user manual, though you may find its inner lid and steam cap a tad confusing to insert the first time.

This rice cooker isn’t overly chunky, taking up less than one kitchen counter space, and its modern matte black base, silver-topped design means it shouldn’t look out of place, no matter your kitchen’s style.

When on, the touch-screen digital display on the front of the rice cooker lights up, displaying the rice preset options, a Keep Warm button, and a Mode button, allowing you to access other cooking functions such as Sauté and Steam. The touchscreen is easy to use, with the large buttons and digital timer display (which is even bigger) clear to see, even from a few feet away.

To open this rice cooker, you simply click the silver button on its top, and the lid springs open, revealing the heating plate and temperature sensor inside. The 5L non-stick-lined cooking pot effortlessly inserts into the space and provides a decent capacity for small to medium households. Inside the pot are lines on either side indicating where to fill the pot with water when steaming or cooking white rice, brown rice, etc., corresponding to the number of cups of grain you’ve added. These lines, when combined with your measuring cup and the user manual’s quick reference chart, make it easier to balance your water-to-grain ratio when cooking.

This non-stick pot was probably the easiest cooking pot we’ve cleaned in our time testing appliances. By filling the pot with warm soapy water and wiping it with the soft side of a sponge, we found rice, porridge, and even compote residue could be removed with minimal effort. While Cosori says the pot and accessories are dishwasher safe, we don’t advise cleaning anything with a non-stick coating in a dishwasher, as it could damage the non-stick lining.

Just ensure you also clean the inner pot lid and its steam cap after each use. This has a few more crevices, and the lid needs to be disassembled for proper cleaning, but the process is, again, pretty easy. The same can be said of the inside of the base, which can be easily wiped with a cloth.

The accompanying 3L steam basket neatly fits into the inner pot, but we wish it had some non-metallic handles to make removal after cooking easier (and safer).

In addition to its user manual, the Cosori 5L Rice Cooker comes with a quick reference guide that includes tips for cooking, the grain chart, and a quick rundown of how to set up the appliance and cook white/brown rice. This is handy if you don’t want to flick through the user manual. The rice cooker also comes with a recipe book featuring global recipes that utilise its various functions. We always love the flavour of Cosori recipes, so we highly recommend trying these out.

Cosori 5L Rice Cooker: performance

• Variety of cooking modes and rice presets
• Rice was overcooked
• No control over temperature
• Cake function is excellent

The Cosori 5L rice cooker is positioned first and foremost as just that: a rice cooker. Unfortunately, we found its rice cooking capabilities to be lower quality than its other cooking functions.

This appliance has several presets for rice and grains. For white and brown rice, you can specify short grain, long grain, or quick cook (which takes less time but results in harder rice, according to the user manual). We added two cups of washed, long-grain white rice to the pot, filled it to the respective line in the pot, and selected the White Rice/Long Grain option, which takes 50 minutes. This is in line with some rice cookers, but slightly longer than cooking on the hob.

When running, the rice cooker is surprisingly quiet, registering around 32 decibels (about the volume of a whisper), but when cooking is complete, it lets out several loud beeps that you can easily hear from another room. After using the rice paddle to fluff the rice, we found clumps of overcooked rice in the batch, and the results were, overall, quite dry. In case it was an error on our part, we tried again with the Quick Cook option, which takes 39 minutes. While the dry clumps were less prevalent, there were still enough to make the results less than ideal.

We had the same issue with long-grain brown rice. On the relevant preset, it took 75 minutes, much longer than on a hob, even though brown rice takes longer to cook. Again, we found the results to be overcooked and quite dry, with several clumps of chewy grain. Edible, but not the high quality we’d expect.

It’s disappointing, as the Cosori 5L Rice Cooker’s other functions work pretty well. We tested several recipes from the Recipe Booklet, which utilises the different cooking functions, and were generally impressed by the results (though it was a mixed bag).

Following the Spiced Carrot & Lentil Soup recipe, we used the sautée function (accessed through Modes) to sauté onions and cumin seeds to perfection. Our only gripe here was that the pot gets very hot, and there seems to be no control over its temperature settings, so you need to be careful not to overcook in this mode. After sautéeing, we were able to seamlessly move to the Soup function, and after 45 minutes, we had a lovely chunky soup with soft carrots ready for blending.

The Jam/Sauce mode is impressive, too. We followed the Strawberry-Thyme Compote recipe, which requires the lid to be open, and had a delicious compote after 15 minutes: soft chunks of strawberry, plenty of tang, and just the right consistency.

This (perhaps minus the thyme) pairs well with porridge. We were surprised that, despite the rice cooking issues, the Porridge preset (under Grains) provided excellent results. We added two cups of rolled oats to the pot and filled the pot to the corresponding water/liquid line for porridge. While it took 30 minutes to get there, the porridge consistency was spot on.

The Steam function, too, provided great results. For steaming, you add water to the steam line in the pot, then place the steam basket into the pot. We followed the recipe for a soft-boiled egg, adding two eggs to the basket. For steaming, there’s some preheating required. While it doesn’t tell you how long preheating takes, the digital display shows when the rice cooker is preheating and beeps when finished. We were concerned this preheat time would impact cooking, as the eggs were in the basket during that time, and it wasn’t accounted for in its six minutes of cooking time, but the results were excellent. The egg yolk was runny and yellow, the white cooked but not overdone.

Again, following a recipe from the provided book, we made the Slow Cooked Sunday Sauce, which utilises the Sauté and Slow Cooker modes. We found the pot’s width to be somewhat of a restriction here. The recipe advises cooking your meat in batches, and we did, but there wasn’t a huge amount of room to ensure our chuck beef could layer along the bottom without several batch cooks.

The pot prioritizes depth capacity, so don’t expect it to act as a de facto hob in Sauté mode. After sautéeing our meat and veg in several batches and adding the necessary ingredients, we set the appliance to Slow Cook for four hours. After four hours, the sauce itself was delicious. However, the fat on the beef chuck hadn’t rendered, despite braising, and we were left with inedible, chewy fat on our meat. It’s a shame, because the meat was otherwise cooked well, though not necessarily melt-in-your-mouth.

The best results we got by a mile, however, were for cake. Of all things. We were understandably very sceptical of a rice cooker’s ability to bake a cake. We followed the Chocolate Cake with Chocolate Buttercream Frosting recipe in the book, which requires making the batter separately before pouring it into the greased inner pot and selecting the Cake mode. After 70 minutes, we had a (slightly oddly shaped) chocolate cake that was delicious. The cake was moist but not wet and somehow light. In my husband’s words: “It’s the best chocolate sponge I’ve ever had.”

The Cosori 5L Rice Cooker is a mixed bag when it comes to performance, but we’re particularly disappointed in its rice-cooking abilities. You potentially could, with some experimentation (like adding more water than suggested), get better results, but if you want a rice cooker that makes perfect, fluffy rice each time, this may not be the appliance for you.

• Performance score: 3.5/5

Should you buy the Cosori 5L Rice Cooker?

Buy it if

Don't buy it if

Thermomix TM7: one-minute review

There are few times I’ve been so excited about a home appliance in my career as a lifestyle gadget reviewer as this; I’ve just finished testing the Thermomix TM7, an incredible, almost all-in-one device that can do everything from kneading bread all the way to sous vide. If you’ve ever lamented about your countertop space, this might just be the appliance for you. Still, there’s an interesting journey to perfection – or even just maximizing this device – that might color your choice to join the hype train.

I’ve tested almost all of the key functions available, and I must say I’m very impressed with the range on offer. Do I think it’s the best possible solution for each and every one? No, but I will say it makes tremendous efforts to cover all bases. I’ve made everything from bread to curry and smoothies using the Thermomix almost exclusively for every step, and I’ve never seen an appliance quite like it.

There are, of course, some trade-offs here. It’s bulky, and having a dishwasher is practically a must if you intend to use it regularly. Owing to its very powerful motor, it can also be pretty loud in use; we shudder to use it past 8pm in case our neighbors think we’re testing jet engines. It’ll also be a massive pain to stash away, so prepare for the Thermomix TM7 to be a mainstay on your countertops. If you can handle these setbacks, you’ll be more than happy to introduce it into regular meal prep and cooking rotation, though.

I’m also divided on the included subscription plan; you have three months of access to Cookidoo, wherein you’ll find ample recipes specifically tailored to the appliance, but after that, you face a $89 / £50 annual subscription fee. Of course, the machine is far from redundant after that period if you choose not to join up, but it will require a lot more manual input. In that sense, I don’t love the long-term landscape for Thermomix fans; especially given its lofty list price. I feel they could offer a little more as part of the base offering to help users, but if you’re willing to dole out further, it’s worth the investment.

All that being said, there’s a lot to love here, and a thriving community of users to support your Thermomix journey. New customers are encouraged to join up for one of the in-person training sessions; personally, I didn’t, and I found it pretty easy to learn the ropes and make best use of the machine, so don’t view that as a compulsory step if the effort to make it to a class is too great. Either way, you end up with a powerful, capable and relatively low-effort kitchen powerhouse.

Thermomix TM7: price and availability

• Available for $1,699.00 / £1,349 / AU$2,649 direct from Thermomix
• Encouraged to buy through a Thermomix 'Consultant'

Unlike a majority of the appliances we test and review here at TechRadar, the Thermomix can’t be easily purchased through standard avenues. You won’t find it on the shelves of a department store or lurking on Amazon during Prime Day; instead, you can exclusively buy this appliance from Thermomix itself, either online or through a Consultant, for $1,699.00 / £1,349 / AU$2,649.

What’s a Consultant? Basically, a brand representative who makes a commission from selling and delivering training to new Thermomix customers. Now, I’m not one of these, but you’ll find a fair amount of content online from people who are affiliated with the brand as such.

In addition to the appliance itself, there’s an array of extra tools and accessories that you can purchase to unlock further recipes and cooking methods. The standard package comes with the TM7 base unit, mixing bowl and lid, a Varoma steaming tray, the power cord and three tools: a spatula, butterfly whisk, and simmering basket. You also get three months' access to the Cookidoo platform, which costs $66/£50/AU$89

• Value score: 3.5/5

Thermomix TM7: specifications

Thermomix TM7: design

It’s hard to make a 'pretty' kitchen appliance, but the Thermomix TM7 is far from ugly. Large and in charge, the TM7 is a hefty piece of equipment for your countertops; and given its 8.5kg wight, you’ll probably want to keep it there rather than stash it in the cupboard if you’re looking to use it regularly. It takes up a lot of room, too; it stands at 33.6 x 25.3 x 40.5cm (H x W x D), but you’ll also need to find space for the 13.1 x 38.3 x 27.5 cm Varoma basket and other tools.

While I’ve not tested previous devices, the TM7 is a notable departure from older Thermomix designs. Since 1971, the appliance has seen a fair few design changes, but in the more recent years, it’s stayed fairly consistent until now. A new 10-inch multi-touch display is the headliner here, seated upon the main base and offering a bright surface from which to follow along with recipes. It’s pretty responsive and performs consistently, barring the occasional spot of lag if you're dashing around the screen too quickly.

Above the screen sits the 2.2L stainless steel mixing bowl, clad in a black insulated cover with a large, forward-facing handle. This cover locks in place using a lever mechanism on the right-hand side of the bowl, which keeps the bowl and blade inside secure; I found this could be a little stiff at times, and might be challenging for weaker hands to operate.

At the top of the device sits the lid, which has a removable steam cap so you can mount the Varoma steaming tray on top when needed. The steaming tray is 45% larger than the previous generation, and I found it was ample space to cook enough chicken for a six, maybe even eight-person meal.

One thing I will note about the steaming tray, lid, and outer cover is that the black plastic is an absolute grease-magnet. After cooking, it’s covered in oily marks and smears, and that’s where the dishwasher becomes a vital part of this package. I don’t have one in my apartment, so all cleaning was done manually, and when I tell you I felt cursed by the TM7, I mean it. The lid, in particular, is a real pain to clean by hand, and I had to re-clean it three or four times before I was satisfied the grub was gone.

I’m also not overly keen on the lid design, as it lets out a lot of cooking smells. Having researched older models, that’s a big change that has negatively affected the reception of the device, and while it’s by no means worse than using a saucepan on the stove, it’s definitely worth noting if you’ve got a TM6 or older device you’re not 100% sold on trading in.

• Design score: 4/5

Thermomix TM7: performance

The real reason you’ll want a Thermomix TM7 is all in the performance. My favorite local chef uses his Thermomix to make a wide range of soups and sauces as well as doughs and batters, and that’s just the beginning of what this tool can do in both personal and professional environments.

This stand mixer-cum-blender-cum-steamer-cum-food processor can even sautee your veggies, meaning there’s way less washing up at the end – so long as, of course, you have a dishwasher.

The screen and Cookidoo app will walk you through each step of cooking, starting with measuring out your ingredients with the built-in scales. These are pretty accurate, providing you’ve got a solid flat surface to place the Thermomix TM7 upon.

Most of the recipes I tested were from Cookidoo, but I’ve got really mixed feelings about it. On the one hand, it’s incredibly useful for learning the machine; there’s a great variety of recipes, and I love that you can customize these for your preferences. The customizable home screen and meal planning are genuinely useful, especially for homemakers or power users, and the user experience for following the step-by-step guidance is pretty good.

That being said, I think there’s a lot of room for improvement. Almost every recipe I’ve tried has been way under-seasoned, and there are moments where the instructions aren’t clear enough; pre-heat the oven, sure, but is the suggested temperature for a conventional or fan oven?! Right now, I’m not sure it’s worth the monthly subscription after the initial trial period, though I’ve not actually seen how useful the machine is without it; I’m really hoping it doesn’t render it useless.

A huge miss for me is that you can’t remotely control the Thermomix TM7, despite the Cookidoo platform being accessible on other devices. Thermomix has hinted at this future utility, but I’d ask why they rushed to release the product without it; it feels pretty essential to me in the age of smart devices.

I started my Thermomix journey by making some of the recommended starter recipes; Thai peanut chicken with coconut rice, which uses only the Thermomix to cook at each stage (though you will need vessels to put some ingredients aside in at various stages). You begin with the Peanut sauce, putting in sliced garlic, roughly cut ginger and olive oil into the mixing bowl. After a three-second whizz, scrape down the sides and whizz again, before sauteeing the contents.

At this stage, I was already pretty impressed; the blades are incredibly powerful and sharp, able to quickly mince my ingredients to a suitable size, and the machine has saved me from having to turn on the stove and grab a frying pan. You can use this setting manually, too, searing and browning ingredients up to 160°C without needing a recipe from Cookidoo selected.

After adding some liquid ingredients to the mix for the sauce and switching on the machine to cook and slowly stir the contents for five minutes, the sauce is finished and can be put to one side while you make the rest. Now, given there’s another 20 minutes before it’s time to reintroduce the sauce, this is one of the early pitfalls for the Thermomix; concurrent cooking for more complex meals isn’t always a choice.

That being said, I loved that in the next stage, the rice is cooked in the main mixing bowl while the chicken and vegetables cook in the Varoma on top using the steam from below. The con? Well, you have to wash the sticky sauce out of the mixing bowl first, and it’s not as easy as the “quick rinse” suggestion the Cookidoo app makes. It was worth it in the end, though; the results were tender chicken, perfectly cooked rice and delicious (albeit very heavy and unhealthy) peanut sauce. It’s a pretty bitty way to cook the meal; I’d sooner cook the sauce separately in a saucepan while the rice and chicken cook to halve the overall cooking time, but it’s neat to see a meal like this made possible using mostly just the machine itself.

Next up, I tried making another suggested starter recipe: Pão de água, or Portuguese water bread. Using just bread flour, water, yeast and salt, the Thermomix TM7 was able to handle everything from mixing to kneading and even proving the dough. However, the process was a little more mixed, here, in my experience.

Primarily, that’s because of the kneading; nobody wants to watch as an expensive appliance visibly teeters while in use. I don’t think it moves enough here to launch itself in any kind of dangerous way, but it can’t be good for the screen, internals or motor to be jostled so much. If I were regularly making large batches of dough, I’d be seriously considering wedging the machine in somewhere it can’t scuttle out from.

However, I have to say, I was really impressed with the results. The dough proved wonderfully within the mixing bowl, and after a slight mishap (read: user error) that saw me unlock the mixing bowl and pour the blade out with the dough, the bread came out of the oven well-risen, delicious and with excellent texture.

Undeterred, I moved on to my next test: mushroom and cannellini bean soup. Here, I wanted to see if the food processing and blending were up to scratch, and they most certainly were. After cooking down the ingredients, the machine blitzed through the contents and left me with wonderfully smooth, tasty soup. The only issue? It was painfully loud while doing so.

Thermomix claims the TM7 has a quieter motor with “noticeably less noise, especially at low speeds”, but that certainly doesn’t extend to more challenging tasks. I was genuinely worried about damaging my ears when standing close to the device, and no wonder; when I crushed frozen berries in the machine to make sorbet, my sound meter measured 99db (equivalent to a subway train) at only the fifth of nine speed settings. With more crumbly contents, that dropped to 87db, and with sugar alone, it was 73db.

Some of this is to do with the powerful blades, but I have to wonder if the vented lid design and mixing bowl shape mean there’s rubbish sound isolation. I haven’t tried previous models to see if the issue is new, but the TM7’s redesign does have less cladding around the side to help prevent sound spillage, which definitely means blending past 8 PM is a non-starter in my apartment building. I will say, though, the sorbet was delicious, and the butterfly whisk attachment to whip it into a smooth texture is excellent.

Overall, it’s a mixed bag for me, and a lot of this comes down to personal preference; if you’re an accomplished cook who just wants a super powerful blend and mixer for handling some of those dishes that need constant stirring and a thin consistency, you’ll love the Thermomix TM7. Similarly, if you’re a homemaker without a great love for cooking (or washing up!) it’s a great way to make a low-effort meal for a whole family. I would argue it could be really useful for those with accessibility needs, too, but unfortunately, the bulky design and size of the device make it hard to lift and operate.

However, if you live in close proximity to neighbors, have children with early bedtimes, don’t own a dishwasher or just really enjoy the art of home cooking, you probably can (and should!) live without the Thermomix TM7.

• Performance score: 4.5/5

Should you buy the Thermomix TM7?

Buy it if

Don't buy it if

How I tested the Thermomix TM7

I used the Thermomix as many times as possible to cook for myself over a three week period, trying both the in-app recipes as well as manual mode. To test the features as advertised, I opted to try most of the recipes from Cookidoo's 7-day crash course, which helped to understand the machine's abilities.

I made bread, baked goods, full meals, sauces, soups, stews and desserts in the Thermomix TM7, comparing the experience of each against my cooking experience. I'm a confident home cook with experience in cooking almost all of the meals I tried by hand, comparing my experience to traditional methods as well as methods that use a range of the best kitchen appliances.

I've been testing home appliances for years now, and in that time I've tried a huge range of the best blenders, best air fryers, best food processors and beyond. I've developed a keen sense for value, performance and good design through my testing experience.

If your backyard barbecue game is feeling a little tired, I’ve found the perfect upgrade to help spice things up: the Ninja Woodfire is down to AU$499 (was AU$650) at Amazon.

While it’s not the absolute rock-bottom lowest price I’ve ever seen, it’s pretty close – and well below the typical AU$650 tag. Sure, it sometimes drops to AU$550, but this is only the second time I've seen an extra discount that takes it to a tasty sub-AU$500 price point – and that makes it well worth snapping up.

In fact, if you're looking for a thoughtful Father's Day gift idea and are willing to splurge on your dad (he is, of course, worth it!), this could well be it.

Prefer shopping in person? Good news – The Good Guys has it too, and you can even shave off an extra AU$6 if you hit the price beat button.

So why the Ninja hype? Normally, outdoor cooking forces you into a tough choice: the ease of gas or electric grilling, or the delightfully smoky flavour of charcoal and wood. The Ninja Woodfire says, “why not both?” and serves up the best of each.

As far as electric grills go, it’s pretty clever, and features a small chamber where you add a few wood pellets and it infuses your food with a pretty authentic smokehouse flavour while you cook.

But rest assured that it’s no one-trick pony and it can also air fry, bake, roast and, of course, smoke. In short, you’re not just buying a grill, you’re picking up an all-round cooker that’ll compete with the best meals from a BBQ this summer.

From viral sensations like the Ninja Slushi to some of the very best air fryers on the market, Ninja is king in almost every category. And, if you're searching for Father's Day gift ideas, our Ninja Woodfire review is a must-read. In fact, our tester was so impressed she awarded it a full five stars, saying, "It’s so easy to use and creates tasty, smoky flavours without a flame and with minimal mess."

All in all, I think the Ninja Woodfire is a compact and versatile option, and perfect if you don’t have a big backyard or will be cooking on a balcony. Though it’s also equally at home as part of a larger cooking setup and, thanks to its weather-resistant build, it can happily live outdoors all year round.

Ninja has a couple of other great deals going right now, or browse all the compatible grill accessories on Amazon.

• Ninja Woodfire Outdoor Oven: was AU$699 now AU$499 at Amazon
• Ninja Detect Power Blender Duo: was AU$249 now AU$179 at The Good Guys

Are you looking for something else? Check out our guide for great Father’s Day gift ideas.

If you're a bit of a kitchenware geek (guilty as charged) then you might be familiar with the name Thermomix. It's a unique appliance that's somewhere between a multi-cooker, a food processor, a blender, a steamer, and a recipe book – and it can prepare virtually any dish you can think of.

I recently had the chance to go hands-on with the latest version of the Thermomix, the TM7, in the airy London showroom of manufacturer Vorwerk. So what exactly is it, and how does it work?

The heart of the TM7 is a base containing the motor for the blade, heating element, and weighing scale (more on that shortly), with a large touchscreen on the front. It's quite compact, and has a footprint around the same size as that of a typical air fryer.

On top of this sits a large mixing bowl, with a matte black finish (as requested by the company's customers in a survey), a brushed metal handle, and a lid. The bowl is insulated so it's never hot to the touch, and your food is kept at the correct temperature.

Inside the bowl is a blade similar to the kind you'd find in a conventional food processor, but which is sharp on one side and blunt on the other. Spinning in one direction will chop or blend ingredients, while turning the other way will stir them.

One feature that's new for the TM7 is the ability to cook with the lid of the bowl removed. This is ideal for cooking delicate ingredients, and for safety it's only possible when using one of the slowest 'stir' modes. In any other mode, the blade will stop automatically when the lid is removed.

Occasionally you'll need to scrape ingredients off the sides and back onto the blade, and the TM7 comes with a specially designed spatula that fits perfectly against the side of the bowl for this purpose. The spatula can sit on its side, or upright on its base when not in use to avoid dirtying your kitchen counters.

There's also a steamer, called the Varoma, which sits on top of the bowl to steam dishes like fish and vegetables, with two layers for cooking two things at once.

How does it work?

One of the most important parts of the Thermomix TM7 is the companion app, called Cookidoo, which is home to thousands of tried and tested recipes. This isn't your usual digital cookbook though; once you've found a dish you like, you can send it to your Thermomix, which will then walk you through each step of the process and handle all the time-consuming tasks for you.

For example, if you're preparing a risotto (as we were shown in Vorwerk's demonstration), the touchscreen might prompt you to add an onion to the bowl, then press the play button to have it perfectly chopped. You might then be asked to add a slug of olive oil, and when you've pressed a button the confirm that it's in the bowl, the Thermomix will begin cooking the chopped onion while stirring, softening it to perfection. There's no need to dirty multiple pans, knives, and a chopping board.

When the onion is cooked, you'll be prompted to add risotto rice (the built-in scale will tell you when there's enough in the bowl), a stock cube, and water, before the Thermomix takes over the long process of stirring the risotto to release starch while it cooks. Meanwhile, you can safely leave it and do other things. The Thermomix will chime if you need to add more ingredients, or when cooking is finished.

Once you're done, the bowl, blade, spatula, and lid are all dishwasher-safe, so cleanup is a piece of cake.

Speaking of which, if you want to cook something that's not sauteed, stewed, boiled, fried or steamed (like cake or bread), the Thermomix can still handle the weighing and mixing, and will tell you what to pre-heat the oven to and how long to bake it for.

So what's it like to use?

At the event, one of Vorwerk's cooks demonstrated how to prepare a prosciutto and porcini risotto using the TM7, as described above. Unless it's doing something like grating a hard chunk of parmesan, it's surprising just hoe quiet the machine is in use, thanks to its insulated bowl.

Once that was done, the attendees (about 20 of us) were split into four groups, and tasked with preparing four different recipes. My group was assigned a berry sorbet, which was particularly interesting to me because I'd seen pictures online of chilled desserts prepared using a Thermomix.

It's important to note that the Thermomix doesn't actively chill ingredients, so they need to be frozen before going inside the bowl. For our sorbet, we used mixed frozen berries (a staple of my tests when I'm reviewing the best blenders for making smoothies, and often tricky to fully pulverize).

First we added granulated sugar to the bowl until a green tick appeared to show that we had the correct amount, placed the lid on top, and pressed play. Within a few seconds, the Thermomix blitzed the grains into powdery icing/confectioner's sugar. I certainly wasn't expecting that, and was very impressed – I always have granulated sugar to hand, but more than once I've had to make a late night dash to the corner shop for icing sugar when baking a birthday cake.

After that, we added the berries and a dash of lemon juice to balance the sweetness, then let the Thermomix take the reins. We were occasionally prompted to scrape the ingredients off the sides of the bowl, but after a couple of minutes we were left with a fresh, smooth sorbet, with only three ingredients and virtually no effort of mess.

The cooking didn't end there, though. After our guide scooped half the sorbet into a bowl for tasting (delicious) and replaced the bowl, the machine prompted us to add an egg white, and insert a beating tool that sits on top of the blade. the TM7 then whipped the egg and sorbet together to make a smooth, frothy mousse-like dessert.

Finally, the demo recipe prompted us to remove all but two tablespoons of sorbet, add a portion of milk, and replace the lid. A few seconds later, we each had a glass or berry milkshake to round off dessert.

It's very impressive, and I particularly like the fact that the Cookidoo app comes with sets of recipes made specifically for certain countries, including local cuisines (I spotted a recipe for Yorkshire puddings) and using readily available ingredients.

The Thermomix TM7 certainly isn't cheap, costing £1,349 from Vorwerk in the UK (it's due to launch in the US later this year, but the official price hasn't been announced yet) and you should also factor in the premium Cookidoo subscription, which is an extra $65/£50 per year.

I asked Vorwerk's representative whether it's possible to use the TM7 without it, and although you can, you'll have a much smaller selection of recipes to choose from, and you won't be able to do things like add notes to recipes you've tried.

It's a seriously powerful and capable appliance though, and as someone who cooks using online recipes almost every day, I can easily see it having a place in my kitchen. It's made to last too. In fact, Vorwerk only releases a new model every seven years or so, so you can be confident it'll be supported for a long time.

I'll soon be borrowing a TM7 for a week to try even more recipes, and will report back to let you know how I get on with stewing, baking, and more – and whether I think it's worth the investment.

You might also like

• I used AI to help with dinner recipes for a week and it was a success (and a disaster)
• Feeling the heat? These are the best 3 blenders for smoothies and slushies, recommended by a kitchen tech expert
• So you just got an air fryer – here are 10 things you need to cook now

Instant Pot Pro Plus Smart Multi-Cooker: two-minute review

If you’re looking for a top multi-cooker, then there are plenty of best Instant Pot options to choose from. The Instant Pot Pro Plus Smart Multi-Cooker stands out as a great buy, not just for its 10 settings, but also because of its smart functionality. So, not only can you control the appliance from the touchscreen display on the front of the cooker, but you can start, adjust and stop it remotely via an app on your smartphone as well. This makes it a much more convenient option than your standard Instant Pot.

I really enjoyed browsing the Instant Connect app, which features lots of cooking inspiration. Offering access to over 1,400 recipes, you can search for a recipe to cook using keywords such as “chicken”, “fish”, or any other random ingredient you have to hand. Once you’ve decided what to cook, following the instructions in the app is super simple, and it will nudge you to choose the right cooking mode for the recipe chosen. This is a game-changer, making cooking really quick and speedy, with no need to refer to the instruction manual. It’s also handy when you’re stuck about what to cook and need some inspiration.

Provided the device is plugged in, you can turn the appliance on and off remotely, too – which is helpful if you want to keep an eye on the cooking cycle from the comfort of the sofa. This also means that provided you’ve prepped your ingredients correctly, you can turn on the cooker while you’re out – so that the slow-cooked lamb you planned first thing will be ready to eat when you walk through your front door.

In terms of design, the Instant Pot Pro Plus won’t catch the eye. Nevertheless, its timeless black and silver finish will work well in both modern and classic kitchen schemes. Offering 10 useful cooking modes, including those for steaming and making rice and a delay start and keep warm function; if there’s one option I was disappointed not to see, it’s an air fry function.

Instant Pot Pro Plus Smart Multi-Cooker review: price & availability

• List price: $199.99 / £199.99 / AU$349
• Reasonably priced for capabilities
• Available in US, UK and Australia

The Instant Pot Pro Plus Smart Multi-Cooker is above average in price for an Instant Pot multi-cooker, setting you back $199.99 / £199.99 / AU$349. At the time of writing, this 6-quart / 5.7-litre design is on sale for $149.95 in the US, however.

You’ll be paying that bit more than the average due to its smart capability. For a  6-quart model minus smart features you can pick up the Instant Pot Rio for around $99.99. Or in the UK, you can buy the Instant Pot Duo Plus With WhisperQuiet Multi-Cooker for £99.99, which is currently on offer, down from £129.99. In Australia, a 5.7L Instant Pot Duo Plus will set you back AU$259, but can be found for around AU$199.

• Value for money score: 4 out of 5

Instant Pot Pro Plus Smart Multi-Cooker specs

Instant Pot Pro Plus Smart Multi-Cooker review: design

• 6-portion capacity
• 10 functions accessible via touchscreen
• Dishwasher-safe removable pot

In terms of looks, the Instant Pot Pro Plus is rather average; with a sleek black finish and touchscreen display, it’s nothing out of the ordinary. However, what makes it stand out from the crowd is its high-tech smart capability, which allows you to control the multi-cooker not just through the touchscreen panel, but via a smart app on your phone.

Size-wise, it isn’t too intrusive on the countertop, and at 7.05kg it isn’t too heavy either. Its body is curvaceous and sleek, offering a generous 6-quart / 5.7-liter dishwasher-safe stainless steel inner cooking pot with aluminium core that can hold up to six portions. In the box you’ll also find a steam rack and extra sealing ring for when the original wears out.

While you won’t need too much room to store this appliance on the countertop or in a large kitchen cupboard, you will need to ensure there’s adequate space around it for good ventilation while cooking. Venting is easy: there are three touchscreen options for natural venting, pulse venting or a quick vent. The display also denotes how much cooking time remains, and highlights the cancel and start buttons for quick access while running.

I found the digital display clear and easy to read, allowing you to choose from the 10 settings available. These include pressure cooking, slow cooking, rice cooking, steaming, sautéing, yoghurt making, canning, sous vide, delay starting and keeping your food warm.

I found the device feels solid and secure on the worktop, with ample cord length to easily plug it in at the socket. The multi-cooker has a lid that’s easy to remove and lock into place when needed. Note that the sides of the machine do get a little hot to touch when it’s on, but nothing out of the ordinary – and the only time the multi-cooker makes much noise is when the steam is being vented. Helpfully, the inner pot comes with handles, which makes it super easy to take out.

• Design score: 4.5 out of 5

Instant Pot Pro Plus Smart Multi-Cooker review: performance

• Cooks up to 70% faster when pressure cooking
• 10 cooking functions via touchscreen or app
• NutriBoost to lock in vitamins, improve texture

To test out the Instant Pot Pro Plus, I used it over the course of a month to cook a variety of dishes. I downloaded the Instant Connect app and followed recipes such as pressure-cooked Easy Holiday Butternut Squash Coconut Soup, which was made in under 20 minutes. I was keen to see how well this multi-cooker could pressure cook, sauté, steam and cook rice, as well as produce a slow-cooked lamb curry.

I found the digital control panel simple to use, and found that the “easy seal locking lid” clicked into place effortlessly. Pairing the appliance with the smartphone Instant Connect app proved faultless, too. After pressing the Wi-Fi button on the pot, and following the instructions to connect, I was able to use the app to control my recipes.

The app itself is actually one of the easiest and most comprehensive I’ve used. I welcome the way you can search for a recipe, and the app delivers step-by-step instructions – from gathering your ingredients to choosing the right settings, adding ingredients and venting the steam – all in real time.

Offering 20% more power than previous models, for faster pre-heating time and 15psi suitable for canning, the Instant Pot Pro Plus Smart Multi-Cooker claims to be the most powerful Instant Pot to date. This design does, in fact, claim to cook up to 70% faster than other cooking methods when pressure cooking, and can therefore help you save on energy bills as a result. I certainly found pressure cooking to be super quick: I was able to cook very tough butternut squash in just five minutes.

Following the recipe for pressure-cooked Easy Holiday Butternut Squash Coconut Soup, the app automatically guided me through the natural venting setting at the end, which I found reassuring and easy to follow. The appliance does get quite loud when venting steam, and you’ll need to ensure there’s sufficient space above to avoid covering the kitchen units with condensation. While making the soup, I also clicked on the NutriBoost setting on the control panel, which is designed to make meals healthier by breaking down the food, locking in vitamins and enhancing the flavour. It’s hard to tell if this made any difference to the final results of the soup, but it’s a reassuring addition to the offering.

I found the appliance very quiet in use – particularly when used for making a slow-cooked lamb curry. It was very easy to sauté ingredients such as the lamb, onions and seasoning directly in the pot at the start of the recipe, which saved time and having to wash up a separate pan. I then simply added the rest of the ingredients and switched to the slow cook setting for four hours on high. I like the fact that the sauté setting can be used at the end of the slow cook to reduce liquids directly in the pot if needed, too. The appliance gently beeps to let you know when the food is ready.

Cleaning was pretty simple; the pot is dishwasher-safe and the base and lid can be cleaned with warm soapy water and wiped down with a damp cloth. For more advice, learn how to clean an Instant Pot.

• Performance score: 4.5 out of 5

Should you buy the Instant Pot Pro Plus Smart Multi-Cooker?

Buy it if…

Don’t buy it if…

How I tested the Instant Pot Pro Plus Smart Multi-Cooker

• Tested for a month
• Used for a variety of dishes

I used the Instant Pot Pro Plus in my kitchen for a month and made it my mission to try each feature of the multi-cooker on meat, chicken and vegetables. I paired the multi-cooker with the Instant Connect app to make the most of the smart features. As well as using its remote features on the apps, which gave me access to a very good range of recipes ideas, I had a good play with the multi-cooker control panel too. 

I followed two main recipes to test both the pressure cooker feature and the slow cooker settings. The Easy Holiday Butternut Squash Coconut Soup gave me a good insight into how easy the pressure cooker setting was to use, while the lamb curry was ideal for testing out the slow cook and sautéing settings. After each use I cleaned the multi-cooker and rated how easy to clean its parts were.

Ninja Woodfire Pro Connect XL: two-minute review

Ninja’s near-relentless mission to become king of all appliances continues with the launch of the Ninja Woodfire Pro Connect XL, its first smart Woodfire offering huge capacity and the same delicious flavors. 

We loved the Ninja Woodfire, scoring it a perfect five stars in our review. Nevertheless, on a personal level, I’d remained largely unconvinced by Ninja’s outdoor cookers – until now. Adding smart features such as the app-connected thermostat and a higher capacity for catering to larger groups, the Ninja Woodfire Pro Connect XL stands to make a grill master out of me yet. 

Delivering delicious smoky flavors, convenient smart cooking features, and fantastic ease of use, there’s very little to complain about with the Ninja Woodfire Pro Connect XL BBQ Grill and Smoker. If I’m nitpicking, I’d say the hefty ‎40.2lb /18.3kg weight warrants the inclusion of the Ninja Woodfire stand, especially if you have a wooden table as I do and are concerned about it buckling; but that might have driven up the price enough to discourage prospective grillmasters, so I understand the logic. 

At 16.1 x 22.4 x 20.1in / ‎41 x 57 x 51cm, it’s a little larger than the 13.4 x 18.1in x 18.1in / 34 x 46 x 46cm  (h x w x d) standard Woodfire model, and enough so to offer 30% greater capacity according to Ninja. In practice, it offers some (much-needed) headroom, plus space for another portion or two of food – which, in my opinion, is more than enough to justify the meager $ / £50 / AU$ price difference. In addition, there’s the included smart thermostat, which can connect with the Ninja app to ensure perfect results every time. 

With that logic in mind, I’d go as far as to say the Ninja Woodfire Pro Connect XL BBQ Grill and Smoker is far more than a capacity upgrade to the original model. It might not quite qualify as a next-generation device, but it iterates enough upon the success of the original to stand on its own four feet. 

Ninja Woodfire Pro Connect XL review: price & availability

• List price: $449 / £499
• Available in the US and UK, no confirmation on AU release

Available for $449 / £499 directly from Ninja US and Ninja UK, as well as third-party retailers such as Amazon, the Ninja Woodfire Pro Connect XL is a fairly pricey purchase, coming in at around double the cost of a standard, basic BBQ – but you get a whole lot more for that price. 

It arrives with a sample pack of robust blend pellets, plus a pack of all-around blend wood pellets, which you can purchase separately for $32 / £30 for two 2lbs / 900g bags. Also included is the Ninja smart thermostat, which you can buy separately for $19.95 / £19.99, as well as a pellet scoop, a crisper basket, the grill plate, and the grease tray. 

There are a few further accessories you might need, however. The Ninja Woodfire Pro Connect XL is water resistant to IPX4, but to keep it in good condition if storing outdoors, you’ll want the waterproof cover that costs an additional $25 / £25. 

While the outdoor cooker’s underside is heat-safe and won’t damage surfaces, it’s a fairly heavy piece of kit, so you might prefer to shell out for Ninja’s collapsible grill stand, too, which will set you back a further $150 / £130.

If you want the full assortment of accessories, there are a variety of bundles available through both Ninja and Amazon. 

Considering the original Woodfire sold for $370 / £350 at launch in 2023 and now is available for $399 / £399, the relatively slim price difference between the original and the new XL version makes for a compelling argument to spend a little more for a whole lot more.

• Value score: 4.5 out of 5

Ninja Woodfire Pro Connect XL specifications

Design

• Bigger capacity than the original
• Handy smart thermostat storage tray
• IPX4 water-resistant for rainy days

It’s pretty hard to make a BBQ, grill and smoker multicooker look sexy, but Ninja has certainly tried – and to great effect. Available in an attractive blue colorway, it’s a fairly robust device, weighing 40.2lbs/ 18.3kg and measuring 16.1 x 22.4 x 20.1in / ‎41 x 57 x 51cm.

One of the biggest design departures from the original Woodfire is the layout of the control panel, which has been entirely revamped. From left to right, you’ll find the seven cooking functions (Grill, Smoker, Roast, Bake, Dehydrate, Air Crisp, and Broil), which can be easily navigated using the Mode button, as well as the Woodfire Flavor button to the left, the LCD panel and temperature/time controls in the center, and the control dial, start/stop and thermometer buttons to the right. This offers a significant improvement over the original model, which we found difficult to navigate for our original review. 

Above the control panel is the lid handle, which stays cool even after longer cooking periods. A surprising omission, given the increased weight of the Pro Connect XL, is the handles – meaning it’s a little more difficult to maneuver than the original Woodfire. Thankfully, however, there are still small grips on either side to help you lift and maneuver the Woodfire Pro Connect XL. On the right-hand side of the device, you’ll find the wood pellet tray, and underneath the control panel is a slot that houses the smart thermostat when it isn’t in use.

One of the biggest drawbacks of the entire Woodfire product line is that none of the accessories are dishwasher-safe. This isn’t too much of an issue when it comes to the grill and grease tray, which are relatively easy to clean by hand; but the crisper basket is quite a chore to clean off after use. At least all of the accessories are non-stick, but due to the increased size of the Ninja Woodfire Pro Connect XL, they’re just a little too large to soak in the sink.

Ninja Woodfire Pro Connect XL review: performance

• Delicious, smoky flavors
• Very easy to use
• Smart thermometer app pairing and features work well

As someone who isn’t really a fan of a BBQ, I was pleasantly surprised by how consistently and deliciously well the Ninja Woodfire Pro Connect XL performed on-test. In terms of its cooking capabilities, it’s as successful as the original Woodfire; both smoked and unsmoked dishes were bursting with flavor and cooked to perfection. 

It’s easier than ever to smoke your meals with the Ninja Woodfire Pro Connect XL. Simply throw in one level scoop of pellets, preheat the grill, and you’re set to throw on whatever you’re cooking. For my test, I tried chicken, ribs and asparagus with the robust blend wood pellets, using the smart thermostat to primarily test the internal temperature of the chicken. Following Ninja’s instructions, I set the Pro Connect XL to cook for one hour at 275°F / 135°C. 

Both the ribs and chicken cooked faster than the app had suggested, but it’s worth noting both were pretty lean to begin with. Regardless, the speed with which Ninja’s Woodfire cookers can work while still creating delicious food is incredibly impressive.

The results overall were spectacular. Enriched with smooth yet smoky flavors, the wood pellets had clearly done a fantastic job of imparting flavor to the meat. I loved that I barely had to interact with the cooker, freeing me up to speak with guests, tidy up the kitchen, or even file my taxes. 

I turned my food halfway through for this test, given it was a whole (albeit small) chicken we were cooking. For the next meal, I made chicken wings, where I didn’t see as much benefit from the flavor when left unturned – which is pretty similar to my experience with the original model. 

Even the non-smoke-enhanced cook settings work fantastically, netting me some deliciously grilled burgers, immaculately air-fried potato wedges, and crispy asparagus full of flavor – and moisture. We tried and enjoyed baking brownies in the previous model, and while I wouldn’t normally bake in my garden, having the ability to do so is useful if only for the Pro Connect’s app controls.  

If you opt to use the Woodfire technology for non-smoking settings, you really don’t need to use the recommended level scoop of wood pellets; better to be conservative with these fairly pricey pellets and opt for a half-scoop instead.

While the Woodfire Pro Connect XL is undoubtedly larger than the original, it’s nowhere near big enough to cater for larger groups. In terms of branding, Ninja would have been more accurate with “large”, since there’s nothing extra about this smart cooker when you’re feeding more than six people. 

All in all, the Woodfire Pro Connect XL is a spectacular addition to any patio, porch or plot, offering impressive (albeit sometimes unnecessary) versatility, fantastic flavor, and blistering cooking speeds.

Should I buy?

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How I tested the Ninja Woodfire Pro Connect XL BBQ Grill and smoker

• I used the Ninja Woodfire Pro Connect XL BBQ Grill and Smoker to cook a variety of meals over several weeks
• I tested all of its different cooking functions on vegetables, meat and fish
• I used the smart thermostat and app to test the functionality

I put the Ninja Woodfire Pro Connect XL BBQ Grill and smoker through its paces by cooking a variety of different meals over the course of my three-week testing period – including chicken, ribs, salmon, pepper, asparagus and beans. 

I tried all of the different settings, including the Woodfire mode where appropriate, and used both of the sample flavor packs that came with the device. I compared the results to my previous experience with standard BBQs as well as the original Ninja Woodfire, evaluating how well it delivered on flavor and ease of use.

While I’m no grill master, I’ve been cooking on BBQs during the rare bouts of summer sun in the UK for years, and I’ve also tried a host of electric cookers, both indoors and outdoors during that time. 

If you love to cook, chances are you're accumulating a whole load of appliances for different functions. And that means they're all eating (pun intended) into your storage space.

That's what makes a multi cooker an ideal solution. This countertop appliance can typically pressure cook, slow cook, rice cook, make yoghurt, steam, sauté, boil, simmer, stew, deep fry, grill and roast. 

Uh-huh, that's a lot of cooking in just one appliance. But wait, it doesn't stop there! There are some that can even air fry.

That's not just bang for buck, but you even open up storage space by getting rid of a lot of older appliances, and you can save time cooking a meal as well.

It can be argued that Instant Pot launched the multi cooker to its current fame, but Crock-Pot too can take some of that credit. There are now so many different brands being sold around the world that it's hard to keep up. To help you choose, TechRadar's reviewers try out several multi cookers to see which one works the best, while also offering tips and tricks on how best to use your multi cooker.

The best multi-cooker or pressure cooker in Australia should handle multiple cooking methods within a single appliance, combining slow cooking, pressure cooking, rice cooking, sautéeing, steaming, and more.

Instant Pot and major appliance brands like Ninja and Breville have produced some of the best multi-cookers we've ever seen, and our international team of cooking experts tested a fair few over the years to come to that conclusion. Their offerings are competitive on features and capacity, as well as their cooking modes, size and ease of use.

Any multi-cooker will at least have the ability to whip up a diverse range of meals. It will nail some basics like hard-boiled eggs, rice and one-pot dishes like Mexican chilli or stews. Beyond that, steaming, sautéing and even making yoghurt are other tasks that you can trust a good multi-cooker with. To save on counter space, there are also models that double as air fryers by swapping out a different lid (some have ‘smart lids’ that don’t require swapping), or ones that also offer slow cooking.

Ultimately, if you’re shopping for an appliance of this type, you’ll likely be after something that can quickly put together a big meal – but picking the right multi-cooker for your specific needs can be a daunting task, which is one reason why we've put this guide together.

TechRadar has reviewed a broad variety of multi-cookers to find the best options in Australia, and we’ve collected our findings below. Ranging from some capable budget options, to more feature-packed premium ones — and even something stylish — we’ve got something to suit most kitchens and households. We’ve also explored which ones are easy to clean.

The best multi-cookers in Australia 2026

Below are in-depth reviews of our choices for the best pressure and multi-cookers in Australia, as reviewed by TechRadar's team of kitchen appliance experts.

The best overall multi-cooker

The Instant Pot Pro is the best multi-cooker for most people. It aims to replace 10 kitchen appliances – a pressure cooker, slow cooker, frying pan, rice cooker, steamer, yogurt maker, and warmer – and has 28 cooking modes for preparing different dishes.

We were impressed that the Instant Pot Pro lets you store up to five favourite settings for recipes you make regularly, giving you the convenience of the one-touch programs but for your own custom recipes.

The inner pot can also be used straight on the stovetop to sear food before cooking, and its included handles let you take the pot straight to the table. We found the Instant Pot Pro’s steam release switch is one of the easiest and safest steam release methods we’ve used when testing the pressure cook function, and the steam valve has a cover to reduce splashes and noise.

There’s no recipe book or cooking charts included, however, which means using the Instant Pot Pro does require some experimentation. And in our tests, broccoli florets also fell through the steaming rack, so steaming vegetables does require you to purchase an additional accessory. But overall, we found this model easy to use and that it produced great meals.

Read our full review: Instant Pot Pro

The best value for money

It’s not quite the cheapest multi-cooker, but the Instant Pot Duo Plus is great value for money for what you get, particularly when purchased discounted – it’s often down to around the AU$170 mark. We really appreciated the safety features, particularly the fact that you can release steam with a flick of a switch – no need to put your hand near a hot valve.

We also liked that the Duo Plus is available in multiple sizes to fit different sized households. We did, however, find it a bit light on presets compared to a lot of Instant Pots – though at least they’re easily customisable. Unlike some other options in this guide, there’s no air fryer functionality, so this one can’t quite fully replace all your other kitchen appliances.

That said, the results of what the Instant Pot Duo Plus can do, whether it’s rice, a Thai curry, or Mexican chilli, are as good as its price tag is low.

Read our full Instant Pot Duo Plus review

The best premium multi-cooker

The 7.5-litre Ninja Foodi Max adds air frying, grilling, barbecuing and dehydrating to the long list of cooking methods offered by the best multi-cookers. But arguably the best feature is its ability to introduce steam when air frying, which when paired with the built-in thermometer can help cook steaks perfectly, without drying them out.

In addition to excelling at steak, we were also impressed by the Ninja Foodi Max's ability to perfectly cook a variety of dishes, from Mexican beef chilli to hot chips. The big capacity makes it ideal for larger households or those who always have guests over, but the multi-cooker’s size and bulk does mean it takes up a lot of space on a countertop.

Unlike Instant Pot’s offerings, the Ninja Foodi Max doesn't have presets with defined temperatures and times for different dishes. Instead, you'll need to refer to the cooking charts that come bundled with the device, and while not as convenient, we at least found these to be comprehensive and very helpful.

Read our full review: Ninja Foodi Max 15-in-1 SmartLid Multi-Cooker

Best for smart homes

As Instant Pot’s top-tier offering, this multi-cooker comes with smart app functionality that allows you to cook remotely using your smartphone. Called Instant Connect, the app lets users remotely start, adjust and stop the Instant Pot Pro Plus, or even completely turn it on and off – handy for when you’re out and about.

The app also comes with a database of more than 800 recipes to provide some cooking inspiration. The recipes have easy-to-follow instructions, nudging you to choose the right cooking mode for the recipe chosen.

Performance-wise, the Pro Plus is also 20% more powerful than previous Instant Pot models, providing faster pre-heating time and 15psi pressure to help cook faster, therefore saving on energy bills.

It’s not much of a looker with the typical Instant Pot design, but the Pro Plus is relatively lightweight at 7.05kg and not too intrusive on a countertop. Cleaning is also a breeze thanks in part to the dishwasher-safe stainless steel pot.

Read our full review: Instant Pot Pro Plus (note that this is what it’s called in other markets, but in Australia, it’s the Instant Pot Pro Plus WiFi)

The most stylish multi-cooker

Most multi-cookers don't chart high in the style stakes, but with a brushed stainless steel finish and a neat and streamlined design, Breville’s Fast Slow Pro is certainly one of the better-looking multi-cookers we've tested (we reviewed the UK model, where it’s sold under the Sage brand).

The Fast Slow Pro offers six cooking functions aimed to make it easy to use, with a range of presets for dishes including stew, risotto and rice. There’s also an option to manually adjust the time and temperature to ensure the meal is cooked to perfection.

On test, we found the Fast Slow Pro cooked meat well enough to be tender and succulent, while vegetables and rice were cooked through but not soggy or mushy. However, we found cleaning was a bit more involved, as you’ll have to unscrew a sealing nut to remove the hinged lid if you want to clean it. The Breville also has a minimum 1-litre capacity, meaning we struggled to cook smaller quantities.

If you can look past that unwieldy name, Breville's Fast Slow Pro is without a doubt one of the best multi-cooker options worth considering.

Read our full Breville the Fast Slow Pro review (UK model)

Best multi-functional multi-cooker

The Duo Crisp & Air Fryer builds on the Instant Pot’s ability to pressure cook, slow cook, and steam with the addition of an extra lid that provides an air frying function that means it can roast and bake too.

It has a large 8-litre capacity, great for those feeding several mouths or planning to batch-cook. The Duo Crisp & Air Fryer is also simple to use, with 11 presets for different dishes.

On test, we were impressed by some of the dishes we cooked, except for one instance when we followed Instant Pot’s recipe for chunky fries. They weren’t crisp enough for our taste, but hey, it's all subjective.

The cooking pot isn't non-stick, which may be a good or a bad thing depending on who you ask, but either way some elbow grease will be needed when cleaning it. A rack for steaming vegetables isn’t bundled either, so you’ll have to purchase this separately if it’s a desired function.

Read our full Instant Pot Duo Crisp & Air Fryer review

The most versatile multi-cooker

While it’s not particularly cheap, especially for its smaller capacity, the Instant Pot Duo Crisp with Ultimate Lid is one of the most versatile multi-cookers out there. To start, it has 13 cooking functions on tap, including air frying and bread proofing. And, it does a wonderful job with most of them as well, though its steam function can be a bit too intense for some ingredients.

More than that, we found it to be easy to use, not to mention that it’s pretty stress-free when pressure cooking due to three different options for automatic pressure release. There are plenty of other safety features, including some pretty thick sliding locks that need to be secured before using any cooking functions.

Clean-up is easy as well, as the parts are dishwasher safe. However, we’re still surprised by the fact that the cooking pot isn’t non-stick, so you might have to give it a good soak between uses.

Read our full Instant Pot Duo Crisp with Ultimate Lid review

How we test the best multi cookers

To see how pressure cookers and multi-cookers stack up, we’ve spent hundreds of hours whipping up curries and chillies, preparing batches of rice, and even steaming portions of vegetables, comparing the end results. We’re looking for meat that falls off the bone but is still tender and succulent, rice that’s fluffy but still with some bite, and crisp vegetables. We’ve also compared how easy they are to use and just how much they speed up cooking.

We evaluate each model on how many different cooking methods it offers, how durable and easy to clean the body and parts are, how loud it is in use and when releasing pressure, and how hot the exterior casing gets. We’re also assessing how simple each multi-cooker is to use and whether you need to read the instruction manual before cooking, whether recipe inspiration is provided and the useful accessories such as racks and trays it comes with.

How to choose the best multi-cookers

With such a wide array of models available when it comes to multi-cookers, choosing the right one for you can be confusing.

Start by considering the different cooking methods offered by the best multi-cookers, and the dishes you prepare most. While some devices only offer a handful of cooking modes including pressure cooking and slow cooking, others (such as the Instant Pot Duo Evo Plus) have as many as 48 different ways of cooking and can do everything including proofing bread and making yogurt.

Next, look at the capacity the cooker can hold and whether it's sufficient for the number of people you have to cook for. Multi-cookers with a 5.7-litre capacity and above are ideal for those with a large family to feed, or those that want to batch-cook, while a smaller model can hold around 3 litres should suffice for an individual or couple.

Also look out for multi-cookers that have inner pots that can be used on the stove, when browning meat before slow cooking and are dishwasher safe to make sure you have as few utensils to wash up as possible.

The best multi cookers and Instant Pots in Australia: FAQ

The latest updates to this multi cooker guide

December 10th, 2025

Reformatted the guide to make clearer distinctions between each product, providing clearer buying advice and how each product is suitable for a particular purpose.

Updated some product entries with newer models that have been reviewed by the TechRadar team.

If you’ve been looking at any Black Friday Instant Pot deals, you know that Instant Pots are a godsend in the kitchen. The company’s pressure cookers make cooking stews and soups not only much easier but quicker as well. They can also handle other types of meal prep whether that’s cooking rice, warming up food, or even handling some sous vide cooking. But, Instant Pot also makes multi-functional air fryers as well as a number of other products.

No matter what you’re hoping to get out of an Instant Pot, you need to consider a few things before snapping up one of the many Black Friday Instant Pot deals. After all, they’re not all equal as they vary wildly in capacity, come with different sets of cooking functionalities, and fit into different price ranges. You might be on a budget or want to get the best one on the market.

While we recommend that you take a look at our best Instant Pot and Air Fryer guide, we’ll walk you through all the things to consider before jumping on one of the best Black Friday deals available. And, make sure to keep an eye out on our deals pages as we’re constantly checking all the retailers for any potential sales.

1. Decide on what kitchen appliance you need

The words “Instant Pot” might bring up mental images of pressure cookers but there are also Instant Pot air fryers, coffee makers, electric dutch ovens and even air purifiers. Your first task then, if Santa didn’t tell you already, is to figure out what you need or want to add to your kitchen when shopping for Black Friday Instant Pot deals.

Pressure cookers and air fryers are both multi-functional for all but the most basic of models. The Instant Pot Ultra 8 Qt 10-in-1, for example, comes with ten different cooking functions. Beyond pressure cooking, it can do slow cooking, rice, yogurt, steamer, and more. Or, consider the Instant Vortex Plus 6QT Air Fryer Oven which has six different functions, such as bake and roast. Yet, they don’t quite overlap.

Consider what kind of food you want to cook but need to streamline. If you want to make a lot of soups and cook a lot of rice, go with a pressure cooker. If chips or fries are your life, or more realistically, you want an easier way to fry or bake food, then an air fryer is the way to go.

2. Figure out your price range

Unfortunately, many of us are limited by what we can afford. With that in mind, you’ll want to figure out how much you can set aside for an Instant Pot. Since so many are getting solid Black Friday Instant Pot deals, you should be able to move up a price bracket as long as you don’t wait too long. 

For instance, if you’re on a budget, you might see a more mid-range model discounted to below $100 / £100. The Instant Pot Pro 10-in-1 is currently going for $99.95 instead of its usual going rate of $169.99. Or, you can pocket the savings on budget models to spend on other gifts.

Regardless, you’ll want to factor in your budget range first so that you’re not figuring that out when you come across a sale. Many of the best deals won’t last long, especially once the big shopping day comes around, so you don’t want to lose time checking your bank account while the last couple units are being snatched up by people that aren’t you.

3. Get the right size

Who are you cooking for? If it’s for just one, maybe the most budget model will do. You might just need a small amount of capacity to make dinner. Something like the Instant Pot Duo 3 Mini 2.8L Multi Cooker will do the trick for bachelors and bachelorettes trying to save money while still offering various functionalities. Sure, you sacrifice capacity but you’ll save in the process, not to mention a smaller capacity unit will also take up less space, perfect if you’re looking for something to use in a dorm or cramped space.

More likely, you’re either cooking for a family or doing meal prep for a week. In that case, you want around six quarts or more for a single dish. That way, you can make a large chuck roast or goulash and portion it out for several meals throughout the week. The Instant Pot Pro 10-in-1 8qt, as the name suggests, has an eight-quart capacity which is about 7.5 liters. 

4. Consider what secondary functions you want out of your appliance

Lastly, we suggest taking into account all the secondary functions you’re hoping to get out of your newest addition to the kitchen. As mentioned earlier, many come with multiple functions but they range from having a few to having up to eleven. And, some with the same amount of functions don’t have the same ones.

For example, the Instant Pot Pro models can sous vide which is great for steak aficionados but probably wasted on most people. Meanwhile, the Instant Pot Pro Crisp 8qt with its eleven functions can also air fry. In comparison, the Instant Pot Duo Plus 9-in-1 6QT is pretty packed with its nine functions but comes with neither sous vide nor air frying capabilities. Air fryers are no different as you’ll find some like the Instant Vortex Plus 6-Quart Air Fryer Oven which can rotisserie a chicken while others, typically with a pull-out basket, can’t. 

The idea of getting the most functions you can is enticing but, if you’re on any kind of budget, consider first what you’ll realistically be interested in cooking before you start picking out models when shopping for Black Friday Instant Pot deals.

Black Friday Instant Pot sales right now

These cleaning tips will help keep your best Instant Pot pristine because while cleaning it is easy to do, there’s a bit more to it than just chucking your stainless steel pot into the dishwasher. That’s particularly true with more stubborn stains, such as burnt-on lentils: they seem immune to even the most expensive dishwasher tablets. The good news is that there’s a hack for that.

While almost all of your Instant Pot is okay to wash in the dishwasher (if you have one), it’s not always the most effective way of shifting stains – and if you’ve ever put a sealing ring in the dishwasher in order to get rid of the smell of a strong chilli or soup, you’ll know that sometimes a dishwasher doesn’t really make a difference. Don’t despair, though. It’s really easy to get rid of even the toughest and most persistent stains and smells. Here’s how to keep your Instant Pot perfectly clean. 

If you're looking to upgrade your Instant Pot, Black Friday Instant Pot deals has popped up early so it's a good time to buy. That's especially if you want to avoid the holiday shopping chaos.

Clean your Instant Pot: start with the pot itself

The Instant Pot’s main cooking pot is dishwasher safe, so if you have a dishwasher then you can simply put the pot upside down in the lower rack as you would with any other pot. You’ll often find that dishwashing the stainless steel pot can leave it with a blue-ish haze; if you encounter that, soak it in white vinegar for a few minutes before rinsing and drying it and the blue will be gone.

No dishwasher? No problem. You don’t need any special cleaning products for the inside of your pot. Hot soapy water and a non-scratch scourer will do the trick. Don’t use steel wool or abrasive cleaners, though. They’ll damage the finish.

How to clean burnt-on food from your Instant Pot

We’ve burnt food onto our Instant Pot lots of times, usually by using a too-hot sauté setting or by forgetting to deglaze the pot before adding stock. To remove burnt-on food, rinse the pot as best you can to get rid of the easy bits and then add two tablespoons of baking soda and four cups of water. Put the lid on and do a manual pressure cook for five minutes. Once you’ve done that, let the pressure release naturally. You should now be able to get your pot perfectly clean with hot soapy water.

How to stop the Instant Pot seal from smelling

The sealing ring in your Instant Pot lid is a bit of a magnet for smells, so for example when we make a very garlicky soup it’s still smellable long after we’ve eaten it all and given the pot a wash. There are lots of online guides to making your Instant Pot sealing ring clean, but our favorite is by cooking bible The Kitchn: Kelli Foster recommends two options, using either white vinegar or lemon. Simply add two cups of white vinegar or two cups of water with a lemon rind and run a steam program for two minutes. You can then take the sealing ring out of the lid and let it air dry before refitting it.

You can also buy extra Instant Pot sealing rings, and if you buy the Instant Pot Pro or Instant Pot Duo Plus you'll get a second one in the box. Instant Brands recommends having two different ones: one for savory foods and one for sweet. They’re not expensive: expect to pay around $12/£12/AU $13 for a pack of two.

How to wash your Instant Pot lid

Every part of your Instant Pot is dishwasher safe apart from the main cooker base, but I’ve found that the lid takes up far too much room in the dishwasher and doesn’t always come out brilliantly clean. I prefer a manual scrub with hot soapy water instead.

How to wash your Instant Pot air fryer lid

The air fryer lid for the Instant Pot Crisp models doesn’t look like it should be dishwasher safe, but it is – provided you give it plenty of time to cool down before use, as it gets very hot when you’re frying. 

Cleaning the air fryer lid is a bit more involved than cleaning the standard Instant Pot lid. That’s because air frying many foods will create grease that can gunk up the lid somewhat. You can fix that with a baking soda and vinegar solution.

How to clean the food basket for your Instant Pot Crisp

The food basket in your Instant Pot Crisp can suffer from the same baked-on grease and grime that affects the racks in your oven, but unlike most racks it’s small enough to go in the dishwasher. If that doesn’t shift the grime (or you don’t have a dishwasher), a long soak in hot soapy water will remove a lot; if even that’s inadequate, try the very first tip here on cleaning burnt-on food.

If you’d like to prevent your basket from getting messy in the first place you can buy air fryer basket liners from the usual home and kitchen retailers.

How to clean the fiddly lip bit around the top of the Instant Pot

I hate the groove where the Instant Pot lid joins onto the rest of the cooker: it’s like the trench in Star Wars’ Death Star but filled with bits of chili rather than TIE fighters, a perilous chasm requiring incredible skills or some wadded-up kitchen towel and cleaning spray. Some owners suggest using a soft toothbrush dunked in hot soapy water for this.

How to clean the main Instant Pot body

Don’t put it in the dishwasher. The bit of the Instant Pot with the controls and heating element is absolutely not dishwasher safe; you need to use a slightly damp cloth to clean it inside and out (and if you’re cleaning it on the inside, make sure you’ve given it plenty of time for the heating element to cool down). The recommendation is “slightly damp” because you don’t want water getting into the control panel.

Buying one of the best Instant Pot multi-cookers is one of the best kitchen decisions you’ll ever make, especially with Black Friday Instant Pot deals available now. It’s one of the best-selling kitchen gadgets in the world with almost as many imitators as it has devoted fans. 

If you’re not familiar with the Instant Pot it’s a programmable electric pressure cooker that became a huge online hit, spawning endless articles and recipe guides and turning people like your writer into Instant Pot evangelists. But is this a case of publicity over practicality?

On the face of it, it seems so: even the cheapest Instant Pot is much more expensive than a traditional pressure cooker. But there are some important advantages of the Instant Pot in terms of safety, flexibility and capacity. Before we discover what they are, it’s important to understand what pressure cooking is and why it’s great.

Instant Pot vs Pressure Cooker: what is pressure cooking anyway?

Pressure cookers go back much further than the Instant Pot: the first home pressure cookers went on sale in 1945, but the Instant Pot didn’t go on sale until 2010. At heart, though, they both use the same science: if you cook food at really high pressure, you can get the same results in a fraction of the time. So for example a casserole or chili you might slow cook for hours can be pressure cooked in less than an hour and be just as melt-in-the-mouth tasty.

To increase the pressure, a pressure cooker or Instant Pot has a tight seal that keeps steam from escaping (and a valve to release it when you’re done or if the pressure gets too high; without a valve there’s a real risk of explosion). The pressure increases the boiling point of water, reducing evaporation and extracting more flavor from foods. 

Whether you use a traditional stovetop pressure cooker or an Instant Pot, the results are the same: amazing food in less than 1/4 of the time normal cooking takes. But the Instant Pot does more than just cook. 

Instant Pot vs Pressure Cooker: what’s the difference?

One of the biggest differences here is that the Instant Pot is programmable: you can set it and leave it. With stovetop cookers there’s still a small risk of pushing the pressure too high and blowing the thing up, but the Instant Pot doesn’t have that danger. And it also has different pressure modes, so you can set it at low pressure for things like soup and high pressure when you’re in a hurry.

But the other key difference between an Instant Pot and a pressure cooker is that the Instant Pot isn’t just a a pressure cooker. It’s a multi-cooker. It has programmes to sauté, to make rice, to make yogurt… it’s a one-pot cooking system that saves time and also means less washing up. So for example when your writer is making soup it’s all done in the Instant Pot: sautéing the veg, bringing it all to the boil, taking it down to a simmer for the flavors to mingle, and keeping it warm once it’s cooked. Or if chili is on the menu the Instant Pot browns the beef, softens the beans and then slow cooks it to perfection.

Depending on the Instant Pot model you go for, you can turn it into other kinds of cookers too. The Instant Pot Pro can do sous vide cooking, where vacuum-sealed food is immersed in warm water for incredibly tender results, and the Crisp models have an extra lid that turns the Instant Pot into an air fryer so you can “fry” food too.

Another advantage of a programmable pressure cooker is that you can set it to run when you’re not there (with the exception of some programmes such as as sautéing). That makes it great for setting and forgetting, so you can have a tasty meal waiting when you get in from college or work.

Instant Pot vs Pressure Cooker: what are the pros and cons?

The key benefit of a traditional pressure cooker is that it can deliver a higher pressure than all but the most expensive Instant Pots, so it cooks even more quickly: where most Instant Pots deliver a maximum pressure of 12psi, traditional pressure cookers can go up to 15psi. More pressure means a higher boiling point and faster cooking.

The main pros of an Instant Pot are its ease of use, its convenience and its safety: it’s a brilliant all-rounder that’s incredibly simple to use, utterly reliable and has a dishwasher-safe removable pot (although it’s best to wash by hand). You can also save custom programs if the presets don’t do what you want. 

The main downside is the price: where the cheapest basic pressure cookers we can find on Amazon cost around $50 / £40 / AU$115, even the cheapest Instant Pot – the 3-quart/3-liter Instant Pot Duo – is $59 in the US and £69 in the UK (it isn’t currently sold in Australia).

The good news is that as the capacity increases, the price rises much less steeply. The 8-quart/8 liter Instant Pot Duo is currently $79 / £109 / $AU188.

It’s also worth noting that the Instant Pot’s viral popularity means that you will see deep discounts during any big sales event such as Prime Day, Black Friday and other seasonal sales.

The other downside is that with the exception of the Mini model, Instant Pots are big: a 6-quart/5.7-liter Pro is roughly 13 inches/33cm high and the same width, while an 8-quart/8 liter model is just over 14 inches/36cm high.

Instant Pot vs Pressure Cooker: what should you buy?

Whether you buy a stovetop pressure cooker, an Instant Pot or a similar multi-cooker, you’ll be amazed by the food you can make: even something as simple as eggs can be astonishing when pressure cooked. But the choice depends a lot on what you want to cook and how much space you’ve got.

A stovetop pressure cooker is brilliantly simple, but that simplicity also limits what you can do with it: if you don’t pressure cook frequently it’s a big and heavy pot you’ll need to find somewhere to store. The Instant Pot’s bulkier and heavier, but its flexibility means it’s more likely to be used more often instead of being put away; our one is in almost constant use through the week and sits permanently on the kitchen counter. 

If you’re a frazzled parent, a student or someone who’d like to have a brilliant meal waiting for them when they get in from a long day then the Instant Pot is the one to buy here: it’s a genuinely great and useful multi-cooker that’s capable of amazing things. But if you’ve already got a multi-cooker such as the best air fryer oven or just prefer to do things old-school, a stovetop pressure cooker is simpler, faster and more affordable. Whichever option you go for, though, you’re going to love the results.

Multi-cookers have increasingly become the must-have kitchen gadget over the last ten years. Combining several appliances in one, you can ditch your slow cooker, pressure cooker, steamer, sous vide, and yogurt maker and combine them into one multifunctional appliance.

Instant Pot may have been the first multi-cooker on the market but it was quickly followed by several other brands, including Ninja which has become one of its biggest competitors. These two brands produce some of the best multi-cookers available right, and with each model they get bigger and better. 

The Instant Pot Pro Crisp & Air Fryer is the brand’s top-of-the-range multi-cooker that can replace one the of best air fryers on top of the long list of cooking functions it already offers, and was unveiled in 2021 (although it’s also available without the air frying capability, a model which is just called the Instant Pot Pro). 

Ninja followed suit with the launch of the Ninja Foodi 14-in-1 8-qt. Smart XL Pressure Cooker Steam Fryer with SmartLid, which is known as the Ninja Foodi Max 15-in-1 SmartLid Multi-Cooker in the UK But how different are the top-of-the-range models from both of these trusted brands, and which should you choose? 

We’re pitted the two head-to-head, whipping up curries, chillies, and batches of fries to help you choose the right appliance for your kitchen. 

Best Instant Pot Pro and Ninja Foodi 14-in-1 8-qt. Smart XL Pressure Cooker Steam Fryer with SmartLid deals  

Read on to discover how these two multi-cookers compare – or, if you’ve already decided which of the two you wish to buy, check out the best prices for each right now:  

Price

Before we delve into how well these multi-cookers perform when it comes to producing an array of dishes, let’s look at the price. 

The Instant Pot Pro Crisp is the more affordable of the two as you can get your hands on one for $249.99/ £249.99. Meanwhile, the Ninja Foodi 14-in-1 8-qt. Smart XL Pressure Cooker Steam Fryer with SmartLid, which is known as the Ninja Foodi Max 15-in-1 SmartLid Multi-Cooker in the UK is priced at $349.99/ £299.99. However, it does offer a handful more cooking methods (more about that below) and comes with a temperature probe for cooking meat perfectly, so we think this slightly higher price tag is acceptable. 

Both models are the brand's top-of-the-range multi-cooker so they sit at the pricier end of the multi-cooker market, but they offer the latest and best features including air frying capabilities. Neither model is currently available in Australia.

Design

Despite offering a similar range of core functions, there are notable differences in the design of these two multi-cookers, the most obvious being the lids. The Instant Pot Pro has two lids, one for dry cooking functions such as air fry and bake, and an additional lid for the other cooking functions including slow cook, pressure cook, and steam. The Ninja on the other hand has just one hinged lid that can perform all functions, offering a more convenient and space-saving solution.

The Instant Pot has 11 cooking functions, these are pressure cook, slow cook, sauté, steam, sous vide, air fry, roast, bake, broil/ grill, de-hydrate, keep warm. But with a whopping 14 cooking functions (15 in the UK) there’s no beating the Ninja. Its available functions include pressure cook, air fry, grill, bake, dehydrate, prove, sear/ sauté, steam, slow cook, yogurt, sous vide, and keep warm along with two new programs; steam air fry, steam bake. These use steam during the cooking process, even though they are considered ‘dry’ methods to keep foods moist and succulent.

The UK model differs slightly from the US model and doesn’t have the sous vide function but comes with three additional steam programs;  steam meals, steam roast and steam bread.

In terms of capacity, there’s not much in it, the Instant Pot has an 8 quart / 8 liter capacity, while the Ninja is advertised as 8 quart / 7.5 liter. Likewise, you won’t find much difference in the measurements either, with the Ninja being 0.5 inches taller. But as we already mentioned, with two lids to store, the Instant Pot will take up more space in your cupboard.

For pressure cooking, the method and ease of steam release is an important consideration, and these two multi-cookers tackle this in very different ways. If you opt for the Instant Pot, the lid automatically seals for pressure cooking as you close it. But at the end, you’ll need to flick the switch to ‘vent’ in order to release the steam. 

The Ninja also seals itself, it does this when the slider is moved into the pressure cooking position. The steam release however is fully automated and you can select one of three steam release methods for a completely hands-off process.

They come with a similar selection of accessories in addition to the main cooking pot, including air fry baskets and cooking racks. Uniquely though, a meat probe is included with the Ninja. This connects into the multi-cooker and the other end goes into the meat you’re cooking. On the main menu screen, you choose the type of meat, select how well you want it cooked, and the Ninja will do the rest. It’s a unique feature that we haven’t seen on any other multi-cooker.

Features on test

While they differ in terms of design these two multi-cookers both produced excellent quality meals when we put them to the test. We made tasty slow-cooked and pressure-cooked meals in both cookers. However, we struggled to achieve the results we were looking for when steaming in the Instant Pot. Whereas the Ninja model comes with a useful recipe book that includes cooking charts, this takes away the guesswork and makes it easier to get it right the first time.

The additional functions available on the Ninja, such as steam air fry give you more scope to brown foods like chicken, whilst ensuring that the meat stays moist and succulent. What’s more, the included meat probe allows even novice cooks to produce perfect results. We successfully used it to cook a medium-rare steak and if you want hassle-free meats cooked exactly to your liking, this is a feature you’ll love.

While both come with dishwasher-safe cooking pots for easy cleaning, the Instant Pot is supplied with a stainless steel pot, whereas the Ninja pot is non-stick so is easier to wash by hand. Having said that, the Ninja pot doesn’t have a completely flat base, which is noticeable when sauteing because oil pools around the outside of the pot so results can be uneven. Instant’s cooking pot is completely flat so sauteing is more even.

Both multi-cookers are simple to use with clear display screens and easily adjustable time and temperature settings. And regarding the lids, it comes down to personal preference, some people will prefer just one hinged lid, but others may prefer a fully removable lid and not mind that there are two.

Verdict

Both these multi-cookers are from leading brands, they’re well made, easy to use and produce great results. When deciding which is best for you, it’ll come down to your priorities. If price is driving your decision, the Instant Pot is the cheaper of the two and it still offers a great range of useful functions. But with two lids to store, it will take up more space.

But if you’ve been holding back because you’re nervous of pressure cooking and steam release, the hands-free automatic steam venting offered by the Ninja multi-cooker is a good way to go. And the Ninja is also the best choice if you want the maximum number of cooking functions for the most multi-purpose appliance. Not forgetting the innovative meat probe feature.

• Just want to make healthier fries? Then check out the best air fryer deals.

Cooking the same type of meal regularly, can lead to food boredom. After all, variety is the spice of life, so whether you’re trying to impress friends and family with an array of cuisines, or you simply want to liven up dinner time for yourself, there are plenty of handy kitchen gadgets to help. 

The Instant Pot is perfect for this. Already a cult product, this multi-cooker offers an array of cooking functions including slow cooking, pressure cooking, steaming and sautéin. It also speeds up cooking duration so you’re no longer chained to the stove. 

Food bloggers and recipe creators across the globe are continually giving us new and tasty recipes designed specifically for Instant Pots and the alternatives from brands such as Ninja and Sage. This means there’s no shortage of inspiration and advice to help you make the most of cooking in this appliance. (There's no shortage of savings either, especially with Black Friday Instant Pot deals available now.)

However, that’s not to say you can ditch your oven or stove completely and cook everything in a multi-cooker, there are some foods that absolutely do not work in an Instant Pot – and I’m talking from experience here.

Best Instant Pot deals 

Read on to discover what you really shouldn't use an Instant Pot to cook, or if you’ve already decided you want to invest in a multi-cooker, check out the best prices right now:    

My Instant Pot baking disaster

Recently I used an Instant Pot for baking cakes and cookies but I’ll never do it again despite the fact that there are several recipes online saying it works. I tried three cake recipes in my Instant Pot, a chocolate cake, carrot cake, orange cake and even an oatmeal raisin cookie recipe for good measure. 

The only one that was enjoyable – or edible for that matter – was the chocolate cake. That’s because if a chocolate cake doesn’t rise and has a dense moist texture, you just need to change the name and suddenly it’s a delicious brownie. The rest came out dense and chewy at best or completely inedible at worst and the cookie just wasn’t a cookie, it was a weird dry flat cake. I thought the Instant Pot was going to revolutionize my cake baking so to say I was disappointed with the results would be an understatement.

You might call me naïve for thinking I could bake a cake in a pressure cooker but in another bid to test my Instant Pot cooking skills I made cheesecake in an Instant Pot and I’ll never go back to my usual method. Cheesecakes cook brilliantly in an Instant Pot so all is not lost when it comes to baking sweet treats in a pressure cooker.

What else doesn’t work in an Instant Pot?

Unless you’ve got one of the newer and more expensive models that can air fry, such as the Instant Pot  Crisp + Air Fry, don’t even think about attempting to bake bread in an Instant Pot. Bread needs to brown and develop a crisp crust, this is a big part of its appeal and is important to the flavor too, but a crust is something you just can’t achieve using pressure cooking or slow-cooking methods. 

If you’re a regular bread baker though, you might be interested to know that while it won’t bake bread to perfection, you can use your Instant Pot to proof the dough. The yogurt function is a low-temperature setting that’s designed to ferment yogurt cultures and works just as well at fermenting the yeast in your bread dough. Using the yogurt setting will give you a consistent proofing environment, which can help you perfect your method and make some of the best homemade bread.

In just the same way as an Instant Pot can’t give you a crisp crust on bread, the same goes for all other foods that are best served browned and crispy, including breaded or battered foods such as chicken or fish. You’ll be able to heat these foods in an Instant Pot, but there’s no way of crisping the crumb or batter, so it’s unlikely you’ll be pleased with the inevitably soggy end result. Anything with pastry should be included in this bracket as well, pale mushy pastry is rarely anyone’s aim. 

As a rule of thumb, if a crisp texture is important to the overall enjoyment of the food, then you’re best sticking to other methods like broiling, grilling or oven baking. Alternatively, when it’s time to upgrade your Instant Pot, look at investing in one with an air fry lid, these models can brown and crisp foods and will take your Instant Pot cooking to the next level.

Creamy dairy-based sauces can also be troublesome in an Instant Pot. Depending on what you’re making, sauces made with cream, cheese, and milk are prone to curdling when pressure cooked. Most Instant Pot recipes advise adding cream and cheese at the end of cooking. You can use the sauté function if some heat is needed to melt cheese and this allows you to keep an eye on the consistency and to stir it regularly.

Slow cooking and pressure cooking both work well to tenderize tough meats and will give you excellent falling-off-the-bone textures, both of these cooking methods allow you to get the most from cheaper cuts of meat. I wouldn’t recommend putting expensive cuts of red meat into your Instant Pot though, because to do justice to these pricier cuts, they should be served pink in the middle. And unless you’re using the sauté function to fry up a steak, you can’t achieve rare or pink results in red meats when cooking them in an Instant Pot.

Similarly, very delicate foods like fish and shellfish don’t work well in an Instant Pot. It’s almost guaranteed that you’ll overcook most fish and shellfish regardless of whether you’re adding them to a slow-cooked or pressure-cooked recipe. You can still create tasty meals like paella in your Instant Pot, in fact, it’s one of the best ways to cook rice, but you’ll just need to add the cooked shrimp at the end.

• Check out these great cheap instant pot deals

Instant Pot is the appliance that’s been revolutionizing the way we cook since 2010. But this clever multi-cooker is so versatile, that for some people knowing where to start and how to make the best use of it can be a little overwhelming.

With slow cook, pressure cook, sauté and steam functions to experiment with, there are plenty of great ways to get the most out of this countertop cooking appliance. One of the great advantages of Instant Pot is that there are thousands of recipes online and virtually no limit to the things you can cook in it. And once you’ve mastered your Instant Pot cooking skills it’s still great to experiment with new foods and recipes so you don’t fall into a rut and use it for the same foods and meals every time.

Don’t let your Instant Pot gather dust on the counter – or miss out on the excellent Black Friday Instant Pot deals that are live now. There are numerous meals traditionally cooked on the stove that work much better in an Instant Pot and some might even surprise you.

Best Instant Pot deals 

Read on to discover what are the best things to cook in an Instant Pot to cook, or if you’ve already decided you want to invest in a multi-cooker, check out the best prices right now:    

What are the best things to cook in an Instant Pot?

 Soups, stews and curries

Sumptuous slow cooked stews, such as this beef stew, are the perfect winter warmer and the slow cooker function on your Instant Pot is a great way of creating this type of comforting meal. The same goes for curries and although these can be pressure cooked if you’re in a hurry, slow cooking allows the flavors to develop and deepen over time, giving you a rich and delicious meal – try this slow cooker chicken curry.

Just be sure to leave the steam release valve in the vented position to allow meals to thicken when slow cooking. Soups can be pressure cooked for speedy results, you’ll have a hearty broth in no time – try this healthy lentil soup. 

Red meat

The beauty of cooking red meat in an Instant Pot is that no matter how tough or inexpensive the cut, you can use your multicooker to turn it into mouth-wateringly soft meat that’ll fall apart before your fork even touches it. This is achieved by cooking it quickly on the pressure cook setting, or very slowly using the slow cooker. 

Both methods will give you very tender meats with minimal effort. We’re big fans of this slow-cooked beef chili that we make when reviewing multicookers. Personally, I’ve also had great success pressure cooking baby back ribs that then get finished off on the BBQ or broiled/ grilled, here’s a great recipe. You can even try a pressure-cooked pot roast for a fuss-free beef dinner. 

Cheesecake

This one’s from experience, I made cheesecake in an Instant Pot and I’ll never go back to my usual method. Forget the usual hassle of baking cheesecake in a water bath in the oven and fretting over whether it’s getting too brown, or if it has the perfect wobble that signifies it’s time to take it out. 

Cooking cheesecake in a pressure cooker removes these concerns, gives you a defined cooking time and also means you can walk away and forget about it until the timer goes off, what could be better? I’d recommend this chocolate cheesecake or this vanilla cheesecake which is the perfect base for adding fruits, caramel or any other custom topping – you can get creative.

Rice dishes

We always cook rice in Instant Pots when testing them for our reviews. Some Instant Pots have a specific rice program, but if yours doesn’t, you can achieve excellent results using the pressure cook function. Instant Pot offers a handy cooking time table for rice and grains. A good rule of thumb is to use a 1:1 rice to water ratio. 

Cooking times vary depending on the type of rice and it might take you a few tries to get the timings just right for your favorite rice. But once you master it, you’ll have perfectly cooked rice every time and that’s the beauty of rice in an Instant Pot – consistency. But it’s not just plain rice, rice dishes like this Instant Pot chicken and rice work really well too and rice based one pot meals are a mid-week winner. 

Potatoes and vegetables

Pressure cooking potatoes in an Instant Pot is great route to perfectly cooked potatoes without having to watch over them on the stove. In fact I made mashed potatoes in an Instant Pot and it was far easier than usual. 

Instant Pot does offer a cooking time table for steaming vegetables though in our experience the results can be a bit hit and miss the first few times you try it and will depend on the Instant Pot model you have as well as other factors like how much veg you’re loading in. 

If in doubt, steam or pressure cook for the minimum possible time, you can always add on more time, but you can’t rescue overcooked and mushy vegetables. We’d suggest buying a steaming accessory because steaming on the supplied rack is tricky. 

Once you’ve tried a few vegetables and got the hang of timings, steaming is a great way to cook vegetables, locking in the flavor whilst retaining a good crunch.

• Check out these great cheap instant pot deals

Instant Pot is the multicooker sensation that’s becoming a mainstay in homes around the world. It offers a wide array of cooking methods including slow cooking, pressure cooking and sautéing, 

I regularly use my Instant Pot for savory dishes including slow-cooked curries and stews, and for pressure-cooking rice and steaming vegetables, but I rarely use it to cook anything sweet. I tried my hand at making cakes and cookies in an Instant Pot, but it was disappointing. 

However, there are plenty of recipes online for making cheesecake in an Instant Pot. Usually, I make cheesecake in an oven but have to watch it like a hawk to ensure it doesn’t brown too much, while many recipes advise using a bain-marie, which is a water bath. This helps to cook the cheesecake gently, but it’s fiddly to set up and there’s always the danger water will leak into your cheesecake pan.

However, if I used an Instant Pot, which uses steam during cooking, would I be able to get the same consistent results, with minimal fuss?  

Best Instant Pot deals 

Read on to discover what happened when we cooked cheesecake in an Instant Pot, or if you’ve already decided you want to invest in a multi-cooker, check out the best prices right now:    

 Plenty of preparation

The more research I did on Instant Pot Cheesecake recipes, the more it became clear, pretty much every recipe utilizes the pressure cook function on the Instant Pot. The beauty of this is that the cheesecake doesn’t come into contact with a direct heat source, it cooks gently in the pressurized steam which gives a consistent result.

This is particularly appealing because there’s a fine line between a baked cheesecake that’s undercooked and one that’s overdone - you’re looking to achieve the perfect wobble, which is no mean feat. If it jiggles too much, then it won’t set as it cools, but leave it in too long and it’ll be rubbery. So the idea of baking a cheesecake with exact timings and consistent results is what makes an Instant Pot cheesecake so appealing.

There are also some accessories you’ll need when baking cheesecake in an Instant Pot. First, is a round pan that’ll fit inside your Instant Pot, preferably a springform pan with a loose base, to make it easy to remove the cheesecake once baked. You’ll also need aluminum foil for covering the pan, the foil seals it so no moisture can enter and affect the cheesecake. 

The next thing to consider is how you lower the pan into the Instant Pot and also how you remove it. My pan is only slightly smaller than my pot, so the only way to lower it in and remove it without spilling the cheesecake batter was to make a sling using aluminum foil. 

This is simpler than it sounds, it’s just a case of folding up a long piece of aluminum foil so you can slide it under the pan and hold on to the ends to lower it gently into the Instant Pot. Alternatively, you can buy a silicone sling specially designed for the job.

Let's get cooking

My first attempt at Instant Pot cheesecake was a decadent chocolate cheesecake with an Oreo cookie crust and a dark chocolate cheesecake filling. Given that the recipe is enough for a 7 inch/ 18cm pan, the quantities listed in the ingredients are a bit less than if you were making a larger one in your oven. But in my house this was still enough for eight portions, six if you’re feeling greedy.

The method for making the cheesecake is exactly the same as normal, crush the cookies and mix with melted butter, then allow this to cool in the freezer while you mix together the cheesecake batter. 

Once everything is in the pan, the top needs to be covered with aluminum foil. I did it so that the foil was domed and not touching the batter, but this won’t be a problem if you have a deep pan. Make sure the foil is tightly sealed so that no moisture can get in and if you’re using a springform pan you’ll need another layer of foil on the bottom to stop water seeping in through the base.

Then I just needed to add water to the pot and sit the cheesecake on the trivet and set the Instant Pot to pressure cook on high for 35 minutes. This particular recipe said to allow it to cool on the counter with the foil in place and then refrigerate for six hours. 

Verdict

While leaving the cheesecake alone in the refrigerator for six hours was an arduous task, I managed it. The result was a deliciously rich, thick, and indulgent cheesecake with no cracks or browning, something I’d be proud to serve to guests – but actually kept for myself this time.

After my successful chocolate cheesecake, I went confidently into a vanilla cheesecake recipe. And although the ingredients list was slightly different, the method and times were virtually the same. The only exception was that this one was cooled uncovered before being put in the fridge. The finished cheesecake however was a little different from my first attempt.

This cheesecake rose slightly during cooking and due to my shallow pan, it rose up into the foil which gave it a dented appearance around the edges after it cooled. My pan is only 1.4 inches/ 3.5cm deep, but you could avoid this by using a pan that’s at least 2 inches/ 5cm deep. 

This cheesecake also developed a crack in the center. Having said that, I didn’t really mind because my plan was always to smother it in homemade caramel for a show-stopping dessert. The texture was light, creamy, and perfectly set and despite the crack, I was more than happy with the finished result which also got a big thumbs up from my dinner guests.

Was it quicker to make cheesecake in an Instant Pot? 

It wasn’t any quicker to make cheesecake in an Instant Pot, as while the pressure cook time was 35 minutes, it takes six minutes to preheat and the natural pressure release took 10 minutes, so it’s around 50 minutes overall, then there’s the cooling and chilling time. 

Cook times in the oven are similar for a 7 inch/ 18cm pan, but some recipes require a water bath and instruct you to turn down the temperature part way through cooking, so it’s a more involved process. Plus there’s the inevitable deliberation over whether it’s cooked at the end. Whereas with the Instant Pot, you can set it and walk away until the timer goes off.

I was so impressed with the results of cooking a cheesecake in an Instant Pot. Not only were the results more consistent that using an oven, it also ensure I was able to concentrate on other things while it was cooking, rather than having to watch it to ensure it doesn’t brown too much.  

Once I’ve tried out a few more recipes I’ll look forward to being able to recreate my favorites time and time again without worrying whether the finished dessert will be as good as last time or if I removed it from the oven too soon. 

• Check out these great cheap instant pot deals

With so many cooking functions, it seems there’s no end to the delicious meals that can be created in one of the best Instant Pots. They’re great for slow-cooked tender meat or fast pressure-cooked curries, but more often than not, we tend to dream of mouthwatering savory foods when thinking about what to cook next in this clever kitchen gadget.

An Instant Pot is one of the most versatile kitchen appliances around and with an army of fans worldwide, there are thousands of recipes online created especially for this popular multi-cooker. In fact, we've had great success cooking everything from mashed potato to hard-boiled eggs in an Instant Pot.

When I saw just how many cake recipes were on the Instant Pot website and app, I got to thinking, can you really bake a cake in one of these multicookers? Is an Instant Pot the answer to making bakes worth of the contenders on the Great British Baking Show or, if you’re in the UK the Great British Bake Off?

Best Instant Pot deals 

Read on to discover what happened when we used an Instant Pot to bake cake and cookies, or if you’ve already decided you want to invest in one of these multicookers, check out the best prices right now:  

How do you cook cakes and cookies in an Instant Pot? 

You don’t need an Instant Pot with an air fry lid to make cakes, but I suspect you’ll get better results that way. In a classic Instant Pot without air fry capabilities, the majority of cake recipes utilize the pressure cook function.

Once you’ve made the cake batter and filled a cake pan, it then has to be covered with foil. This stops moisture from getting into the cake and affecting your bake. By adding water to the cooking pot and sitting the cake pan on the trivet, it’s kept away from the direct heat at the base of the pot and instead cooks gently in the pressurized heat.

Most of the recipes I tried, call for a 7 inch/ 18cm round cake pan, fortunately, I had one this size. However my 6 quart/ 6 liter Instant Pot was only just big enough for the pan. So while I could just about ease it in, removing it from the hot steamy pot at the end of cooking was tricky, to say the least. It involved the use of several kitchen utensils in an attempt to lever it out. So if you’re serious about perfecting cakes in an Instant Pot I’d highly recommend buying a silicone pressure cooker bakeware sling, which sits in the bottom of the Instant Pot and has handles that enable you to lift out the cake tin with ease. 

So, how did the bakes turn out?

I envisioned impossibly moist and light cakes when I started this baking adventure. After all, if there’s no oven then the cake can’t burn or dry out. And it’s true, none of the cakes I made were burnt or overly dry, they just had other problems.

First up, let me tell you about my most successful creation, the fudgy chocolate cake. After following the recipe and pressure cooking for the required 30 minutes it didn’t look great. The top was bumpy and it didn’t appear to have risen much either. And while it would be a stretch to describe it as a cake, this chocolate treat actually tasted delicious. It was rich, dense, and fudgy with a pleasing brownie texture and a rich chocolate flavor, and I enjoyed every mouthful. But let’s be clear, cakes should be light and fluffy, which this was not.

Going into my second bake I was optimistic and after the rich chocolate cake, I landed on a recipe for what looked like a fresh and light orange olive oil cake. Again, I followed the recipe and pressure cooked it for 35 minutes, but this one ended up being the worst cake I made in the Instant Pot. It didn’t rise at all and what came out of the pan was very dense, rubbery, and completely inedible.

At this point, I didn’t know what to expect from the third cake. This time I tried one of my all-time favorites, a carrot cake, and had high hopes for a delicious bake. At 65 minutes, the cooking time for this one was double that of the previous two cakes and I wondered if this would be the key to creating the perfect cake. And the finished cake did actually rise much more than the previous two, it certainly looked far more like a traditional cake. But sadly it just wasn’t the real deal, it was denser and chewier than a carrot cake should be. I was left wishing I’d baked it in the oven instead, for a lighter springier result.

There aren’t many cookie recipes that don’t require the use of an air fry lid, but eventually, I found one for oatmeal raisin cookie which looked worth a try. Like the cakes, it gets cooked in a foil-covered cake pan using the pressure cook function. The end result did look like a giant cookie, but that’s where the similarities ended. It had the texture of a dry flat cake which although edible, was very disappointing and certainly didn’t feel like a treat.

I’d love to tell you that Instant Pot is the answer to all of your baking woes, but this experience showed me you just can’t create light and fluffy bakes in a pressure cooker. Instant Pot is a fantastic appliance for creating so many tasty dishes, but let’s face it, even die-hard Instant Pot fans have to admit that it can’t be good at everything.

• Check out these great cheap instant pot deals

There’s nothing more comforting than a big scoop of creamy mashed potato. It’s the unsung hero of side dishes, smooth, creamy, and the perfect accompaniment to so many meals. Whether you like to customize your mash with garlic, cheese or herbs, or you just prefer straight-up buttery mash, it’s a firm favorite in so many households.

This inexpensive potato dish isn’t exactly difficult to make, but mastering the perfect results every time can be trickier than you might think. Most people want to achieve a smooth mash that’s light and fluffy, but many of us have experienced disappointingly lumpy results. This is, in part because, when boiling potatoes on the hob, they must be watched like a hawk and checked often before being drained and mashed. They're perfectly cooked when a butter knife slides through them with ease, although it doesn’t take long before they become a watery mess.  

The best Instant Pots take the hard work out of cooking an array of dishes, including vegetables. Pressure cooking is one of the multitude of cooking methods these appliances offer and unlike boiling sees less water evaporate during cooking, retaining an even temperature throughout the cooking pot. This got us thinking  - surely potatoes will cook more thoroughly in an Instant Pot, ensuring a smooth, creamy mash every time? 

Read on to find out just how to make mashed potato in an Instant Pot, or if you want to get your hands on one of the best multicookers right now, check out these great deals for some of the best prices on the market.  

So, what's the secret? 

Before you even start cooking, the best mash starts at the grocery store. By selecting potatoes that are higher in starch you’ll get a better result. There are hundreds of potato varieties, so find out what’s available in your local store and pick the most suitable. In the US varieties like Russet and Yukon Gold are popular for mash and in the UK Maris Piper or King Edward are a good choice.

Back in the kitchen and the first thing you’ll need to do is peel the potatoes. Some people love to leave the skin on for a more rustic mash, and if that’s the result you want, go right ahead. But for the best creamy mash, peel your potatoes first. Then, chop them into even size pieces, this is important because if the potatoes are all roughly the same size they’ll cook evenly. Now this doesn’t mean you need to spend ages cutting them into tiny pieces, quite the opposite, small pieces can over cook and break down which will leave you with a watery potato mess. Around 1.5 to 2 inch/ 4 to 5 cm square chunks are fine.

There are several recipes online for making mash potato in an Instant Pot. I read lots of them before my first attempt and my biggest takeaway was that there’s no set potato to water ratio, just add your potatoes to the pot and then add enough cold water to just cover the potatoes. Crucially, you need to take care not to exceed the max line on your pot.

I added 4.4 pounds/ 2kg of potato and 2.3 pints/ 1.3 liters of water and a teaspoon of salt. Then I set my Instant Pot  to pressure cook on high pressure for 12 minutes. The time was based on what I’d read in other recipes, taking into account that I was making quite a big batch. It’s worth remembering that the time required will vary depending on your potato variety, how big the chunks of potato are and also the number of portions you’re making. But 8 to 12 minutes is a good starting point.

At the end of cooking, release the pressure quickly, remove the pot of potatoes and drain away any excess water. Be sure to use some oven mitts to protect your hands when lifting the pot and tipping the water out. Then you can add in your flavoring, I added heavy cream and salt for an indulgent and creamy mash, but you can add butter, olive oil, spices, cheese or garlic, get creative. I’d advise adding some fat in the form of butter, oil or cream, this will give you a tasty mash that doesn’t have a dry texture.

The potatoes need to be mashed while they’re still hot, so as soon as you’ve drained away the water, get mashing. You can do this in the cooking pot, then at the end there’s only one pot to clean. I’d recommend using a potato masher, but for very creamy and super smooth whipped potatoes an electric hand whisk  works wonders at banishing lumps.

Is it any faster? 

In short, no. The preheat took 25 minutes, then there was the 12 minute cook time and add to that the 5 minutes to release the pressure at the end. This gave a total cook time of 42 minutes for my large batch, compared to about 25 minutes on my stove. But the preheat will be quicker if you make a smaller batch.

The thing is, that despite the slightly longer cooking time, I’d still cook my mash this way again because I didn’t have to watch over the pot, so I was free to leave the room or concentrate on cooking other parts of the meal. Additionally, the potatoes were perfectly cooked through, which gave me a really smooth lump-free mash.

Yes you still have to peel the potatoes, and then use a bit of elbow grease at the end to mash them, but letting your Instant Pot take care of the cooking gives you potatoes that are cooked to perfection, which really does make the end result smoother and creamier, I’m certainly a fan.

• Check out these great cheap instant pot deals

Since the first Instant Pot was released in 2010, we’ve seen this multipurpose countertop appliance continue to grow in popularity and become a worldwide success. Instant Pot is one of the better known multi-cooker brands, but in recent years rival multi-cookers from brands like Ninja and Breville , which is known as Sage in the UK, have become hot competition and regularly feature in our best Instant Pot guide.

But if you’ve never come across one, you might still be wondering exactly what an Instant Pot is and how it works. In short, an Instant Pot is an appliance that offers a multitude of different cooking methods in one space-saving kitchen gadget, hence the broader term multicooker.

As well as replacing several different gadgets in your kitchen, it can also speed up cooking times too, which means you can impress friends and family without spending hours slaving over a hot stove. 

Read on to find out just how Instant Pots work, or if you want to get your hands on one of the best multicookers right now, check out these great Black Friday Instant Pot deals for some of the best prices on the market.  

What cooking methods does an Instant Pot offer? 

Depending on the model you buy it could replace a slow cooker, pressure cooker, yogurt maker, rice cooker, steamer, sterilizer, and even a sous vide. So there’s really no limit to the type of foods and meals that can be made in this appliance. Think tender meat falling off the bone in a sumptuous stew, a comforting curry or perfectly steamed vegetables.

A more recent multi-cooker innovation is the addition of air fry capabilities, which can add broiling/ grilling, roasting and air frying to the already wide range of cooking methods. With these models, you can create perfectly crisp fries, roast a chicken and even bake cookies. As you’d expect, they’re more expensive, plus they often require a secondary lid to perform the extra functions.

Most multi-cookers offer a sauté setting so you can soften onions or brown meat in the pot before going on to cook with another method like pressure cook or slow cook. It ensures all the mess remains in the pot and reduces the amount of dishwashing at the end.

Other common functions include keep warm settings that’ll automatically keep your meal warm at the end of cooking, as well as timers to delay the start of cooking so you can ensure your delicious creation is ready right after you get home from work, just in time to feed your hungry crowd.

On top of the many functions, you’ll often find numerous presets for various foods and meals such as egg, rice, stew or soup. These presets have predefined time and temperature settings to take the guesswork out of cooking popular foods. Multi-cookers come in varying sizes, around 6 quart/ 6 liter is fairly standard pot capacity but for batch cooking and larger households they go up to around 8 quart/ 8 liter, but even the larger ones don’t take up too much space on your counter.

 So how does an Instant Pot work?

Instant Pots and other brands of multicooker all work in a similar way. The main unit houses a heating element in the base and this will heat up to various temperatures depending on which function is selected. A removable metal pot contains the food during cooking so it doesn’t come into contact with the base or element and being removable makes it much easier to clean.  

For slow cooking, the element will maintain a low temperature for long periods of time and cook foods just like a regular slow cooker. Yogurt-making functions and sous vide work in a similar way.

Pressure cooking is a bit more complicated and relies on the lid which utilizes a rubber sealing ring to seal in the pressure when the lid is locked. When pressure cooking, the base element quickly heats the food and water in the cooking pot and locks in the steam so that pressure builds. Pressure sensors monitor the pressure and keep it at the optimum level for safety.

Cooking food under pressure is much faster than boiling on the stove. At the end of cooking, in-built safety features mean the steam has to be released before the lid will unlock. Steam is released via a valve in the lid and this can be done fast, by moving the valve or flicking a switch to the vented position. Some multicookers even have automatic settings for steam release, for a completely hands-off approach.

Alternatively, the steam will release naturally over time, this is a longer process and the food will continue to cook until the steam is released and the lid is opened. A float valve on the lid indicates whether it’s still pressurized.

For multicookers that can replace an air fryer, there’s often an additional lid required, although Ninja has recently launched models that are capable of all the functions without switching to a secondary lid. But whether it’s a separate lid or the same one, they work in much the same way as the best air fryers, by using a powerful element and fan. These work in conjunction to create fast, even heat that’s very efficient at dry cooking methods like air fry, roast, and broil/ grill. And can be used to create perfect crunchy fries, roast beef, or just to heat up some frozen chicken nuggets.

They usually come with an air fry basket which allows the air to circulate around the food for optimum crisping.  And if you’re just cooking small portions of frozen foods, instead of preheating your whole oven you can save energy by using the air fry function in a multicooker, as there’s no need to preheat and it’ll often cook the food quicker.

If you’re new to multi cookers, they can seem a bit daunting at first, but the more you cook with it, the more you’ll see the value in this one-pot cooker. And there are huge communities of multicooker fans online who have created recipes specifically designed for these appliances. So if you’re stuck for inspiration or don’t know how long to cook things for, there are plenty of mouth-watering recipes to get you started.

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The best Instant Pots and the array of alternatives, such as the Ninja Foodi range of multi-cookers, are extremely handy kitchen gadgets, as they offer an array of different cooking methods in one appliance. From slow cooking a stew to pressure cooking meats so they fall off the bone, multi-cookers can have a variety of functions making them one of the most versatile kitchen appliances around.

Some of the newer and even more versatile multi-cookers feature air fry lids, so they can be used to make fries as well as grill/ broil meats and even bake cakes. But would you risk putting an expensive cut of meat, such as a juicy steak, in a multi-cooker?

Ordinarily we’d say don’t do it, as steaks need to be watched constantly, which isn’t possible when you’re using an Instant Pot. However, the recently-launched Ninja Foodi Max 15-in-1 SmartLid Multi-Cooker includes a thermometer that works alongside dedicated programs to cook meat exactly how you’d like it. So does this mean you can cook a juicy steak perfectly with very little fuss?  

Want to get your hands on a Ninja Foodi or Instant Pot even without finding out how well this model cooked steak? Then check out the best deals we've found on the web right now. 

Seriously simple

Whether you prefer a medium rare steak or a beautifully blush lamb chop, it can be tricky to judge when your meat is cooked to perfection. We’ve all heard pressing the meat and comparing the firmness to various parts of your hand can be a simple way to tell whether it's ready. But I for one, have never found these methods reliable and always end up cutting into the meat to see how pink it is inside - which ruins the presentation of the food.

However, the Ninja Foodi Max 15-in-1 SmartLid Multi-Cooker, which is known as the Ninja Foodi 14-in-1 8-qt. Smart XL Pressure Cooker Steam Fryer with SmartLid in the US, comes with a meat thermometer, which will indicate the internal temperature of the meat, so you know exactly when it's cooked to your liking. 

The meat probe sits neatly in its own little compartment on the side of the Ninja Foodi, so all we had to do was plug one end into the lid and the other end into the steak. Although rather than inserting the probe into the top, the manual advised I push the probe through the side of the steak rather than the top and also to ensure that the tip is in the middle of the steak, or the middle of the thickest part, to get an accurate reading.

As suggested in the manual, I brushed the steak with oil and popped it in the air fry basket before selecting the air fry function. Next it was just a case of choosing how I wanted it cooked - there are nine options to choose from ranging from rare to well done. 

I selected medium rare, closed the lid and let the Ninja take care of the rest. It was a relief to know that I didn’t have to watch it, poke it, or cut into it. All I had to do was wait for the beep that would tell us it was cooked, it really doesn’t get much easier. Plus, it meant I could concentrate on perfecting the side dishes while the steak was cooking.

So, was the steak cooked to perfection? 

The steak took eight minutes, after which I removed it and allowed it to rest, covered a plate for four minutes as recommended in the instruction manual. When I sliced it in half, I was delighted to discover that the steak was indeed medium rare – I got exactly what I ordered. 

I was even more pleased to discover that the strip of fat running down one side had rendered well, creating a crisp and juicy texture that is usually tricky to achieve in a pan. I often spend ages holding the steak on its side with tongs so that the fat is pressed into the pan, otherwise it just doesn’t cook properly.

During cooking, the Ninja doesn’t determine the cook time based on preset timings. Instead, it uses the probe to monitor the temperature in the center of the meat. It figures out how well-cooked your meat is based on this temperature reading. One of the biggest drawbacks with this method of cooking is that you don’t know exactly when the meat will be finished cooking, so it can be tricky to work out the timings for the rest of the meal. Although I think after you’ve used it a few times for your favorites, you’ll get a pretty good idea how long they take.

If you’re cooking more than one steak and you want them cooked to different levels, the Ninja instructions say to put all the steaks in and set up cooking for the least well done. Once this steak is cooked you have to remove it and transfer the probe to the next steak, resetting the program to how you want this steak cooked. 

This probably won’t be the best cooking method to use if one of you wants a rare steak and the other wants theirs well done. Because the rare steak will be cooked far quicker than the well done one. It’s also worth avoiding cuts of meat that are an uneven thickness, otherwise you’ll have perfect results in the thickest part, but the rest is likely to be more cooked than you’d like.

As I’ve mentioned above, there are a few drawbacks, and this won’t be the right choice for everyone. But I was really pleased with my steak, and I definitely think this new Ninja makes it easy to get your meat cooked right, so for a lot of people it’ll take the stress out of cooking and give you the perfect results every time.

I can’t wait to try it for lamb chops, these usually spit fat all over my stove, so the idea of containing that mess inside the Ninja sounds dreamy. I’m also intrigued to try a small roast beef, this is another expensive cut of meat that can be tricky to get right and I suspect my Ninja might be the answer.

• Check out these great Instant Pot deals you can buy right now

One-minute review

Ninja is a brand that prides itself in its ability to continually innovate and come up with solutions to some of your biggest kitchen frustrations. It’s already a go-to brand for some of the best Instant Pot alternatives, but its new range of SmartLid multi-cookers has taken the already versatile kitchen appliance to the next level.

The Ninja Foodi 11-in-1 SmartLid Multi-Cooker is known as the Ninja Foodi 14-in-1 6.5 quart Pressure Cooker Steam Fryer with SmartLid in the US. The two models are very similar, but the US model has additional proof and sous vide functions and comes with a cook and crisp plate instead of a basket.

The slider on the lid has three positions, each one unlocking different functions, so it’s always correctly sealed for the cooking function you’re using, it couldn’t be simpler. And not content with the innovative new lid, Ninja has also introduced new combination steam functions that mean you can steam and crisp at the same time for the juiciest results.

This model is the smallest in the range, but at 6 litre / 6.5 quart it’ll still be big enough for four-person households. And while it’s still an expensive multi-cooker, it’s cheaper than the most premium model in this range, but it does lack the meat probe and the automatic steam release as well as some of the cooking functions that you get with the top-of-the-range model in the Ninja SmartLid multi-cooker line-up. 

It’s a great multi-cooker that produced excellent results during testing, it’s very easy to use and really would suit most people looking for a multi-cooker that can also air fry and bake, but if you’re on a budget there are less expensive options so long as you’re happy to switch lids.

Ninja Foodi 11-in-1 SmartLid Multi-Cooker price and availability

•  List price: £229.99 / $279.99 

As we mentioned above the Ninja Foodi 11-in-1 SmartLid Multi-Cooker is known as the Ninja Foodi 14-in-1 6.5 quart Pressure Cooker Steam Fryer with SmartLid in the US, and it’ll set you back £229.99 / $279.99. It’s available from the Ninja Kitchen website in both the US and the UK. 

This is the smallest and least expensive of the innovative SmartLid range of multi-cookers from Ninja. However, it is still an expensive option. The Ninja Foodi Max 15-in-1 SmartLid Multi-Cooker, which is known as the Ninja Foodi 14-in-1 8-qt. Smart XL Pressure Cooker Steam Fryer with SmartLid in the US, is the most expensive model in the line-up at £299.99 / $349.99. 

Design

• One lid for all functions
• Simple interface
• Large footprint

It might be the smallest multi-cooker in the range but the Ninja Foodi 11-in-1 SmartLid Multi-Cooker isn’t exactly petite. It measures 33 x 35 x 36cm  /13.07 x 14.21 x 15.39 inches (h x w x d) and at 10.9kg / 24 lb it’s not light either, so you won’t want to move it in and out of a cupboard every day.

This SmartLid range from Ninja utilizes a slider on the lid with three positions, and it allows you to select cooking functions based on the position of the slider. This ensures the lid is always correctly locked or unlocked for the function you’re using.

The UK model has 11 cooking functions: pressure, steam air fry, steam bake, air fry, grill, bake, dehydrate, sear/ sauté, steam, slow cook and yogurt. The US model has all of the same cooking functions plus proof and sous vide.

The removable cooking pot has a non-stick coating to make it easy to clean but it’s also dishwasher safe. The other accessories are also dishwasher safe and include a reversible rack and a Cook & Crisp basket in the UK or Cook & Crisp plate in the US.

We found the menus and settings very intuitive to use. It doesn’t have preset programs for different foods or meals, but instead comes with a recipe booklet that includes cooking charts detailing how best to cook all of your favorite foods.

Performance

• New combi steam functions
• Crisps well
• Easy to clean

We used several different cooking methods and made some delicious meals with this easy-to-use appliance.

We started off by making chunky fries using the air fry function. One of the great things about this multi-cooker is that it comes with lots of cooking charts giving advice on times and settings, so we followed the suggestion for chunky fries and set it for 22 minutes. During cooking, we turned and stirred the fries three times to help with browning. At the end of the 22 minutes, we added an additional three minutes to increase the browning to our liking which gave us deliciously crisp fries with fluffy centers.

To steam broccoli, we again followed the advice in the cooking chart, adding water to the pot and putting our broccoli florets on the reversible rack. The rack is fine for chunky veg but won’t work for smaller pieces as they’ll fall through. We set it to steam for six minutes, there was a seven-minute preheat but after the 13 minute total cook time, the broccoli was perfectly cooked and al dente. During cooking, steam vents out of the back of the appliance so it’s best to be near a cooker hood or window, if you place it under a shelf or wall cupboard you’ll get condensation collecting from all the steam.

Cooking brown basmati rice to the perfect texture was easy. The cooking chart didn’t let us down, giving the perfect time for pressure-cooked rice, but you may need to experiment if you want to make more or less than the suggested quantity. Setting it to pressure cook on high was easy, it preheated for seven and a half minutes, then cooked for a further seven minutes. The chart suggests a delayed pressure release so we left it for 10 minutes before flicking the valve into the vent position which quickly released any remaining steam. The 25 minute cook time is only slightly longer than cooking it on the stove, but the results were perfect and it’s nice not to have to watch over it.

We utilised the pressure cooker again to make a Thai red curry, browning chicken legs first using the sauté function. The base of the pot isn’t flat, and we noticed that all of the oil settles around the outer edges, meaning we had to place the chicken at the edges to ensure it was fried in the oil. This was probably the biggest downside while using this appliance. That said, the chicken browned well and it’s not too much of a problem if you keep moving and stirring your ingredients. 

Once the rest of the curry ingredients were in the pot, we set it to pressure cook on high for 20 minutes. The preheat was nine minutes and at the end of cooking, we flicked the pressure release valve to the vent position which took three and half minutes and registered 77dB on our decibel meter, which is equivalent to the sound a car traveling at 65mph makes. 

The pressure release is easy but does involve putting your hands near the area where the steam is released, you can make this safer by using tongs to move the valve. The chicken was beautifully cooked and fell off the bone at the end of cooking.

To make a slow-cooked chili we used the sauté function again to brown the beef and vegetables before setting it to slow cook on high for six hours. The chili thickened up significantly during cooking, giving us a rich and tasty dinner for very little effort.

Finally, we had a go with the new steam air fry function which claims to crisp foods as well as steam to keep them moist and succulent. Following the suggestions in the cooking chart, we added water to the pot and placed two skin-on chicken breasts onto the rack. The steam preheat took six minutes and then it started counting down our 20 minute cook time. 

Like when using the steam only function it emits lots of steam from the vent at the back and the noise level is similar to air frying. The sides of the lid reached 45 C  /113 F, which is the hottest temperature we recorded on the exterior of this appliance during any of our tests, for the most part it stays cool enough to touch. At the end of cooking the chicken was moist and succulent on the inside but with very crisp golden skin on top, an excellent result.

Should I buy the Ninja Foodi 11-in-1 SmartLid Multi-Cooker?

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One-minute review

Ninja offers some of the best Instant Pot alternatives on the market, and despite having only launched its first multicooker with air frying capabilities in 2018, Ninja has continued to innovate and now come up with a whole new design that’s more convenient than ever.

The Ninja Foodi Max 15-in-1 SmartLid Multi-Cooker is known as the Ninja Foodi 14-in-1 8-qt. Smart XL Pressure Cooker Steam Fryer with SmartLid in the US and, to confuse matters more, it's called the Ninja Foodi Smartlid 14-in-1 7.5L Multi Cooker in Australia. All three versions differ slightly in terms of the functions on offer but for the most part, they’re the same.

One of the biggest new features that stands out is the SmartLid, which comes with a built-in thermometer so you can monitor the temperature of meats and fish and adjust it to automatically produce anything from rare to well-done results.

The UK model has 15 functions while the US and Australian models have 14, with all three offering the typical culinary options such as pressure cook, slow cook, and steam as well as air fry and bake. However, for the first time, there’s also an option to combine steam and browning for crisp foods that stay juicy on the inside. 

With all these features, this new Ninja multi-cooker offers far more than even the most premium model available from Instant Pot. It’s a top-performing multi-cooker that excelled in our tests. The large capacity makes it perfect for bigger households, but everyone should be able to cook up a storm in this innovative appliance.

Ninja Foodi Max 15-in-1 SmartLid Multi-Cooker price and availability

•   List price: £299.99 / $349.99 / AU$549

The Ninja Foodi Max SmartLid Multi-Cooker retails for $349.99 / £299.99 / AU$549. It’s available from the Ninja Kitchen website in the US, the UK and Australia. 

It’s the most expensive multicooker we’ve reviewed to date but it’s also the most advanced and innovative model, not only from Ninja but across the board. It’s worth noting that there are a couple of smaller models in this range that are less expensive, check out our review of the Ninja Foodi 11-in-1 SmartLid Multi-Cooker (known as the Ninja Foodi 14-in-1 6.5qt. Pressure Cooker Steam Fryer with SmartLid in the US) which lacks some of the features seen in this model but still has some and is less expensive.

Design

• Automatic steam release
• Built-in temperature probe
• Dishwasher safe accessories

There are plenty of things to love about the Ninja Foodi Max 15-in-1 SmartLid Multi-Cooker but the size and weight isn’t one of them. It measures 36 x 35 x 36cm / 14.25 x 14.21 x 15.39 inches (h x w x d) although this chunky size can be forgiven somewhat due to the large cooking capacity. The 7.5 litre / 8-quart cooking pot allows plenty of space for large recipes and batch cooking. At 11.7kg / 25.8 lb you won’t want to move it too regularly, so it’s best if you can find a permanent space for it on the countertop.

In addition to the main cooking pot, it comes with a two-tier reversible cooking rack and a crisping basket, all of which are dishwasher safe. The cooking pot is non-stick which makes it easy to clean even if you don’t have a dishwasher. There’s a digital cooking probe stored in a little compartment on the side, ready to be put to use when needed. Once the probe is plugged into the lid you can choose either the beef, pork, lamb, fish, or chicken preset and then also choose from nine levels of cooking which range from rare up to well done, allowing the cooker to create the perfect results for you. But if you prefer a more hands-on approach, there’s a manual setting that allows you to choose your target temperature.

It’s super easy to use thanks to three automatic steam release settings when pressure cooking. This makes the steam release process completely hands-free which is a dream if you’re nervous about this part of pressure cooking or just don’t want to have to think about it.

The lid has a slider to switch between the pressure function, combi-steam, and air fry/ hob plus all other functions. It doesn’t allow you to select a function unless the slider is in the correct position. This ensures the lid is correctly sealed for each cooking method.

The UK model has 15 different cooking functions, which are: pressure, air fry, grill, bake, dehydrate, prove, sear/ sauté, steam, slow cook, yogurt, steam meals, steam air fry, steam roast, steam bake, and steam bread as well as a keep-warm function. The US model doesn’t offer the steam meals, steam roast or steam bread functions, but does have a sous vide function instead. And the Aussie model misses out only on the steam roast option.

Aside from the probe presets mentioned above, there are no other presets for different meals and foods, but it does come with a recipe book that includes lots of cooking charts for common foods, providing a really useful starting point.

Performance

• Excellent fries
• Useful cooking charts
• Easy pressure cooking

This multicooker is easy to use and we found the cooking timetables that come in the box proved helpful and accurate.

First up we steamed some broccoli using the steam function and the reversible rack. We followed the instructions for the amount of water and set it to steam for eight minutes. The broccoli florets were big enough to fit on the rack, but smaller vegetables might fall through. It took seven minutes to preheat, so the total time was 15 minutes. The cooked broccoli was the perfect al dente texture. During cooking there is some noise from the fan and quite a lot of steam is ejected out of a vent at the back. So it’s worth thinking about where you place it, because if it’s under a shelf or cupboard, you might get condensation forming.

For pressure-cooked brown basmati rice, we followed the weight and time detailed in the cooking chart. The cook time was seven minutes with a nine-minute preheat and then an automatic delayed pressure release which took 10 minutes. So the total cook time was 26 minutes which is only a few minutes longer than it usually takes on the stove. The finished rice was perfectly cooked and with the automatic pressure release, it was very hands-off and far more convenient than watching it as it boils in a pot.

We made a slow-cooked beef chili which we cooked on the slow cooker setting for six hours on high, making use of the sauté function to brown the beef and vegetables before slow cooking. The only frustrating part was that the cooking pot isn’t completely flat, it’s higher in the middle so the oil naturally falls to the edges of the pot while sautéing, otherwise, it works well. The beef chili thickened much more in this multicooker than when we’ve made it in others and the result was a flavorsome meal with soft meat and a rich thick sauce. The finished temperature was 89ºC / 192ºF

Again, we used the recommendations in the cooking chart when making thick-cut fries using the air fry function. The fries were cooked to perfection with fluffy insides and crisp outsides in just 22 minutes at 200ºC / 390ºF. We cooked them in the air fry basket and stirred twice for more even results. 

To try out the meat thermometer, we air-fried a sirloin steak. Once the thermometer is in place, it’s just a matter of selecting your preference, in this case medium rare, and then the Ninja does the rest. It monitors the temperature in the center of the steak until it’s cooked to perfection. Our medium-rare steak cooked exactly as we hoped. The fat on the side had rendered well and had a deliciously crisp texture. If you struggle to cook the perfect steak, you’ll love this feature.

Before pressure cooking a Thai red curry, we browned chicken legs using the sauté function on the highest of the five heat settings. There’s no preheat time when sautéing, although it does take a few minutes to start sizzling. Once all the ingredients were in the pot, we set it to pressure cook on high for 20 minutes and selected auto quick pressure release. 

The preheat took 10 minutes and at the end, the automatic pressure release took a further four. So in just 34 minutes, we had a delicious Thai curry with moist tender chicken that was falling off the bone. The pressure release registered 81dB on our sound meter which was the loudest of all the cooking modes we tried. This is similar to a truck travelling down the road at 40mph, but as it’s only for a short time it didn’t really bother us.

Lastly, we had a go with one of the new innovative combi-steam functions, steam air fry. It steams food at the same time as browning it so that it doesn’t dry out. We placed two skin-on chicken breasts on the reversible rack, followed the cooking chart for times and amount of water in the pot, and set it going for 20 minutes. 

There was a six-and-a-half-minute preheat before it started counting down the 20 minutes on the timer, and as with steaming, a lot of steam is vented out of the back during cooking. But we were impressed with the finished chicken. The skin was super crisped while the meat underneath remained succulent and very moist and it was thoroughly cooked through. The metal part of the lid reached 55ºC / 131ºF during cooking which was the hottest temperature we measured on the outside of this multicooker during any of the tests. Most of the time the exterior was comfortable to touch regardless of the cooking function we were using.

Should I buy the Ninja Foodi Max 15-in-1 Smartlid Multi-Cooker?

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One-minute review

The first Instant Pot launched a decade ago, and since then the brand has become the go-to name when it comes to multi-cookers. Not only do these kitchen appliances offer a way to speed up cooking times, as well as offering a multitude of cooking methods, you’ll also find thousands of recipes and cooking tips available online, created by its community of followers to make these multi-cookers even more user friendly.

There’s a wide array of models vying for the crown of the best Instant Pot, the latest being the Instant Pot Duo Plus. It builds on the Instant Pot Duo Nova, with a quick steam release button and the EasySeal lid which automatically seals the pot for pressure cooking. You’ll also get a clearer screen and the addition of a sous-vide function. 

The Duo Plus is available in three different capacities: 3 quart/ 3 liter, 6 quart/ 5.7 liter, and 8 quart/ 8 liter, although the smallest version is only available in the US, making it suitable for most households no matter how many people you need to feed. It has 15 cooking programs, these are a mixture of preset programs for various food types and customizable cooking functions such as slow cook, sauté, sous vide, and pressure cook.

At $119.99/ £99.99 it's ever-so-slightly more expensive than the same capacity Duo Nova and is a good choice if you want the quick steam release button and EasySeal lid, but don’t want the array of preset founds on the pricier Instant Pot Duo Evo Plus or the Instant Pot Pro. This does mean you will need to experiment a bit more with cooking times, or head online and delve into the thousands of recipes from the Instant Pot community, but we think it’s still good value for money. 

Instant Pot Duo Plus price and availability

•  List price: $119.99/ £99.99 

The Instant Pot Duo Plus will set you back $119.99/ £99.99 for the 6 quart/5.7-liter capacity or $139.99/ £139.99 for the bigger 8 quart/8-liter version. The  3-quart  / 3-liter capacity is $99.95, but this model isn’t available in the UK. All sizes are available directly through Amazon in the US and UK. It’s not currently on sale in Australia. 

As we mentioned earlier, it’s the most affordable Instant Pot that features the quick steam release button and is an upgrade on the Instant Pot Duo Nova which is also available in Australia and costs $99.99/ £119.99/ AUS $269 

Design

• Dishwasher safe parts
• Easy steam venting
• Easy to customize time and temperature settings

We reviewed the 6 quart/ 5.7 liter capacity Instant Pot Duo Plus and the size and footprint is similar to the other Instant Pots of this size. It measures 12.9 x 12.2 x 13.4 inches/ 33.5 x 31 x 33cm and the US model weighs in at 11.5 pounds while the UK version weighs 5.6kg. Generally speaking, these appliances are designed to stay on your countertop, but this one isn’t too heavy to lift in and out of a cupboard if you prefer to hide it away. Plus, all the accessories including the power cord fit inside the pot, making it neater to store.

The cooking functions available include pressure cook, slow cook, sous vide, yogurt, and sauté. The other settings are smart pressure cook programs for cake, egg, soup/broth, rice, bean/grain, porridge/ oatmeal and a sterilize program. Every setting has customizable time and temperature or pressure options. There’s also a keep warm mode that can be switched on at the start of cooking, so if you’re not around when it ends, it’ll keep your food warm. Additionally, the delayed start gives you the option to delay the start of cooking so that your meal finishes right at dinner time – a useful function that means it can start cooking while you’re out at work.

As we’ve already mentioned, when the lid is on and locked into the closed position, the EasySeal design means the steam release valve automatically seals ready for pressure cooking, so the only time you’ll need to think about it, is if you’re using one of the non-pressure cooking functions that require it to be in the vent position. After pressure cooking, to release the steam it’s just an easy flick of a switch to go from sealed to venting, so you don’t have to put your hand close to the steam valve, a nice design that takes the stress out of releasing the pressure.

A tab on the lid slots into the handle so you don’t have to put the lid on the countertop if you don’t want to, which is a simple but handy little feature. In the box, you’ll also get a spare sealing ring and a steaming rack. All accessories including the lid can go in the dishwasher for super easy cleaning.

Performance

• Fuss-free pressure cooking
• Easy to clean
• Lid gets hot

Pressure-cooked rice was the first thing we prepared in this Instant Pot. We consulted the rice and grain cooking timetable on the Instant Pot website, and based on the quantity of brown rice, the suggested cook time was 20-22 minutes with a rice to water ratio of 1:1. Since the Duo Plus has a Rice preset, we used this and just bumped up the time to 22 minutes. 

It took just under seven minutes to preheat, and the instruction manual recommended a 10 minute natural pressure release, so the total cook time was 39 minutes. The end result was nicely cooked rice, not too sticky and while the cook time is longer than on the stove, the convenience comes from not having to watch over it.

A Thai red curry was our next recipe, we used the sauté function to brown the chicken legs, which keeps all the flavor in the pot and saves washing extra dishes. There are three sauté temperatures to choose from and it took five minutes to preheat to the highest temperature. Once we’d added the rest of the ingredients, we set it to pressure cook on high for 20 minutes. The preheat took ten and a half minutes and at the end, we flicked the switch to depressurize the pot, this took just two and a half minutes. 

The chicken was pleasingly tender and succulent, falling off the bone and at 210oF/ 99oC, was certainly cooked through. In just 33 minutes the curry was perfectly cooked and flavorsome.

Steam release is the noisiest part of using the Instant Pot but at 72dB it’s the equivalent sound level of a dishwasher mid-cycle, which is acceptable. During cooking, the sides of the pot stayed at a comfortable 99 F/ 37 C and the handles stayed cool too, but the metal part of the lid reached 185oF/ 85oC, so care must be taken not to touch this area.

We used the sauté function again, this time to brown ground beef for a slow cooked chili. The stainless-steel pot isn’t non-stick so some of the beef did stick to it, but as soon as we added stock in preparation for slow cooking, the stuck meat came away from the pot with ease. The chili bubbled away for six hours on the high slow cooker setting and the finished dish had the perfect texture as well as a deliciously deep flavor – the kind you only get from a long slow cook. The temperature of the cooked chili was 185 F/ 85 C.

This Instant Pot lacks the steam setting that many other Instant Pots have, so to cook broccoli, pressure cooking was the only option. The Instant Pot website has a cooking timetable for vegetables which advises adding one cup / 237 ml of water to the pot and putting the vegetables in a steel bowl on the steam rack. 

We set it to pressure cook on low for the advised one minute. The preheat took six minutes and the quick steam release took just 45 seconds. The broccoli on the top was nicely cooked and al dente, but the florets underneath were undercooked. So while increasing the time slightly would help, you might get more even results if you purchased a steamer basket separately.

Should I buy the Instant Pot Duo Plus?

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First reviewed: October 2021

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Instant Pots are extremely popular kitchen appliances that allow you to cook some of your family favorites like stews, casseroles, and tender ribs. They offer a multitude of cooking methods and can speed up cooking times, too.

So it's no surprise, you’ll find one of the best Instant Pots in more than a quarter of US homes, according to research by Kerry, a food science and nutrition firm. A versatile addition to your kitchen, an Instant Pot allows you to pressure cook, slow cook, steam and sauté. Some models can be used to make yogurt, sous vide, and even replace one of the best air fryers, so there are plenty of reasons why this simple cooking appliance can earn a valued spot on your kitchen countertop. 

One of the biggest draws of an Instant Pot is the pressure cook function, which speeds up cooking times and, in many cases, ensures you’ll have tender meat that falls off the bone in under 30 minutes. But you may be wondering, does this intense pressurized cooking use more, or less electricity than you’d use making meals in your oven? We put it to the test to find out. 

Fancy grabbing yourself an Instant Pot now rather than finding out how much electricity they use? We've rounded up the best prices on the web. 

Under pressure

First off, we must admit that this isn’t an easy calculation. Not all ovens are the same, some are more efficient than others and that’s before you take into account the cavity size and how well insulated the oven is. Even if we could hook up an electricity meter to a household oven, they vary so much that it wouldn’t be representative of all ovens.

So we’ve made a few assumptions in order to figure out the best way to compare Instant Pots to ovens.The average size single built-in wall oven in the UK with an A energy rating uses around 0.8Kwh of electricity per hour when used at around 356 F / 180 C. Keep in mind that UK ovens are typically smaller than US ovens, they usually have a capacity of around 2.5 cubic feet / 70 liters, whereas US ovens in a standard 30 inch range have an average capacity of 5 cubic feet/ 140 liters which means they will use more energy.

So, to figure out how much energy an Instant Pot uses, we hooked up the Instant Pot Pro Crisp - the brand’s top-of-the-range model - to an energy meter and got cooking. First, we prepared two racks of baby back ribs in the Instant Pot on high for 25 minutes. The pressure cooker took seven minutes to preheat so the total cook time was actually 32 minutes. It used 0.26Kwh of electricity and gave us beautifully succulent and tender ribs falling off the bone. 

The same ribs cooked in the oven on low take around three hours. As the oven was at  230 F / 110 C we halved the 0.8Kwh figure for electricity consumption. This gives us a total of 1.2Kwh estimated electricity use if cooked in the oven for three hours. By our calculations, cooking the ribs in the oven on low uses around four and a half times the amount of electricity than pressure cooking them in the Instant Pot. 

We admit that after pressure cooking you might want to grill/ broil the ribs for a short time smothered in BBQ sauce to create the perfect result – but adding that would just complicate the calculations and the ribs are perfectly delicious without this step, you can coat them in sauce and eat immediately.

What about slow cooking?

Alongside pressure cooking, slow cooking is another of the Instant Pot’s multitude of cooking methods, but is using an Instant Pot for this method of cooking more energy-efficient too? We whipped up a beef chili in both appliances to find out. 

The chili was bubbling away on the high setting in the Instant Pot for six hours and used just 0.31kwh of electricity. However, cooking the chili in the oven at a low temperature for six hours would use a total of 2.4Kwh, as we once again halved the average usage of 0.8kwh to reflect the oven was used at just 230 F / 110 C. 

Based on our crude calculations, an oven would use a staggering eight times more electricity than an Instant Pot to slow cook a chili for six hours. We suspected the Instant Pot would win in this competition, but this difference is mind-blowing. And if you have a bigger or less efficient oven, this difference will grow significantly, meaning the Instant Pot could potentially save you even more money.

We’ve been quite conservative in our estimates of how much electricity an oven would use, it’s highly likely that most ovens would use far more electricity than the figures stated above. But despite us giving best case scenario figures for the amount of power used by an oven, the Instant Pot is still the clear winner, by miles. 

Just how much money you’re likely to save on your electricity bill will depend on your tariff, but there’s no denying that if you switched some of your oven-cooked meals to an Instant Pot, you would save money - it’s a very efficient little countertop cooking appliance. 

But watch out for the automatic keep warm function, if this kicks in after cooking and you leave it for several hours, the energy consumption will obviously increase. Having said that, it would have to be in keep warm mode for a very long time, to get anywhere near the amount of energy used by an oven just to cook the meal in the first place.

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One-minute review

Since its launch in 2010 Instant Pot has developed a cult following of loyal multi-cooker fans who swear by the benefits of this one-pot multi-function cooking appliance. And with several versions now available, it is sometimes difficult to tell what distinguishes one Instant Pot from another. 

The Instant Pot Pro Crisp is the brand’s top-of-the-range model, and is one of only two designs that come with an air fryer lid. This means you can air fry, bake broil (grill) and roast as well as all the usual multi-cooker functions like pressure cook, slow cook, steam and sauté, and makes it a contender for our best Instant Pot list.

The most expensive Instant Pot currently available, it's a slight upgrade on the Instant Pot Duo Crisp. They both have the same eleven cooking functions, same 8 quart/ 8-liter capacity, and the same accessories included in the box. However, the Instant Pot Pro Crisp comes with silicone handles on the cooking pot for easy lifting, and has a number of features to make releasing the steam and pressure much simpler. 

The Pro Crisp also has a bigger LED display screen that features a cooking progress bar, plus there’s a dial for easier time and temperature customization. The air fry function means there are two separate lids to store, so it’s bulkier than a standard multi-cooker, but it benefits from several extra cooking functions and you’ll save storage space by not having a stand-alone air fryer. 

In terms of performance, like all Instant Pots, it’s easy to create delicious meals in this appliance and the large capacity means it’s ideal for larger households. The lack of a recipe book and cooking charts means you’ll have to head to the app or online for recipe inspiration. But with an army of loyal fans, there’s no shortage of cooking suggestions online.

Instant Pot Pro Crisp price and availability

•  List price: $249.99/ £249.99 

The Instant Pot Pro Crisp will set you back $249.99/ £249.99 and is available directly through the Instant Home website in the US or Instant Brands in the UK. It’s not currently on sale in Australia. 

It’s one of only two Instant Pot multi-cookers that are available with air fry lids and as detailed above it features some upgrades that make it more expensive than the otherwise similar Instant Pot Duo Crisp, which is also available in Australia and costs $199.99/ £179.99/ AU$299.99.

Design

• Large 8 quart/ 8 liter capacity
• Stainless steel cooking pot with silicone handles
• Easy steam release switch

With its black finish and larger LED display screen the Instant Pot Pro Crisp certainly looks more premium than the more affordable Instant Pot Duo Crisp. While the large 8 quart/ 8 liter capacity is great for feeding a crowd, it does impact the overall size. This chunky multi-cooker measures in at 14.17 x 14.24 x 14.78 inches/ 36 x 36.2 x 37.5cm (h x w x d) and with the air fryer lid on it’s even taller. It weighs 26.2 lbs./ 11.88 kg so it’s a bit cumbersome to lift in and out of a cupboard and is designed to stay on the countertop.

As we’ve already mentioned, it comes with a standard multi-cooker lid for pressure cook, slow cook, sauté, sous vide, and steam. This lid automatically seals for pressure cooking when you lock it into position and there’s a simple switch on top to vent the steam. For bake, broil/ grill, roast, dehydrate, and air fry you have to switch to the air fryer lid which contains a heating element and turns the multi-cooker into a mini oven.

Each cooking mode has customizable time and temperature settings with the option to engage a keep warm function at the end of cooking, which will keep food warm for up to ten hours. Additionally, there’s a delay start timer so that you can throw all your ingredients into the pot and set it to start cooking at a specified time, so that your meal is ready when you get home.

In the box, you get an air fryer basket, a multi-functional rack, grill/ dehydrating tray, and protective pad/ storage cover. Everything excluding the base of the multi-cooker and the air fryer lid is dishwasher safe for easy cleaning.

Performance

• Easy to use
• Fast steam release
• Sides stay cool to touch

To test out how well the Instant Pot Pro Crisp can cook a variety of dishes, we started with a slow-cooked beef chili. The sauté function allows you to brown meat and onions in the pot before slow cooking and keeping everything in the same pot means there’s minimal mess and clean up. 

It took just over four and a half minutes to preheat to the correct temperature to sauté and while the meat browned nicely, the stainless-steel cooking pot isn’t non-stick so there was some sticking. Thankfully this didn’t matter as any stuck residue was released from the pot during the six-hour slow cook. The end result was a flavorsome meaty chili with a temperature of 167 F/ 75 C.

It took us several attempts to figure out the best way to steam broccoli, the instruction manual states that the steam release switch should be set to vent when using the steam program. During our first two attempts, it didn’t get further than the preheat stage before it had completely boiled dry and we had to abandon the test.

Finally, we set the steam release to ‘seal’ - programmed it for one minute and after preheating for just over four minutes, it completed the one-minute cook and we then flicked the switch to vent which took just 30 seconds. The broccoli was a little too al dente and so we would cook it for longer next time, but it had finally worked and we figured out that the steam release needs to be set to ‘seal’ for this program. 

It’s also worth noting that the multi-functional rack provided with the Instant Pot isn’t suitable for steaming vegetables, so we had to put the broccoli in a metal tray on top of the rack, but this worked fine.

We didn’t have any issues when pressure cooking a Thai red curry, after browning chicken legs using the sauté function it took just 20 minutes on high pressure to make a delicious curry with succulent meat that was falling off the bone. The pressure cook function took six and a half minutes to pre-heat and just two minutes to release the pressure at the end of cooking. 

The pressure release is the noisiest part of the process coming in at 77dB, which is equivalent to a toilet flushing, and one of the noisier Instant Pots we’ve tested. The lid reached 140 F/ 60 C during cooking, but the sides and handles all stay cool enough to touch.

To get some advice on cook time and rice to water ratios we headed to the Instant pot website where we found a useful cooking chart for rice. It advises a 1:1 ratio of rice to water for brown rice and past experience tells us that this is 1:1 by volume not weight. We set the pressure cooker to 22 minutes and after a four and a half minute preheat and one minute quick pressure release, the total cook time was 27.5 minutes. The rice was nicely cooked but a little sticker than we would prefer. There was also some sticking to the base of the pot, although after a short soak it wasn’t tricky to clean off.

We tried out the air fryer by making chunky fries, we added 1 tbsp oil to 17 oz/ 500g raw potato cut into fries and put them into the air fry basket. 24 minutes later (22 minute cook time plus 2 minutes to preheat) we had lightly crisped and golden fries. The Instant pot prompts you to give them a shake halfway through the cooking time. The fries were nicely cooked and much faster than oven cooking.

Should I buy the Instant Pot Pro Crisp?

Buy it if...

Don't buy it if...

First reviewed: October 2021

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Home cooking can sometimes feel like a chore, but whether it's to save money or improve your health and wellbeing, there are dozens of reasons to make your own meals from scratch on a regular basis. 

One of the best Instant Pots can ensure that preparing meals yourself is easier and less time-consuming. However, there's a wide array of Instant Pot models to choose from, and knowing which Instant Pot to buy can be a bit daunting. 

Some offer as many as 48 presets ensuring can be used for a wide array of cooking methods. However, they will all pressure cook, steam, slow cook, and sauté. Pressure cooking can sound scary, but in actual fact, the Instant Pot makes it completely hands-free. 

You simply turn off the vent to allow the chamber to pressurize, and your meat will cook in record time. It's ideal whether you left it a bit late to defrost the chicken and have it cooked in time for dinner, or you love a slow-cooked brisket but don't want to leave your oven on for hours while it cooks.

While it's not a feature you'll find in all Instant Pots, higher-end models come with a lid to convert them into a convection cooker comparable with the best air fryers. This will mimic the flavor and texture of deep-fried food, but with a lot less fat and mess to clean away afterward. 

Deciding on which Instant Pot is for you will depend on what you’re looking for. Consider the cooking methods you'll use regularly, and those you are unlikely to make use of, as well as the number of portions you want to cook at a time. 

For many people, keeping a budget in mind will also help but also take note of how big each Instant Pot is and how much space it will take up in your home. 

Which Instant Pot should I buy for modern features? 

The Instant Pot Pro is our top choice because it's packed with smart features to make your life easier. This includes the ability to assign five favorites as presets so you can quickly start cooking your preferred meals, and a total of 28 cooking modes. While you will still get full use of all modes, these saved presets will allow you to shortcut to any modes you use on a regular basis such as as pasta, or even sterilize. 

It calls itself a ten-in-one multi-cooker, and claims to take the place of a pressure cooker, slow cooker, sous vide, rice/ grain cooker, food warmer, cake baker, sauté pan, sterilizer, yogurt maker, and steamer. 

While it's not the cheapest Instant Pot available, it is immensely versatile. As well as all of the presets, you can adjust the temperature and cooking time for any recipe. We're keen on the sleek black exterior and the updated lid, which will increase pre-heating by 20% when compared to other Instant Pots. 

Which Instant Pot is the best for beginners? 

Instant Pot first-timers may want to keep it simple at first, with clear and easy-to-use presets front and center. We recommend the Instant Pot Duo Evo Plus for beginners. It's got an amped-up design to make steam release even safer, which is ideal for those who are intimidated by the thought of pressure cooking. The new plastic cover will prevent any splatters of steam from leaving the lid, and it also makes the process less noisy. 

Even for beginners, you'll want an Instant Pot that will allow you to experiment once you get to grips with it. The Duo Evo Plus is great for this. It has the classic settings such as Slow Cook, Sous Vide, and Pressure Cook available with buttons that line the display, so you won't have to get involved with the more specific presets for rice, stews, and even cheesecakes until you're comfortable. 

The Duo Evo Plus has 48 settings in total, and the digital display will keep you up-to-date with how your recipe is coming along. If you do want to get more experimental, there's also the Instant Pot app, although we did miss the inclusion of a recipe book when we tried it hands-on. 

Which Instant Pot should I buy on a budget? 

If you do want a more budget-friendly model, the Instant Pot Duo V2 7-in-1 electric pressure cooker is usually the best bet. It's got 14 cooking modes, which will be a little less complicated for Instant Pot beginners, and it's also a little lighter, which makes it perfect for lifting in and out of storage. 

There is no backlit display or touchscreen controls with this Instant Pot. It has buttons either side of the display for soup, beans, poultry, meat, rice, multigrain, porridge, and steam. The other programs include slow cook, pressure cook, yoghurt, and sauté. 

You can choose between a range of capacities when shopping: either three quarts, six quarts, or eight quarts. The price will go up with the size, but when we tested the six-quart model, it was the perfect size for batch-cooking. 

It's a cheaper model, but the Duo V2 7-in-1 will still let you master the art of one-pot cooking. You can sauté your onions and then add in meat and vegetables to pressure cook, locking in flavor in a short time. 

Which Instant Pot should I buy for air frying? 

The new generation of Instant Pots come with a second lid for air frying. This takes up some extra space, but will transform the way you use your air fryer. We love it for pressure cooking whole chickens and then switching them onto air fry, resulting in crispy skin and tender meat. 

For an Instant Pot that can also air fry, the Instant Pot Duo Crisp and Air Fryer is a great option. The air fry lid can also be used to bake and roast, meaning you could also use it to get a crispy top on a mac and cheese. 

The Instant Pot Duo Crisp and Air Fryer has a digital display, but it is more basic than other Instant Pots such as the Duo Evo Plus. Time and temperature can be adjusted with buttons either side of the display, and underneath, you will find modes to air fry, dehydrate, sauté, steam and more. The modes that need the air fry lid are grouped in one line to make it easy to pick the right lid for your preferred mode. 

Which Instant Pot alternative should I buy? 

If you're not dedicated to the idea of an Instant Pot, the Ninja Foodi Max 9-in-1 Multi-Cooker is a great alternative. While Instant Pots have become synonymous with multi-cooking, the Ninja Foodi multi-cooker is just as mighty. It will also be easier for some to use, too, with a less fussy display and very clear controls.

You can pressure cook, air fry, slow cook, grill, steam, sear, sauté, bake, and roast in the Foodi Max. It has an air fryer lid built onto the machine, so you need to lift it out of the way on the side hinge to use the pressure cooker. If you think you'll get more use out of the air fryer lid than the pressure cooker lid, you will enjoy being able to tuck it away when not in use. 

However, if you plan on pressure cooking and slow cooking predominantly, having to leave the air fryer lid up on its hinge will be a nuisance. 

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One-minute review

Ever since the first Instant Pot launched in 2010, this multi-cooker brand has continued to be a firm favorite with a loyal following, and with a varied range of easy-to-use models to choose from it’s easy to see why.

On the face of it, the Instant Pot Duo Nova is very similar to the Instant Pot Duo, with the same selection of one-touch programs, but it benefits from a steam release valve that automatically closes when you close the lid, making it even easier to use and securing it a place on our list of the best Instant Pots.

Additionally, the quick steam release switch is separate from the steam valve, and ensures you can force the pressure to be released in a safer way. There's also a progress bar on the LCD display screen to indicate the cooking status but these are minimal differences and this is reflected in the similar price tags. 

The Instant Pot Duo Nova has 15 one touch preset programs covering off the main foods you’re likely to cook in the multi-cooker, as well as various manual settings for the different functions. But it has far fewer preset programs than you’ll see on some other Instant Pots such as the more expensive Instant Pot Duo Evo Plus, which has 48 customizable presets.

The main functions available are pressure cook, steam, slow cook, saute and keep warm and it also doubles as a rice cooker and yogurt maker, ensuring the Instant Pot Duo Nova can replace several other kitchen appliances making it versatile and good value for money. With different sizes available, this is a useful multi-cooker no matter what size your family or household.

We found the Instant Pot Duo Nova very easy to use and we created some delicious meals using the pressure cook and slow cook functions, but for steaming and rice cooking we needed to experiment a bit with times and settings to get the best results. 

Although there are cook times and plenty of recipes available online, they don’t always work the same for all the Instant Pot models. They’re a good starting point but you’ll need to be comfortable with a bit of trial and error in the first few weeks of using any Instant Pot.

Instant Pot Duo Nova price and availability

•  List price: $99.99/ £119.99/ AUS $269 

The Instant Pot Duo Nova will set you back $119.99/ £119.99/ AUS $299 and is available on Amazon in the US and the UK. In Australia, it can be purchased through Corelle Brands.

This is the price for the 8-quart / 7.6-liter version. It's also available in a 6-quart/ 5.7-liter capacity for $89.99 / £99.99 / AU$269, while in the US and Australia you can pick up a 3-quart / 2.8-liter version for $79.99 / AUS189 (around £58) 

Depending on which size you buy, the Instant Pot Duo Nova is one of the most affordable Instant Pot available, aside from the Instant Pot Duo, but it still has all the main functions we’ve come to expect from an Instant Pot.

Design

• 15 smart one touch programs
• Stainless steel inner pot
• Quick release steam button

With a familiar design, the Duo Nova is instantly recognizable as an Instant Pot and as we’ve said in previous reviews, multi-cookers are not the most attractive of the kitchen counter appliances. Having said that, the stainless-steel finish gives it a reassuringly robust look.

We reviewed the 8-quart/ 7.6-liter model which measures 14.5 x 13.5 x 14.8 inches/ 36.8 x 34.3 x 37.6cm (h x w x d) and is a similar size to other large capacity multi-cookers we’ve reviewed, but as we've already mentioned it’s also available as a 6-quart/ 5.7-liter option, and in the US and Australia, there’s a smaller 3-quart/ 3-liter version available if you have a small family or you’re short on space.

Multi-cookers do take up a good chunk of counter space but on the flip side, this Instant Pot will replace lots of other appliances and therefore take up much less space than if you had a separate slow cooker, rice cooker, steamer, yogurt maker, and pressure cooker.

It’s pretty simple to figure out the settings and get cooking shortly after removing it from the box and the preset programs are a good starting point for common foods and meals. There’s no recipe book or cooking charts included though, so you’ll have to head to the website or app for these. We found plenty of slow cook and pressure cook recipes but it can be tricky to find exact guidance for more simple tasks like steaming and cooking rice.

When pressure cooking, choose between low and high pressure and for all other programs there are three settings to choose from: less, normal or more - with a table in the instruction manual detailing what each setting is designed to achieve. It’s also simple enough to adjust cook times using the plus and minus buttons on the front so you can customize each setting to suit your requirements.

If you’re a fan of the ‘set it and forget it’ style of cooking, the handy keep warm function means your food won’t go cold if you do actually forget about it. The delay start button allows you to postpone cooking for up to 24 hours, but be sure not to leave anything perishable in the pot if you’re using this function. It comes with a steam rack, but this is only really useful for larger foods, smaller vegetables will fall straight through the rack into the water below which is frustrating.

Performance

• Large enough for 8 portion recipes
• Stainless steel exterior gets hot
• Steam release easy to use

We used the Instant Pot Duo Nova for several recipes to try out its performance across different functions. First up, slow cooked chili, the sauté function comes in handy here, allowing you to brown your meat and soften onions in the Instant Pot instead of having to use a separate pan or stove top. Despite the pot not having a non-stick coating there was no sticking during the sauté stage. We slow cooked our beef chili for six hours on the ‘more’ setting and the result was a delicious meaty chili with soft beef. The Instant Pot beeps to alert you that cooking has finished and the temperature of the chili at the end of cooking was 176 F/ 80 C. The chili wasn’t thickened to our liking but by switching back to saute it was easy to reduce it to the perfect consistency. During slow cooking the handles and sides all stayed cool, the lid reached 113 F/ 45 C which isn’t too warm to touch.

To cook brown basmati rice, the manual suggests the Multigrain preset, but we had to dig around on the website for some suggested rice to water ratios. In the end, we went with a 1:1 rice to water ratio but after cooking the rice was still a little al dente. The heat up process took 13 minutes and the cooking time was 20 minutes. After cooking we waited a further 10 minutes before using the quick-release pressure. The total time was 43 minutes from start to end which is a bit lengthy but as you’re not required to watch it like you would on the stove, it’s definitely more convenient. During the pressure release, our decibel meter registered 75db, which is equivalent to a toilet flushing, and one of the noisier Instant Pots we’ve tested.

The steam function uses pressure cooking to steam and again, we struggled to find a good recommendation for timings and plumped for four minutes with one cup of water in the bottom of the pot. The steam rack provided isn’t great for this purpose and some of the broccoli pieces fell through the gaps. Preheating took five minutes and after the four minute cook time we used the quick release pressure button so that we could get the broccoli out immediately. Some of the larger florets had a good texture but the smaller ones were overcooked.

For a speedy Thai red curry, the manual pressure cook function was our choice. As with the chili ,we used the saute function to brown chicken legs before adding all the other ingredients and pressure cooking on high for 20 minutes. Add to that the seven-and-a-half-minute heat up time and we were pleased with the fast cooking time which produced perfectly cooked chicken that fell off the bone with a temperature of 198 F/ 92 C. The pressure release was a slightly louder 79dB and while the sides of the pot and all the handles stayed cool, the metal part of the lid reached a high temperature of 187 F/ 86 C.

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First reviewed: September 2021

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One-minute review

Instant Pot is one of the leading manufacturers of multi-cookers, which isn’t surprising given it was the first brand to launch one of these versatile kitchen appliances more than a decade ago.  The brand’s popularity has soared over the past ten years, and in return Instant Pot has launched an array of models to suit a range of budgets. The popular

The Instant Pot Pro is one of its top-of-the-range models, and a contender for the title of best Instant Pot. This 10-in-1 multi-cooker serves as a replacement for several other appliances, saving you space and money. Aside from multi-cookers that come with air fry lids for additional functionality, such as the Instant Pot Duo Crisp and Air Fryer this is the most premium single lid model available from Instant Pot and as such it’s more expensive than other models in the range which include the more affordable Instant Pot Duo or Instant Pot Duo Nova.

It has ten cooking methods including pressure cooking, slow cooking,  sauté and sous vide, and 28 presets as well as the ability to manually adjust settings and save five favorite recipe settings.  Instant Pot also claims it's 20% faster when it comes to pre-heating. Although fans of preset cooking programs may prefer the Instant Pot Duo Evo Plus which is very similar but has 48 presets to choose from.

There are two sizes available: 6-quart/ 6-liter or 8-quart/ 8-liter. The Instant Pot Pro can be used to make lots of family favorites and is perfect for easy batch cooking without having to stand over a hot stove, making it ideal for busy families as well as experienced cooks who want to experiment with different functions like sous vide and yogurt.

Instant Pot Pro price and availability

•  List price: $129.99/ £149.99

The Instant Pot Pro will set you back  $129.99/ £149.99 for the 6-quart/ 5.7 liter model and is available through Instant’s website or Amazon in both the US and the UK. 

The Instant Pot Pro, which is also available in a larger 8-quart/ 8-liter size, which is priced at $149.95 /£199.99. The Instant Pot Pro is the most premium multi-cooker offered by Instant Pot, the next step up is multi-cookers that have an extra lid to provide the additional function of air frying and broiling.

Design

• Easy-grip silicone pot handles
• 28 preset cooking programs
• Simple steam release switch

The Instant Pot Pro has a sleek black finish that definitely gives it more of a premium appearance than the standard stainless-steel Instant Pots.  Measuring 12.8 x 12.7 x 13 inches/ 32.5 x 32.3 x 33cm (h x w x d), it’s a similar size to other 6-quart/ 6-liter multi-cookers, but it appears more compact and subtle due to the black finish.

The steam release switch on this model is one of the easiest and safest steam release methods we’ve seen on a multi-cooker and the steam valve has a cover to reduce splashes and noise. When the lid is closed, the steam valve is automatically sealed, perfect for pressure cooking, but you’ll have to remember to open it for some of the other functions.

The Instant Pot Pro offers ten different functions: pressure cooker, slow cooker, sous vide, sauté pan, sterilizer, yogurt maker, rice/ grain cooker, food warmer, cake baker, and steamer. Within most of these functions, there are additional preset programs for various foods, with a total of 28 presets.

Unlike other Instant Pots, the Instant Pot Pro has five favorite buttons that allow you to store your favorite settings for recipes you make regularly, giving you the convenience of the one-touch programs but for your own custom recipes.

There’s a keep warm function which is perfect if you’re not home when it finishes cooking and a delay start timer, so you can ensure your meal is ready when you get home from work. Although it’s worth noting you should avoid using the delay start if your recipe includes perishables like raw meat or fish. The countdown timer and cooking progress bar help you to keep track of your creation.

It comes with a steam rack and an extra sealing ring for the lid. There are no recipes or charts detailing cooking times, you have to find these online or on the app. The top of the lid has a QuickCool area, but to use this you’ll have to buy an additional accessory which you then fill with water and freeze. Instant Pot says it cools the pot quickly and makes natural steam release much faster.

Performance

• Sides and handles stay cool
• An alert reminds you when to vent the steam after cooking rice
• Simple to use and set

The Instant Pot Pro is a really versatile appliance but it’s unlikely you’ll use every function, so we tried out the most commonly used cooking functions. Our first task was to cook some brown basmati rice using the Brown Rice preset within the Rice/ Grain function. After a lot of searching on the Instant Pot website, we discovered a table detailing rice to water ratios that advised a 1:1 ratio. Once cooked though, the rice was a little too al dente so next time we’d add more water. The default cook time was 30 minutes and the preheat stage took five minutes, 20 seconds, then ten minutes after cooking has finished the Instant Pot Pro alerts you to vent the steam. This gives a total cook time of just over 45 minutes, which is lengthy, but it’s completely hands-off during that time so you’re free to put your feet up. 

To accompany our rice, we opted for a Thai Red Curry made in the pressure cooker. The saute function meant we could brown chicken legs in the pot which is great and means you don’t have to dirty any additional pans. We used the high pressure setting for 20 minutes, the lid automatically seals so it’s as easy as pressure cooking gets. The preheat took 10 minutes and at the end of cooking we simply had to flick the switch for quick pressure release which took just one and half minutes. This registered 72dB on our decibel meter, which is the equivalent of normal conversation in an office, and an acceptable level. The curry was nicely cooked with chicken falling off the bone and at 198 F/92 C it was thoroughly cooked through. At the end of cooking the only hot area on the exterior of the pot was the lid at 140 F/ 60 C.

A slow-cooked beef chili was our next meal, again we used the saute function to brown the beef and soften onions, the pot doesn’t have a non-stick coating but the meat didn’t stick to it. After adding the rest of the ingredients, we set the slow cooker on high for six hours. There’s no noise during cooking and the handles and exterior all stay cool. It beeps to alert you when cooking has finished, but you can switch the sound off if you prefer. Our chili was 176 F / 80 C when cooked, with a delicious soft meaty texture. And if you decide you want it thickened more, just switch on saute and let it reduce to your desired consistency. All the parts can go in the dishwasher so it’s really easy to clean.

Finally, we steamed broccoli using the steam function. The rack that comes with the Instant Pot Pro isn’t ideal for vegetables though and some of our broccoli fell through into the water below – we’d advise buying the steam accessory if you intend on doing lots of steaming. We added a cup of water into the pot and set it to two minutes, but there was an additional preheat time of four and a half minutes. The broccoli was still too hard at the end of cooking, so we’d try four minutes next time. The main difficulty is finding good information on cook times and how much water to add and we weren’t sure if the steam vent should be open or closed.

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First reviewed: September 2021

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Creating delicious meals from scratch every evening, and impressing your family and friends with your culinary delights is certainly rewarding, but spending hours on end slaving over a hot stove can become tedious, even for those of us that love cooking with a passion.

There are plenty of kitchen gadgets that can make life easier in the kitchen - not only speeding up cooking time, but also offering a multitude of cooking methods to ensure that you don’t serve up the same few dishes week in, week out. None more so than the best Instant Pots, because they're one of the most versatile kitchen appliances you can buy. 

These multi-cookers ensure you can create everything from slow-cooked stews, soups and chillies, to pressure-cooking meat on the bone and vegetables so they’re ready in half the usual time. 

While using your Instant Pot may be a simple task, cleaning it may leave you feeling,well daunted. With so many different components; from the internal pot to the lid, where do you start?  It's important to know how to clean your Instant Pot properly so it continues to perform as efficiently as possible. 

Read on to find out just how to clean your Instant Pot, or if you want to get your hands on one of the best Instant Pots right now, check out these great deals for some of the best prices on the market.  

How to clean an Instant Pot

Before you even pick up a cloth, make sure the Instant Pot has been unplugged from the electric socket and has cooled down completely. Now for the good news, if your multi-cooker is made by Instant Pot, no matter what model you have, the inner pot (also called the stainless steel cooking pot), along with the lid, the sealing ring, and the steam rack are all dishwasher safe, which makes cleaning them far easier. 

If you have a multi-cooker from a different brand, then not all components will be dishwasher-safe, so we’d advise you to check the manual first.

Step 1: Remove the cooking pot, lid, sealing ring, and steam rack from the Instant Pot and make sure they are placed on the top rack of the dishwasher, so water from the dishwasher’s spray arm can reach inside the bowl and curved lid, while also ensuring the plastic components such as the sealing ring don’t warp. Always use a gentle, or standard dishwashing cycle rather than a hotter, intensive wash. 

If any food remnants are burnt onto the inner pot, which can happen when it’s used for browning meat or vegetables before slow cooking, consider soaking the pot in warm water and dish soap, then using a pan scourer to gently it off. Alternatively, place the pot on the bottom rack of the dishwasher for a more thorough clean.

Step 2: Before placing the lid in the dishwasher, remove the sealing ring, as while this can go in the dishwasher too, detaching means both the ring and the lid will be thoroughly cleaned. Also remove the steam release valve, the float valve, and the anti-block shield (which covers the underside of the float valve). 

Step 3: Check there aren't any food remnants blocking either of the valves, as this will stop the Instant Pot from reaching the correct pressure for cooking, and hand wash the three components in warm, soapy water. 

Step 4: Dry the components with a dish cloth and make sure to keep them safe, so they can be re-attached when you’ve finished cleaning the lid. 

Step 5: Once the dishwasher cycle has finished, hold the lid vertically over a sink using the handle, and rotate the lid from side to side to ensure any water that has seeped into the lid can drain away. 

Step 6: The base isn’t waterproof, so wipe the exterior as well as the interior and the heating element. Also pay close attention to the rim, as flecks of food can built-up here - a straw brush is ideal for this, and can be picked up from Amazon for around $6 / £6 / AU$9. 

Step 7: Run a cloth along the power cord to remove any food debris that may have accidentally splashed onto it. 

Step 8: Finally, make sure you empty and rinse the condensation collection cup after every use. 

• Find out whether an Instant Pot is a pressure cooker
• Discover how to cook hard boiled eggs in an Instant Pot
• Here’s what happened when we made fries in an Instant Pot

How to clean a cloudy Instant Pot

Have you noticed cloudy stains on the stainless steel cooking pot? The good news is these stains, which sometimes appear blue in color but can also take on a rainbow hue, are common and easy to remove. 

The discoloration is caused by salt and other minerals in food and water used in the Instant Pot - in fact, they’ll appear on any stainless steel cookware, not just an Instant Pot. A non-abrasive stainless steel cleaner, such as Weiman, will remove the marks and revive the brightness on the inner pot. It can be picked up for around $6 / £11 / AU$28. 

Alternatively, if you don’t have any stainless steel cleaner to hand, try covering the bottom of the pot with white vinegar, and leave for five minutes before rinsing. 

How do I stop my Instant Pot smelling? 

Instant Pots are great for cooking chillies, curries, and stews, but these flavorful dishes often use potent herbs and spices, which can mean the cooking gadget retains odors. However, there are a few things you can do to ensure your Instant Pot doesn’t smell. 

After cleaning the lid, always place it upside down on top of the Instant Pot until it has dried completely. Don’t re-attach the sealing ring to the lid after it’s been cleaned either. Instead, store this in a well-ventilated area, and only replace it just before cooking. 

Finally, if your Instant Pot does retain an odor, use one cup / 250ml of water mixed with one cup / 250ml of white vinegar and add it to the Instant Pot. Then run the Pressure Cook setting for five to ten minutes, before releasing the pressure and emptying the content away. Rinse the inner pot and then dry and store as usual. 

•  Check out these great air fryer deals

One-minute review

Crock-Pot are known for their slow cookers, which they’ve been producing since the 1970’s, and in 2017 it launched its first multi-cooker in a bid to rival some of the best Instant Pots on the market. The Crock-Pot Express is an affordable multi-cooker that gives Instant Pot and rivals such as Breville a run for its money when it comes to offering a range of cooking methods in one easy-to-use appliance.

The Crock-Pot Express has a fairly streamlined design and while it’s not a pretty appliance, it’s more subtle than some of its competitors. The 6-quart/ 5.6-liter cooking capacity is big enough for the average family and it comes with very few accessories, just a small rack, and a spoon, so there’s not too much to store.

It can slow cook, steam, sauté and pressure cook, and there are a range of presets for cooking different dishes including chilli, stews and yogurt. Alternatively, there’s the ability to manually adjust the temperature and cooking duration to ensure meals are cooked to your liking. On top of that, a delay timer and a keep warm function mean you can have food ready for a time that suits you.

All the functions we tried worked well and made meals to the same standard as the more expensive multi-cookers we’ve reviewed. While it doesn’t come with a fat recipe book loaded with recipe inspiration, we still think the price makes it a great entry-level multi-cooker or a sensible choice for those on a budget.

Crock-Pot Express price and availability

• List price: $76/ £75/ AU$149 

The Crock-Pot Express is priced at $76/ £75/ AU$149 and is available Worldwide through Amazon. In the US it’s known as the Crockpot Express Easy Release, and it also offers simmer and boil functions.

This is an inexpensive multi-cooker compared to other models, but it doesn’t lack any features you’d see on its more expensive competitors. 

Design

• User friendly interface
• Delay timer
• Spoon and steam rack accessories

While the list price is lower than many of its competitors, the Crockpot Express doesn’t look like a budget model, it has a neat stainless-steel exterior and a flat touch control panel. At 13.4 x 13.2x 14.8 inches/ 34 x 34 x 38cm (h x w x d) it’s a pretty standard size, but other than a small rack and spoon it doesn’t come with any additional accessories, so there’s not lots of extra stuff to store.

The 6-quart/ 5.6-liter cooking pot has a non-stick coating and although it’s dishwasher safe Crock-Pot recommends hand washing to protect the coating, the lid and all of its parts also have to be hand washed.

The functions available include pressure cook, steam, slow cook, brown/sauté, and as we’ve already mentioned the US model has additional simmer and boil functions. 

The interface is clearly laid out and simple to use, there’s a keep warm function and a delay timer as well as easily adjustable time, temperature and pressure settings.

There are also a range of preset pressure programs for common foods, which give you an idea of settings while you’re getting to know the cooker. The small booklet has some recipes to get you started but you’ll need to be willing to experiment with times and settings for other meals.

Performance

• Bowl is tricky to slide in and out
• Easy to set programs
• Steam rack doesn’t function well

To cook brown basmati rice we used the preset rice function which pressure cooks and followed the rice to water ratios as advised in the instruction manual, increasing the cooking duration to 15 minutes to take into account brown rice takes longer to cook than white rice. The preheat took seven minutes and the natural pressure release took a further 10 minutes, taking the total cook time up to 32 minutes, which is longer than when you cook it on the hob. But the rice was perfectly cooked, not sticky or wet and we didn’t suffer with grains sticking to the bottom of the cooking bowl either. We did find it was fiddly to slide the bowl in and out of the cooker t - unless you’re precise in lifting directly upwards, it can get stuck.

The steam function is easy to use and there’s a handy chart in the instruction manual detailing duration for various vegetables. We set it to two minutes for our broccoli florets and with the nine minutes it took to preheat plus the two-minute steam release, that’s a 13 minute total cook time.  Disappointingly, some broccoli florets slipped through the bars of the steam rack into the water below, boiling rather than steaming - we’d have preferred a steam basket, which is included with some multi-cookers. The broccoli pieces that remained on the rack were a little overdone for our tastes, but the duration can be adjusted as you get to know the cooker. And what suits you. The pressure release is the loudest part of the process at 81dB.

Slow cooking is what Crock-Pot is known for and it didn’t disappoint, we made a moist but tender beef chili on this setting - the sauté function was useful for browning the beef before cooking and reduced the amount of dishwashing afterwards.

During both slow cooking and pressure cooking the handles and controls stayed cool and even when pressure cooking the lid only got to a warm 117 degrees F/ 47 degrees C, the sides got a little hotter 131 degrees F/ 55 degrees C but not as hot as other multi-cookers.

The saute function took four minutes 30 seconds to preheat and was effective at browning chicken legs which we used in a pressure cooker Thai red curry recipe. The pressure cooker took seven minutes to preheat, which when added to our 20 minute cook time and two minutes for pressure release, is a total start to finish time of 29 minutes, which is respectable for a perfectly cooked Thai curry with chicken that’s tender and falling off the bone.

Should I buy the Crock-Pot Express?

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First reviewed: June 2021

• Check out these great Instant Pot deals

One-minute review

Over the past decade, Instant Pot has become the go-to brand when it comes to multi-cookers that offer a range of different cooking methods in one appliance. The Instant Pot Duo Crisp and Air Fryer has all the functions you’d expect from one of the best Instant Pots, including pressure cook, slow cook, and steam but it can also give some of the best air fryers a run for their money too. 

By swapping out the pressure cooker lid for an air fryer lid you get a whole host of other functions including roast, bake, and air fry. It’s one of the most versatile multi-cookers available from Instant Pot and with a large 8-quart/ 8-litre capacity, it’s aimed at families and is perfect for batch cooking.

Each of the functions has adjustable time and temperature settings and there’s a simple touch panel control interface. It’s a big bulky appliance and the design is functional but it’s not a stylish appliance that you’ll want to keep on the countertop.

We put several functions to the test and they were all easy to use and produced great results, but unfortunately, the air fryer didn’t live up to our expectations, producing soggy fries that are in no way a match for those cooked in the Instant Vortex Plus.

As with most multi-cookers, it requires a little experimentation with times and temperatures to get the most from it. For large busy households, the Instant Pot Duo Crisp & Air Fryer will prove a worthy investment as it can speed up cooking times, as you have the space to store the multi-cooker along with its two lids and accessories.

Instant Pot Duo Crisp and Air Fryer price and availability

• List price: $199.99/ £179.99/ AU$299.99

The Instant Pot Duo Crisp and Air Fryer is priced at $199.99/ £179.99/ AU$299.99 and is available from the Instant Pot website in the US and UK, while in Australia it’s available via Amazon.

This is Instant Pot’s top-of-the-range multi-cooker, if you’re looking for a more affordable option the Instant Pot Duo Evo can do everything apart from air fry and will set you back $119.99 / £129.99 / AU$269.99.

Design

• 11 cooking functions
• Touch panel controls
• Separate lids for wet and dry cooking methods

The Instant Pot Duo Crisp and Air Fryer will certainly take up a lot of space on your countertop - it comes with two separate lids and when fitted with the air fry lid, it’s particularly large measuring 14.8 x 14.2 x 14.2 inches/ 37.5 x 36.2 x 39 cm. In addition to the bulky size and two lids, it comes with a dehydrating tray, air fry basket, multi-functional rack, and protective pad, all of which will need storing. It doesn’t come with any accessories for steaming but these along with lots of other accessories are available to purchase separately.

There are 11 cooking functions in total - with the standard lid fitted, the Instant Pot can pressure cook, sauté, slow cook, steam, sous vide, and keep warm - all of which Instant Pot dubs wet cooking method. Alternatively, switch to the air fryer lid to air fry, roast, bake, broil and dehydrate. It’s worth noting you can only select a cooking function if the corresponding lid is attached.  You can manually adjust the temperature and cooking duration using the buttons on either side of the LCD display. The dry cook functions can be set to a temperature between 180 - 400oF /84C – 204oC and the wet cook functions offer Hi or Lo temperatures. 

It doesn’t come with a recipe book or cooking charts, these are all available on the website, plus there’s a free app available to download which contains over 1000 recipes as well as hints and tips on settings. So there’s plenty of information and recipes available to inspire you to get the most out of this multi-cooker, which is useful as it doesn’t have pre-programmed settings for different dishes like some other multi-cookers.

The stainless-steel cooking pot has a large 8-quart/ 8-litre capacity, it isn’t non-stick but it’s dishwasher safe, as are all of the accessories apart from the main unit and the air fryer lid, so it’s easy to keep clean.

Performance

• Settings easy to program
• Thick-cut fries were too soggy
• Pressure cooked chicken falls off the bone

We tried out the pressure cook function by making a Thai red curry. First, we browned chicken legs using the sauté function, it took three and a half minutes to preheat but eliminated the need to use a separate frying pan and browned the chicken well. Our curry had a 20 minute cook time, but the pressure cook function took nine minutes to preheat to the Hi setting, then two minutes to release pressure at the end, so the total cook time was 31 minutes. The chicken was very moist and fell off the bone after cooking and the curry was cooked as we expected. At 78dB, the quick pressure release was the loudest part of the cooking process. The steam release is at the back of the lid, which means if it's positioned below wall-mounted kitchen cabinets, they’ll get coated in steam and condensation when the pressure is released, so it’s worth considering this when positioning it on your countertop.  

To cook brown basmati rice on the pressure cook function, we followed rice to water ratios and cook times given on the Instant Pot website. It took five minutes and 45 seconds for the pressure cooker to preheat to Hi, add this to the 22 minute cook time and the lengthy 20-minute natural pressure release, and you’re looking at almost 48 minutes just to cook rice - which is longer than traditional cooking methods but there’s no need to keep an eye on it like you would if cooking on the hob, so you’re free to go off and do other things. The natural pressure release is also very quiet. The cooked rice was cooked through with some bite, although it was a little stickier than we’d have liked, there were very few grains sticking to the pot too.

During pressure cooking the handles all stay cool to touch and the sides only reach 111oF/ 44oC, but the metal section of the lid reaches 205oF/ 96 oC, so it’s worth wearing oven gloves when removing it.

We steamed broccoli using the steam function and as it doesn’t come with a steam basket, used the air fry basket. Cooking charts on the Instant Pot website suggested a cook time of three minutes and it took almost seven minutes to heat up. The quick-release pressure only took one minute, so the total cook time was 11 minutes. The broccoli was overcooked and mushy, which highlights the need to experiment with cook times and settings to get the most out of your multi-cooker.

Slow-cooked beef chili was a success, after six hours on the Lo setting the chili had a great flavor and the meat was soft and tender. Again we used the sauté function to brown the meat and vegetables before slow cooking and this means you don’t use any extra frying pans.

Lastly, we tried out the air fry function to make chunky fries, we followed a recipe on the website which suggested 18 minutes, you have to stir them half way through cooking but the cooker prompts you to do this. Although the fries were cooked, they weren’t crisp enough, so again you’ll need to experiment with times for the best result.

Should I buy the Instant Pot Duo Crisp and Air Fryer?

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First reviewed: June 2021

• Check out these great Instant Pot deals

One-minute review

Breville is a name familiar with kitchen prep appliances, with the brand offering some of the best coffee makers and best blenders on the market today. Alongside its other appliances, Breville also has a multi-cooker that can rival the best Instant Pots when it comes to an all-in-one device that offers a multitude of cooking methods. 

The Breville Fast Slow Pro has a 6-quart/ 6-liter capacity and can be used to pressure cook, slow cook, reduce, steam, sear, and sauté.  Choose from a range of pre-sets for cooking everything from stew, risotto, and rice to vegetables and meats, or manually adjust the pressure level and cooking duration, it offers the best of both worlds and is a great option for both seasoned cooks as well as beginners.

Just like many of the electric pressure cookers on the market today, a button on the front of the Breville Fast Slow Pro releases the steam rather than needing a lever on the top needing to be pushed down, making it far less likely to burn your hands. There’s even a handy keep warm function too.

Multi-cookers aren’t the most attractive of kitchen appliances but Breville have made this model neat and streamlined and coupled with the signature stainless steel styling it certainly looks better on the countertop than many of its competitors.

The simple interface is easy to navigate with a clear LCD screen, but the cooking bowl has a minimum 1-quart/ 1-liter capacity, so it’s better for batch cooking and not the best option if you want to make small quantities.

Breville the Fast Slow Pro price and availability

•  List price:  $249.95/ £199.95/ AU$399 

In the US and Australia, this machine is called Breville the Fast Slow Pro and is available from the Breville website. In the UK, it’s called Sage the Fast Slow Pro and is available from the Sage appliances website. It will set you back $249.95/ £199.95/ AU$399. 

Despite Breville being a premium appliance brand, the Fast Slow Pro doesn’t have an inflated price tag and is priced in line with the main competitor models.

Design

• Six cooking functions
• LCD screen
• Customizable settings

The Fast Slow Pro comes in a brushed stainless-steel finish and it has a simple fuss-free appearance that makes it more attractive than most other multi-cookers. There’s no denying that multi-cookers are by their nature bulky and take up space on your countertop and this one measures in at 12 x 12 x 13 inches/ 35 x 35 x 32 cm.

The ceramic coated cooking bowl is dishwasher safe and has a 6-quart/ 6-liter maximum capacity and a 1-quart/ 1-liter minimum capacity, these are both clearly marked inside the bowl. It also comes with a stainless steel steamer basket and a rack for use inside the cooking bowl. The lid is hinged, so you don’t need to find somewhere to place it while checking your food, it’s also removable and dishwasher safe, but for this, you’ll need a screwdriver which means it’s not convenient to clean it like this every time.

There’s minimal assembly required, and the controls are intuitive, so it’s easy to get going straight from the box. The LCD display clearly shows the settings available and it’s easy to navigate between the main functions which are: pressure cook, slow cook, reduce, sear, sauté, and steam. Time, temperature, and pressure settings are all easily adjustable to suit your food or recipe. For novice cooks or simply for guidance while getting to know the appliance, the pressure cook and slow cook functions both have a list of common meal presets - each has a predetermined cook time, temperature, or pressure level.

It comes with a recipe book that contains 41 useful recipes to get you started as well as information on the settings to use for each recipe and general hints and tips, so it’s a helpful guide to use while you get to know the cooker. When pressure cooking, there are three steam release options to choose from; auto quick, auto pulse, and natural - the recipe book and pre-set functions give some guidance on the best steam release setting to use if you're unsure.

Performance

• Sear and saute functions remove the need to use additional frying pans
• Easy to set and adjust
• Lack of cooking charts means some guesswork involved

To cook rice we used the pressure cook function, but instead of cooking our intended 9 oz/ 250g of rice, we had to double up the rice and water quantities to meet the 1-quart/ 1-liter minimum capacity. There is a pre-set rice option in the pressure cooker settings, but there’s very little information given on the quantity or type of rice that the setting is designed for, so after some research, we decided our brown basmati would need longer than the 10 minute preset, so we increased it to 15 minutes. The preheat took 13 minutes and the auto pulse steam release took a further nine minutes, so the total start to finish time was 37 minutes, which is much longer than the 20-25 minutes it would usually take to boil the rice in a pan. Having said that, cooking it in the multi-cooker allows you to walk away and leave it unattended while it cooks. The end result was beautifully cooked rice, which was not sticky or wet and didn’t stick to the cooking bowl either.

The steam release is the noisiest part of the process, but at 72dB it wasn't the loudest multi-cooker we’ve tested. It’s worth noting that the steam release valve is at the back, so if you place the cooker under a wall cabinet or shelf, it’s likely that the steam and condensation will coat the underside of the cabinet.

Similarly when it came to cooking broccoli florets using the steamer basket and steam function., we had no detailed cooking charts to consult. We opted for three minutes, which produced perfectly cooked al dente broccoli, but the 13 minute preheat turns it into a lengthy total cook time.

To test the slow cook function, we made a slow cook beef chili recipe, we used the Sear function to brown the beef first and the Sauté function to soften the onions and vegetables which meant there was no need to use an additional frying pan, saving on washing up. The slow cook setting was easy to use and it doesn’t make any noise while cooking. The cooked chili had a lovely flavor, the meat was moist and soft and we like that there’s a Reduce function so if your recipe hasn’t thickened as much as you’d like, you can use this function at the end of cooking to reduce and thicken it.

We cooked a Thai red curry using the pressure cooker function and again used the Sear function first to brown chicken legs. The pressure cooker settings are easy to adjust and although our recipe only took 20 minutes to cook, there was a 15 minute additional preheat time at the start and a six-minute steam release at the end, creating a 41 minute total cook time. The curry cooked as expected with very tender chicken that fell off the bone.

During pressure cooking the temperature of the lid reached 158oF/ 70oC but all the handles and controls stayed cool.

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First reviewed: June 2021

• Check out these great Instant Pot deals

If you want perfect eggs every time then look no further because we’ve got all the advice on how to cook hard-boiled eggs in an Instant Pot. With one of the best Instant Pots, you can make a huge range of dishes from slow-cooked stews to homemade yogurt but sometimes it’s the simple things like a boiled egg that we just want to nail every time. 

We’ve all been there when you’ve made boiled eggs and they’re either under or overdone - and that’s not forgetting the faff of peeling shell of each of the eggs either. Instant Pots have changed that and now you can make hard-boiled eggs without any of the guess work. 

Whether you have a trusty Instant Pot already or you just want to find out what these machines do, we’ll be sharing ideas for the kinds of foods you can cook in an Instant Pot below. 

• Make fresh drinks with the best juicers 
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How to cook hard-boiled eggs in an Instant Pot  

According to Instant Pot’s website, you can make hard-boiled eggs with ease in your appliance. All you need to do is use one cup of water/ 237 ml, a steamer basket, and some eggs. 

Add the cup of water inside the Instant Pot followed by the steamer basket, place the eggs inside and close the pressure valve. For perfect hard-boiled eggs, Instant Pot recommends cooking for five minutes and then allowing time for the air to release slowly (around five minutes) before placing the eggs in a bowl of cold water to prevent the cooking process from continuing - and it’s really that easy. 

There are plenty of recipes online that cover how to make hard-boiled eggs in an Instant Pot and some suggest allowing the Instant Pot five minutes to reach the correct pressure, five minutes to cook the eggs, and five minutes for the pressure to escape.

Cooking eggs in this way also makes the shells come off with ease and doesn’t take half of your egg white with it.

What can you cook in an Instant Pot?  

Instant Pots were invented to make cooking meals easier and much quicker using higher pressures and high temperatures. There are lots of Instant Pots on the market and each type has a range of different functions but with all of them, you can expect to be able to cook a huge range of dishes. You might expect to be able to cook stews and casseroles but Instant Pots are great for preparing meats, baking cakes, and even air frying food such as fries and chicken wings. You can find an extensive variety of recipes at instantpot.com.

• Save with these cheap Instant Pot deals 

The first Instant Pot came to market over a decade ago and created a storm in the kitchen appliances market. Since then, multi-cookers have come a long way and though Instant Pot was the first, it didn’t take long for other brands to hop on the trend for multi-functional countertop cookers. One of Instant Pot’s most successful rivals is the Ninja Foodi and both brands have a range of different models to choose from.

The best Instant Pot can replace several other appliances which is part of the appeal of this one pot cooker. In fact most multi-cookers function as a pressure cooker and slow cooker and many others can be used as a yogurt maker, dehydrator, and sous vide, newer models even have air frying capabilities.

At first glance, most multi-cookers can perform the same range of core functions and it can be tricky to figure out if there are any differences at all, particularly if you’re new to countertop cookers. Here we’re comparing Ninja Foodi vs Instant Pot, delving into the features each brand offers, how much they cost, and what you can cook in them. 

• Is an Instant Pot a pressure cooker? 
• Find out what you can cook in an air fryer 
• Make healthy smoothies with the best blenders 

Ninja Foodi vs Instant Pot: What do these machines do?

Both Ninja Foodi and Instant Pot offer a range of appliances that are designed to carry out lots of different cooking tasks. The brands have created everything from rice cookers to blenders but for this comparison, we’re mainly focusing on the multi-cookers that each manufacturer offers.

The first Instant Pot was designed to cook food at intense high temperatures in a tightly sealed pot. Ninja Foodi machines can do the same, although both brands have since diversified by launching air fryers too - both the Instant Vortex Plus and the Ninja Foodi Dual Zone Air Fryer made it into our round-up of the best air fryers. 

We’ll come onto the full features each model offers shortly, but essentially, both Ninja Foodi machines and Instant Pots carry out multiple functions in one and can do anything from pressure cooking to slow cooking, and rice cooking.

Ninja Foodi vs Instant Pot: price 

Since Ninja and Instant Pot make so many different appliances, we’ll compare the Instant Pot Duo Crisp which has 11 functions in one, and the Ninja Foodi 11-in-1 Pro Pressure Cooker. The Ninja was more expensive, but since Ninja launched its new range of one lid multi-cookers, the price of this model has dropped to $119/ £199/ AU$349, while the Instant Pot is just under $189 / £119/ AU$231.

On the whole though, Ninja Foodi machines are often more expensive than most Instant Pot cookers - and you’ll likely find Instant Pots on sale. You can pick up an Instant Pot - the Instant Pot Duo for around $89 / £64 / AU$114 as this model has been around for a while now. 

Ninja Foodi vs Instant Pot: features 

Instant and Ninja offer a large range of multi-cookers and some are more basic than others so we’ll focus again on the Instant Pot Duo Crisp and the Ninja Foodi 11-in-1 Pro Pressure Cooker. We’ve listed the features each has below. 

Instant Pot Duo Crip features:

Pressure cooks, sautés, steams, sous vides, slow cooks, warms, air fries, roasts, bakes, broils, and dehydrates. 

Ninja Foodi 11-in-1 Pro Pressure Cooker features: 

Pressure cooks, steams, slow cooks, makes yogurt, sous vides, air fries, bakes, roasts, broils, dehydrates, and warms. 

Both the Instant Pot and the Ninja Foodi offer the same functions with the exception of yogurt making and dehydrating. So, what else sets these appliances apart? Price will obviously be a key deciding factor for many and the Ninja Foodi model is more expensive, but aside from that, the capacity each cooker offers will also be worth keeping in mind. 

The Ninja Foodi Pro Pressure Cooker has a 6.5 quart/6.1-liter capacity, whereas the Instant Pot Duo Crisp has a larger 8-quart/7.6-liter capacity, so you’ll be able to fit more food in the Instant Pot. 

When it comes to power, the Instant Pot model has a 1,500W heating element, and the Ninja Foodi has a wattage of 1,460, making the Instant Pot slightly more powerful. Both of these machines are pretty big and will take up quite a bit of space on your kitchen countertop. If you’re planning on moving your appliance after using it, you might be interested to learn that these models weigh roughly the same at just over 10kg each. 

Both of these appliances come with some accessories as standard. The Ninja Foodi Pro Pressure Cooker has a crisper lid, pressure cooking lid, a dishwasher-safe non-stick cooking pot, non-stick cooking plate, a broil rack, and a recipe book. 

The Instant Pot Duo Crisp also comes with an additional lid for air frying, a multi-level air fryer basket, steam rack, broil tray, and a protective pad.

Ninja Foodi vs Instant Pot: cleaning

You can place the cooking pots from Ninja Foodi machines and Instant Pots in the dishwasher for easy cleaning. Ninja Foodi models have non-stick cooking pots so you shouldn’t end up with dried-on bits of food that are hard to get rid of, whereas Instant Pots have stainless steel pots. 

As Ninja Foodi machines feature a cooking pot with a non-stick coating, you’ll have to avoid using any metal utensils with it in case you scratch off this coating. 

Ninja Foodi vs Instant Pot: Are the recipes the same?

Not always, but given that these two multi-cookers offer very similar functions, it’s usually easy enough to adapt recipes to make them work in whichever brand you have.  There are various different capacity Ninja Foodi and Instant Pot models, so check that your appliance has a large enough capacity for the recipe you’re looking at. Then, it may just be a case of tweaking the settings to suit your multi-cooker. For example a slow cooker or pressure cooker recipe designed for one brand, should work in the other, but the temperature settings on offer may not be exactly the same. Once you've interpreted the settings for your machine though, you should get the same result.

Ninja Foodi vs Instant Pot: verdict  

Spec-wise the Ninja Foodi and the Instant Pot are pretty much level pegging. As both offer 11 functions in one machine, you won’t be missing out on either option. 

If you need all the cooking space you can find, the Instant Pot will be your champion here as it has a bigger capacity than the Ninja Foodi. Of course, how much you pay might be the biggest deciding factor of all and if that’s the case, the Instant Pot is the cheaper option. 

The short answer is that there aren’t masses of differences between these two popular brands so if you’re struggling to decide which is best for you, consider how much space you have to store a multicooker, how much you’d like to spend, and what size capacity suits your needs. 

We’re all about appliances that aim to make cooking a whole lot easier and that’s why we’ve rounded up our favorites in the best Instant Pots guide, but what do these cookers actually do? We’ll be explaining what an Instant Pot is and whether it’s the same as a pressure cooker. There’ll also be some handy hacks for what you can cook in an Instant Pot.

The first ever Instant Pot was invented by Dr Robert Wang, along with two friends in 2010, and it was designed to be a combination of Wang’s interests in computer algorithms and cooking.  Fast forward over a decade and the Instant Pot brand is now a household name.

If you’ve never heard of the Instant brand and you’re wondering what these cookers do, we’ve got all the information you need here. 

• Looking for other cooking appliances? Don’t miss the best air fryers 
• Make healthy drinks with the best blenders 
• Create refreshing drinks with the best juicer 

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Instant Pots have an inner pot that generates steam when it heats up and it’s this steam that cooks food quickly. The inner pot is made of stainless steel and has been designed so that heat is evenly distributed around it. A heating element and sensors beneath the inner pot work in tandem to regulate the temperature inside the cooking pot. As well as that, the lids on Instant Pots have super tight seals and lock into place so that no pressure can escape while the machine is working. 

Pressure cooking isn’t the only function that Instant appliances have, and some models have as many as 10 functions in one. These features include yogurt making, air frying, rice cooking, steaming, searing, and more. Cooking times are usually quicker than conventional cooking because of the high temperature and pressure that these appliances use. 

What can you cook in an Instant Pot? 

With a pressure cooker or Instant Pot, you’ll be able to create a wide range of dishes and without long cooking times either. Everything from stews and soups to chicken wings and barbecue ribs can be cooked in a pressure cooker. 

Instant Pots are designed to combine the work of multiple cooking appliances into one machine, so you’ll be able to prepare entire meals without using your oven or cooktop. You can make homemade fries, slow cook meat, create tasty desserts, and perfect fluffy rice. 

If you want to get the most out of any multi-cooker, however, it’s important to consider its capacity and whether that’s going to be big enough for the size of your household. 

• Check out today’s best cheap Instant Pot deals 

Founded in Canada in 2010, Instant Pots have been growing in popularity worldwide ever since, thanks to their multi-cooker capabilities that cover everything from traditional pressurised recipes to yoghurt, cake baking and sous vide. Instant Pot’s appeal is broad, meaning recipes for specific models are easy to come by online, and other machines on the market compete with its startling array of cooking modes. While rivals can often perform slow cooking or pressure cooking well, the Instant Pot is known for delivering exceptional results for both methods.

That said, there were a few aspects of Instant Pot’s previous designs that could be improved: having limited control over the time and temperature settings grows frustrating after you’ve mastered the basic programming functions. It also felt like an oversight that Instant’s pot wasn’t suitable for searing on a hob, when other rivals had designed a pot with this in mind. And a few more cooking options wouldn’t have gone amiss, such as a sous vide setting.

Thankfully, Instant Pot has delivered a souped-up follow-up to its first generation of appliances. The Duo Evo Plus improves on Instant Duo’s performance, and gives users the options to change settings, no less than 48 cooking modes and (the all-important) option to sear food on the hob in the pot itself, with handles to take the pot straight to the table.

Price and availability

Available now, expect to find the Instant Pot Duo Evo Plus costing around £120 / $120 / AU$750. That's a bit pricier than earlier models, but still good value considering the quality of the appliance, You can see today’s best deals for the Instant Pot Duo Evo Plus 60 where you are below:

Design and key features

The Duo Evo Plus is currently only available in the 5.7 litre (6 quart) capacity in the UK, although a 7.5 litre (8 quart) model is due to be added to the range in early 2021. In the US the Duo Evo Plus comes in 6 quart and 8 quart models. In Australia a  5.7 litre/ 6 quart capacity is available. As with the older Instant Pot size, we found 5.7 litres an ideal capacity for a family or batch cooking.  The stainless steel exterior certainly looks smart in the kitchen, although with the black exterior for the lid, any food spattering or water marks are easy to spot.

One of the issues with Instant’s previous designs was the large amount of steam that would emit from the cooker after releasing the pressure valve. A new plastic diffuser covers the vent, meaning far less sputtering and a gentler emission of steam. The Duo Evo Plus also automatically seals when in place, something its older machines required the user to do manually.

While the screens at the centre of Instant’s electric cookers may look similar before switching on, the new Duo Evo Plus has received a raft of small improvements that make for a far easier cooking experience. 

The LCD display is nicer to look at and use, with the digital interface and dial making it easier to choose from the Duo Evo Plus’ 48 cooking options. A progress timer makes it simpler to quickly check on the cooking progress of food, and even the screen itself has been slightly tilted upwards to make it a cinch to read at a glance when you’re busy in the kitchen.

Of the 48 settings, you can choose pre-set cooking times and temperatures for dishes Instant is now famous for, such as ribs, stews and risotto. These settings can also be used for fermenting and dough proofing, and Instant has added in a sous vide option for low and slow cooked meat.

If you’ve used an Instant Pot before, the basic usage is very similar to older models, albeit with necessary design tweaks that make it far easier to navigate as a home cook. 

Whether you choose to store it on the counter or away in a cupboard when you’re not using it is up to you - there’s no assembly time required: all it needs is a switch to plug in when you’re ready.

Performance

The first thing we noticed is how much faster the Duo Evo Plus cooks. The 1200w heating element reduces preheating time (the Instant Pot Duo V2 7-in-1 Electric Pressure Cooker uses 1000w), and Instant has worked on reducing the pressure release time with its QuickCool™technology. 

Even cooking simple items like rice, soups and stews is much faster, and there’s far less time spent waiting for the pressure valve to click in order to allow the lid to open - which could reach upwards of 20 minutes on the Duo V2 7-in-1 model.

In what appears to be another bid to outshine every other multi-cooker on the market, Instant has redesigned its inner pot to be suitable for heating on any type of hob. This means recipes that require browning meat and vegetables before slow cooking can still be achieved in one pot. 

By adding heat-proof handles to its inner pot, Instant has evolved their electric cooker into an appliance that can be brought straight to the table (or carried to a pot luck!), making things that much easier for the time-poor cook. An extra sealing ring and steam rack with handles are helpful additions. The Duo Evo Plus didn’t come with a cup measurer (despite the majority of its competitors, and previous models, including one), which is integral to a lot of Instant Pot recipes, so if you’re in the UK, you’ll need to use a measuring jug or similar with cup measurements.

Speaking of recipes, you won’t find a recipe book when unboxing your Duo Evo Plus, as customers are instead encouraged to download the Instant Pot recipe app.  We loved being able to browse this for inspiration as well as guides on how to cook everything from macaroni cheese to jerk chicken and cornbread, but as many of the recipes are from other Instant Pot users, there can be a few wild cards. Stick to the recipes by Instant Pot Staff and you’ll find the app useful and responsive for setting timers and even providing calorie estimates. 

As mentioned above, rice, soups and stews are straightforward in the Duo Evo Plus. We also took homemade yoghurt, steamed chocolate fondants, braised red cabbage and chicken curries for a whirl, all easily achieved and to pretty impressive results. 

The Duo Evo Plus is relatively simple to keep clean, although as we’ve found with all Instant Pots: anything especially pungent will linger longer than a usual saucepan, probably due to the fact the cooking flavours are sealed in the pot. Helpfully, the inner pot is also dishwasher safe.

Should I buy the Instant Pot Duo Evo Plus 60?

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• The best Instant Pots: pressure and slow cookers to make hearty recipes with

One-minute review

If you’re stuck for meal inspiration, the Tefal Cook4Me+ CY851840 One-Pot Digital Pressure Cooker provides a fun and convenient solution. It comes with a host of recipe ideas to give you inspiration on what to cook for a mid-week speedy supper or lazy weekend meal, and recipes are accessible on both the built-in digital display and accompanying Cook4Me app – simply pop ingredients in and follow the step-by-step guides. 

Just like some of the best Instant Pots, its fast pressure-cooking functionality, you can conjure up impressive main courses and restaurant-worthy starters in half the time it would take you to traditionally cook – you’ll find 50 on-board recipe ideas that can be cooked in less than 15 minutes, in fact.  

Tefal Cook4Me+ CY851840 One-Pot Digital Pressure Cooker price and availability

Described by Tefal as ‘the Daddy of electric pressure cookers’, the Tefal Cook4Me+ CY851840 One-Pot Digital Pressure is currently on sale down from £269.99 ($351 / AU$487) to £199.99 ($260 / AU$360) over on the Tefal website. You can currently find it priced at £169 ($220 / AU$304) on Amazon. 

For a Tefal model with specific slow cook setting however, consider the Tefal All-in-One CY505E40 electric pressure cooker, which costs £99.99 ($130 / AU$180).

Design

At 38cm high, the black and chrome body of the Cook4Me+ is relatively compact compared to other competing multi-cooker designs and at 1450W it is also rather powerful. It comes with a stainless-steel steaming basket, which is very useful for cooking fruit and vegetables. 

On board it has a digital menu with settings for programmed recipes that you can follow step by step in real time. There are also manual settings for classic cooking (for tasks such as melting butter, simmering and browning) as well as pressure-cooking, steaming, reheating and keeping warm. The latter feature comes in handy when you’re dealing with two supper ‘sittings’ – giving the kids a meal at 5pm, and then eating with your partner once they are (fingers crossed) in bed at 7.30pm, for example. 

Should you wish to prep in advance, there is also a delayed start button – up to 15 hours in fact for those who are super keen. It isn’t recommended that you use this for fresh foods such as meat, milk, and eggs however, but it can be useful when cooking pasta and rice or steaming vegetables. 

Performance

The Cook4Me+’s colorful LCD screen can be easily navigated using the single dial, and you can scroll through the 100 built-in recipes, for dishes such as Green Thai Chicken Curry and Sweet Chill Salmon. For more recipes you can download the Cook4Me app and search for a recipe with a particular ingredient through the 200-plus ideas. In the ‘In my fridge’ section, you can add the ingredients that are in your fridge and the app will suggest a suitable recipe – just for fun we typed in ‘red wine’ and it came up with nine recipe ideas including ‘Bolognese Chef Style’ and ‘Pears in Red Wine’ – you can then automatically add the ingredients to a handy shopping list on the app, for reference when you’re in the supermarket. 

To find out how useful the Tefal Cook4Me+ is in terms of functionality, ergonomics and efficiency, we used it to make a delicious Lamb Rogan Josh Curry with rice. We searched the app for this lamb recipe, which features canned tomatoes, onions, rogan josh paste, and a diced leg of lamb diced.  

The rice took an impressive nine minutes after we popped it into the bowl and followed the simple instructions to cover with water (although it didn’t say how much) and press start. The result was light and fluffy rice. Job done. 

One thing to remember is that the pressure valve will release steam at random intervals, so you need to make sure there are no restrictions such as a kitchen cabinet above the pot so there is plenty of room for the steam to escape. 

We found that, as expected in a pressure cooker, quite a bit of water runs off the lid when you open it after the cooking cycle. On this design however, the dew runs neatly around the rim of the bowl so it doesn’t leak onto the worktop. At the end of the cycle the Cook4Me+ told us to empty the dew collector. The two cool-touch handles are also well thought out as they make it easy to remove the pan from the cooker to serve.  

To make the Lamb Rogan Josh Curry the digital display walked us through the initial browning of the onions and meat – conveniently inside the pan – and then we closed the lid and left the pressure cooker work its magic. In just 35 minutes we could enjoy a curry dish with surprisingly tender meat. 

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• Check out these great Instant Pot deals

One Minute Review

The Ninja Foodi Max is a great buy for those days when you crave home-cooked food, but can’t be bothered to actually cook at home. It features nine cooking functions on board its easy-to-navigate body that lets you roast, bake, grill and crisp foods and more with ease, saving you time and energy in the process. It's one of the best Instant Pot alternatives we've tested.  

The Ninja Foodi MAX 7.5L Multi-Cooker OP500UK (to give it its full name) can in fact pressure cook meals up to 70% faster than traditional cooking methods, and air fry with up to 75% less fat than traditional methods. Its whopping 7.5 litre capacity makes it a great option for large families, but you will however need the countertop room or ample storage space to house it.

Ninja Foodi Max Multi-Cooker price and availability 

The Ninja Foodi Max 7.5L Multi-Cooker OP500UK is the largest multi-cooker in the Ninja family, and is currently on sale direct on Amazon and over on the Ninja website for £199.99 ($259 / AUS $361). The 6-litre Ninja Foodi 7-in-1 Multi-Cooker OP300UK version also usually retails for £199.99, showing the litre-to-price saving that can be made here.. 

A popular design in the multi-cooker space, you’ll also find the Ninja Foodi Max Multi-Cooker OP500UK available to buy at all the regular appliance haunts, from Best Buy in the US to John Lewis in the UK.

Design

• Capacity to cook for up to 6 people 
• One-pot versatility 
• Pressure cooks 70% faster than traditional cooking methods

The Ninja Foodi Max is Ninja’s largest multi-cooker to date and a step up from its 4.7 and 6L versions. At first glance, the Ninja can seem quite imposing – at 42cm high, 38cm wide and 11.3kg it isn’t the kind of appliance that will blend into the background, but more an appliance that is designed to be a key part of your kitchen and its ‘working triangle’. That is unless you have a separate pantry to hide away the large countertop appliances.

Its curvaceous black and stainless steel body is however stylishly realised. On board you’ll find an easy-to-navigate digital display featuring all the cooking options that can be actioned with a simple press of a button. With so many cooking functions to choose from including pressure cook, steam, grill, air crisp with no oil, bake, roast and dehydrate, it can make your traditional built-in oven seem rather redundant. As well as a cook and crisp basket, there’s a two-tier reversible rack to cook mains and sides simultaneously, which is good for layering vegetables with meats, poultry or fish.  

The design’s 7.5 litre cooking pot and 4.7 litre cook and crisp basket is easy to clean – it comes with ceramic-coated, non-stick, dishwasher safe parts, but after use we simply washed the cooking pots in warm soapy water and gave the rest of the machine a wipe down with a damp cloth.

Performance

Set up of the Ninja Foodi Max Multi-Cooker is simple: plug in straight out of the box and you’re good to get cooking. The digital control panel is also very simple to follow and switches between the main features in one press of the button – choose from pressure cook, air fry, slow cook, steam, bake/roast, sear/sauté, grill, yoghurt and dehydrate. 

It comes with TenderCrisp Technology that will crisps foods once cooked, for that authentic oven-cooked taste. While it does come with an instruction manual, we intuitively had a play and were able to work out how to use it within seconds. When you choose a preset cooking option it will suggest the most common temperature you’d need and give you a time for that function, which make life easier than having refer to the manual.

To find out how well it can cook a chicken and to discover if the TenderCrisp Technology lives up to its promise, we popped a raw medium-sized chicken into the pot and pressed the roast function. We topped it with oil and seasoned it and left it to run for the suggested time of 30 minutes on 180 degrees. If at the end of the 30 minutes you think the chicken still needs more time, it’s easy to add more time manually – in our test however the chicken looked ready to eat. The results were impressive as it didn’t just roast the chicken but left it incredibly tender, retaining moisture on the inside and crisping on the outside. 

We were also curious to see how well the dehydration setting works on fresh ingredients so we chopped up bananas and placed them in the pot. While the results were as tasty as store bought banana chips, it did take us up to six hours on the suggested 60 degrees to make them as the machine slowly sucked the life out of the bananas and then crisped.

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• Check out these great Instant Pot deals

Instant Pot is one of the biggest names in kitchenware, known worldwide for its multi-function cookers.

Here we're looking at the Instant Pot Duo, which is likely to see some considerable discounts on Black Friday and Cyber Monday 2019. While we haven't put this specific model through its paces ourselves, we've used our expert knowledge to help you decide whether it's the right cooker for you. For more options, check out our guide to the best Instant Pot sales and deals for Black Friday 2019.

The bottom line: Like all Instant Pot cookers, the Instant Pot Duo comes packed with presets to make preparing different meals as simple as possible. What makes it special is the fact that it doubles as a pressure-cooker, letting you cook meat, dried pulses and other dishes in a fraction of the usual time. If you want to eat well without spending hours in the kitchen, this is the device for you.

Pros: It's available in three sizes (four, six and eight quarts), all with a range of presets for different types of cooking. The pressure cooking option makes cooking much faster than usual, and uses less energy. The inner pot is dishwasher safe, and the cooker comes with a 12-month warranty.

Cons: The smallest Instant Pot Duo lacks a manual setting, so you can only choose from the 14 smart programs. Pressure cooking isn't suitable for all recipes (it needs a certain amount of water-based liquid).

Instant Pot Duo: everything you need to know

The main appeal of any Instant Pot is its simplicity, and the Instant Pot Duo is no exception. It comes with presets for a huge array of different foods and meals, so you can simply choose the right option, press 'Start' and leave it to handle the rest, safe in the knowledge that it will use the optimum cooking time and temperature.

Sizes: The Instant Pot Duo comes in three sizes (three-quart, six-quart and eight-quart) so you can choose one that will suit your household. The largest one is also a good choice for batch cooking stews and soups, which you can divide into portions and freeze for quick meals later in the week.

Presets: All three Instant Pot Duo sizes include the following programs: soup/broth, meat/stew, bean/chilli, slow cook, sauté/searing, rice, porridge, steam, yogurt, keep warm, and pressure cook.

Pressure cooking: The Instant Pot Duo lets you choose between high and low pressure settings – a feature you won't find on most multi-function cookers. Switching to the high pressure setting means you can cook food at much higher temperatures without boiling it, drastically cutting cooking times for meat, dried pulses and other dishes that would usually take hours.

It's worth bearing in mind that pressure cooking isn't suitable for all dishes, though; it needs a certain amount of water or water-based liquid (such as beer, broth or stock) to work safely.

Conclusion: If you enjoy cooking as a hobby then you'll probably prefer using conventional tools and appliances. On the other hand, if you're short of time, space or both, the Instant Pot duo could be exactly what you need to make meal times easier and less stressful.

TechRadar is scouring every retailer and rounding up all the top deals over the Black Friday period, and we’ve put all the best Black Friday deals and Cyber Monday deals in easy-to-navigate articles to help you find the bargains you’re looking for.

Aside from throwing stars and stealth assassinations, the word 'Ninja' these days is probably best known as the name of the kitchen appliance brand and its range of “bullet” blenders, designed for making juices and smoothies. But the Ninja Kitchen brand makes a variety of appliances including its all-singing, all-dancing Ninja Foodi Multi-Cooker. 

The Ninja Foodi offers eight settings, from air frying to baking, roasting, sauteéing, grilling, slow cooking, pressure cooking and a keep-warm function in a single machine. In fact, it's one of the best Instant Pot alternatives on the market.

Due to the fact it covers so many bases, the Ninja Foodi has a large 6L pot, with a 3.2L removable frying basket, as well as a grilling rack and two lids - one fitted with a vent for pressure and slow cooking, and the other for everything else. It additionally has an hour-long timer and offers the highest temperature of any air fryer we’ve tested, at 210° Celsius.

It is, however, also one of the more expensive multi-cookers on the market, making it a harder sell than some of its competition.

Price and availability

The Ninja Foodi Multi-Cooker is available now, priced with an RRP of £199 / $249 – though it's also regularly discounted, with an Amazon Prime Day offer knocking $100 off that price in the US in the summer of 2019.

On the face of things, with its expansive feature set, that price tag looks reasonable. But do note that there are many similar products on the market that offer similar feature sets at lower price tags. The Instant Pot Duo V2, for instance, may lack the air-frying function, but covers off many of the other features, at a much lower price point.

Design

As you’d expect from an appliance that is effectively a mini oven, the Ninja Foodi is a monster of a machine taking up a significant chunk of space on a worktop and looking industrial (read: ugly) with its grey and black design. 

Its bulky lid opens to the side on a hinge meaning it can’t be fully opened while tucked underneath a kitchen cupboard and this, coupled with its overall size, makes it nigh-on impossible to comfortably fit anywhere where space is at a premium. 

Settings are controlled via a panel on the front situated below a digital display. The time and temperature controls sit either side of this display. During cooking, the time ticks down on this screen which gives you an at-a-glance way to keep track of timings. 

Below the display is your choice of cooking options: Pressure, Steam, Slow Cook, Sear/Sauté, Air Fry, Bake/Roast and Grill. The Keep Warm button is bottom left, the On button is bottom right and a large Start/Stop button sits in the center. Although these controls are clearly labelled, they do add up to quite a complex machine and as there are no pre-programmed settings, like you find on many other air fryers for example. Every task requires you to manually select the cooking type, time and temperature, and this all takes a little getting used to.

A major plus to having such a variety of settings, and the fact it’s such an imposing machine, is that it’s perfect for feeding large families and party guests. It offers a huge capacity, unprecedented versatility and it’s also, surprisingly, quiet.

Performance

Over the course of two months, we put each of the Ninja Foodi’s settings through their paces, from air frying chips and chicken to baking cakes and roasting potatoes; from making a slow-cooked sausage stew and Chilli Con Carne, to steaming vegetables and pressure-cooking risotto. 

Airfrying

When it came to air frying chicken, the Ninja Foodi did a stand-up job. The skin was crispy and the meat was succulent. When it came to air frying chips, however, the Ninja Foodi’s performance fell short. Manually setting the Foodi on the same temperature and for the same time as we cook homemade chips in our fan oven, we were disappointed when they came out overcooked. The skin was too crispy, almost rock-hard, while very little potato was left on the inside. We’ve since experimented with these settings and while the results have been better, they don’t match up to the way the Foodi cooked the chicken, or the way most of the Ninja Foodi’s air fryer rivals cook chips.  

Baking/roasting 

During our tests, we twice roasted potatoes using the Bake/Roast function. Once from frozen, using shop-bought roasties, and once from scratch using fresh potatoes. Unlike its disappointing performance when air frying chips, both batches of potatoes were delicious. The smaller batch of the frozen potatoes, given the fact their skins are pre-cooked, bordered slightly on being overly crispy, but the batch generally had fluffy centers inside crunchy cases. Meanwhile, the fresh potatoes were the best homemade roast potatoes we’ve ever made with a perfect combination of taste and texture. Not something we say lightly. 

Using the same Bake/Roast function, we used the Ninja Foodi to bake chocolate muffins on the grilling rack, followed by a fudge cake in its cooking pot. Both recipes were from packets and tasted as we expected, as they do when cooked in a regular oven. 

The downside to cooking muffins this way is that there is only so much space on the grilling rack compared to a normal oven, so your batches will be smaller. The plus side for making cakes in the Foodi is that you can mix everything inside the multi-cooker’s non-stick pot before baking. No need for multiple mixing bowls, baking paper or lining tins with grease, not to mention the fact this cuts down on washing up. That said, if you need the cake to be a specific size, you could still place a cake tin with the cake mixture inside the Foodi and bake in the same way as you would in an oven.

Searing/Sauteeing and Slow Cooking

Onto searing, and slow cooking. Many recipes require you to fry ingredients, such as onions for curries or chunks of beef for stews, in a frying pan before placing them in a slow cooker. Not the Ninja Foodi. You can switch from searing or sauteéing food to slow cooking at the touch of a button. Simply add the rest of your ingredients, hit Slow Cook and select your cooking time. It is true you can effectively “fry” ingredients in regular slow cookers but they never get hot enough to really achieve that desired caramelised color and if you’re a slow-cooker fan, this particular Ninja Foodi feature is a game changer.  

Once the slow cooking timer ends, the Foodi’s 30-minute Keep Warm function kicks in to stop your meal from spoiling. In fact, at the end of any cooking function you can use the Keep Warm button to maintain a low, steady temperature until you’re ready to serve. If you don’t, the Ninja Foodi will simply beep and turn off. Both this Keep Warm option, and the automatic shut off feature, give the Ninja Foodi a significant edge over most regular ovens. 

So far, so good. 

These features give the Ninja Foodi far greater versatility, and represent greater value for money than buying separate slow cookers, air fryers and mini ovens. Having so many settings can prove confusing, especially when you’re trying to establish which setting best suits what you’re trying to cook, but on the whole if you approach most meals cooked in the Ninja Foodi in the same way you would a regular oven, it’s straightforward. What’s not straightforward, however, is pressure cooking. 

Pressure cooking

If you’ve never used a pressure cooker before, it’s worth watching a video or two on how the process works. This is because it takes everything you know about cooking and throws it out of the window. 

Firstly, it significantly messes with timings. A small chicken usually takes an hour and 10 minutes to cook in our oven. In the Ninja Foodi’s pressure cooker, it took just 15 minutes. That’s a fully roasted chicken in a quarter of an hour.

Similarly, cake bites that normally take 20 minutes were on the edge of being overdone in six, and a bacon and pea risotto we typically slave over for 40 minutes was done in less than 10. Ideal for meals in a hurry, less so when trying to work out how long it will take such meals to quickly become ruined. 

Secondly, you need to factor in how long it takes for the Ninja Foodi’s large pot to reach the desired pressure, and then how long you need to release that pressure for at the end of cooking. If you release pressure too slowly you end up overcooking your food. Too quickly, and you run the risk of undercooking it. Recipes will advise on each of these timings but it took a fair amount of trial and error to achieve the results we wanted, plus, unless you’re using recipes written specifically for the Ninja Foodi, you’ll need to experiment. 

Then there’s the additional lid. The Ninja Foodi’s standard Tendercrisp lid is permanently attached via a hinge, but its pressure cooking lid can be fitted or removed as needed. It’s not particularly difficult to use – it has arrows that help you line up where it needs to go – but it is a faff having to switch it in and out. Plus, it’s far from small so storing it is a pain. 

Once we’d hit on the ideal timings of each pressure-cooked recipe, the quality of food was great and the time-saving benefits soon outweighed any hassle we’d experienced getting to that point. We’ve attempted risottos in slow cookers and pressure cookers in the past and they’ve never lived up to those we’ve made on a hob, until Ninja Foodi’s risotto. The rice tasted as if it had been given the usual amount of time to absorb the water and flavor and had a nice bite to it, without being undercooked or chalky. Similarly, given the fast cooking times, we had expected the bacon and peas to be soft and lacking in texture, but they weren’t. They both had bite and tasted fresh. 

Grilling

Whereas many of the other Ninja Foodi features give your regular oven a run for its money, its grilling function does not. It’s a good addition to have, but it’s far less versatile and less effective, than using a standard grill. Firstly, because of the Foodi’s size you’ll struggle to get more than two chicken breasts comfortably on the rack. The height of the rack is also limiting. It’s not possible to place the grilled food closer, or further away from the grill element. 

Steaming 

The cooking option we used the least, but is worth mentioning, is the option to steam food in the Foodi. You need the grilling rack, or a similar accessory, to place the ingredients on and then steam is created by putting water beneath it. It works fine. As you’d expect but unlike with the majority of other settings, there’s nothing about steaming in the Foodi that sets it apart from traditional methods. The only point we will make is that it is an easy way to make a bain-marie.   

Verdict

Given the high price tag, its industrial size and multi-purpose use, the Ninja Foodi is not for the faint hearted. Firstly, it’s far from cheap, but it does negate the need to buy a separate slow cooker, pressure cooker and air fryer. Secondly, its large size is smaller than having all three on your kitchen top. If you have the money and the space, it’s a great kitchen appliance to have in your arsenal. 

Each of its functions work well on their own. Some perform better than others and some are easier to use than others, yet it’s having them all in one place that truly sets the Ninja Foodi apart from anything we’ve ever used. From roasting a chicken to being able to quickly switch to the air frying function to crisp up its skin; from being able to sear ingredients before switching to slow cooking; the Ninja Foodi has the potential to replace your regular oven. For at least the majority of meals.

Since we’ve been testing the Foodi, we’ve only used our hob a handful of times, and even then it was to make poached eggs or omelettes. We can’t remember the last time we didn’t use the Foodi for at least one element of our meals and that speaks volumes to just how great it is.

• Check out the best Instant Pot deals
• Get the best deals on Ninja products with our Ninja promo codes.

Looking for one of the best Instant Pot alternatives that won’t take up all of your kitchen surface? While it might feel like the world of multi-cookers, which combine pressure cooking and slow cooking in one device, only caters for families the size of the Waltons, we decided to take Lakeland’s Mini Multicooker for a spin, and see if slow cooking for one can be a viable option. 

After all, why pay out for a blimp-sized machine when you don’t need to batch cook or perhaps don’t have a freezer? Lakeland’s Mini machine strips it back to the bare essentials in a small, compact model. Does it still deliver on convenience? Let’s find out.

Price and availability

The Lakeland Mini Multi Cooker is available to buy for £49.99 from the Lakeland website, as well as Amazon; it's currently only available in the UK, but that price works out at around $65 / AU$95 based on current conversion rates.

That's relatively cheap compared to the likes of the Crock-Pot CSC024 5.6L Digital Slow and Multi Cooker, which will set you back £119.99 / $155 / AU$225 – it is a lot bigger than the 1.8L Lakeland Mini though.

Design

The mini multicooker has eight programs, but it’s not possible to sauté or sear with this pot, so you would need to start items like soups in a separate pan before bringing the ingredients together. It might not look like the slickest, but we like the white model and easy-to-read LED display. 

We were excited by the promise of making cake in a multicooker, but Lakeland’s instructions recommend only using pre-mixed ingredients, and as the capacity is so small at 1.8L, only half a packet of cake mix at a time. Again, that needn’t be a bad thing if living alone, but it’s worth considering before purchase.

Whether you opt for the Lakeland Mini Multi Cooker 1.8L depends on the kind of food you’re making on a regular basis, and if a rice cooker is top on your list, this cooker achieves that, plus yoghurt, grains, casseroles and cake. 

Be extra cautious with the capacity – it’s intended to hold the volume of food when cooked. The 1.8 liter (1.9 quarts) inner pot cooks up to 4 cups of food, and gets full quick. 

This isn’t a slow cooker for a big family. We filled it beneath the maximum capacity level for cooking rice, and the vent overflowed, causing rice water to pour out onto the kitchen surface. It was admittedly worrying seeing steam and liquid escape from the model through overfilling it, but if you’re careful not to do that, it seems like a very safe model to use. 

Performance

This cooker is efficient at cooking rice, porridge and quinoa quickly, and at the other end of the timing spectrum, it’s possible to set the ‘slow cook’ program to up to eight hours. We liked the fact the cooking times can be adjusted – this isn’t an option with many other cheaper models.

Despite the capacity concerns, this multicooker is incredibly easy to use and will fit into most kitchens (or kitchen cupboards when not in use). If you’re living alone or without a freezer, this would be a great machine for casseroles and stews without any waste. 

Unlike cheaper slow cookers, this model has a ‘keep warm’ mode, which it switches into after the majority of its cooking programs (apart from the ‘yoghurt’ setting), meaning you could set a dish to slow cook and it would have it ready and warm for you after a day at work.

A non-stick cooking pot and inner lid are removable and can go straight in the washing up, making it easier to clean that the larger models we reviewed.

For the relatively low number of programmable options, the price quite high. However, considering the ‘keep warm’ and ‘slow cook’ modes can be adjusted, there’s more to play with here than models £10 to £20 cheaper. 

Final verdict

The Lakeland Mini Multi Cooker 1.8L is a great multicooker for people living alone, and if you’re short on space. It can be easily packed away and stored and brought out when needed. 

You won’t be able to batch cook with this model, but if rice, grains, yoghurt and porridge make up a big part of your diet, you’d get enough use out of it to justify the price.

There aren't that many programmable options when you consider the price, but it's cheaper than much of the competition; and with helpful 'keep warm' and 'slow cook' modes, it could be well worth choosing this multicooker over less expensive models.

• Looking for more? Here are the best Instant Pot, pressure, and slow cookers

The Crock-Pot brand is one of the best-known slow cookers out there, so much so it is often used interchangeably to describe all appliances that decelerate the cooking process. 

With the influx of Instant Pots and a huge array of multi-cookers, we wanted to see how Crock-Pot’s digital model stands up against the young pretenders on the market.

Does the veritable brand hold its own against the upstarts? Or is Crock-Pot starting to show its age? Here's our Crock-Pot CSC024 5.6L Digital Slow and Multi Cooker full review.

• Best Instant Pot deals: the wonder-cooker, at its best possible prices

Price and availability

It's at the pricier end of the scale, the Crock-Pot CSC024 5.6L Digital Slow and Multi Cooker. With a price tag of £119.99 ($155 / AU$225).

And certainly, its stainless steel exterior finish gives it a traditional, high-end look to accompany your top-end kitchenware. However, it's performance doesn't quite match the price, and potential issues with its non-stick surfaces rise eyebrows over its premium placement.

Design

We loved the handles on either side of the Crock-Pot, which means it can be lifted out and taken to the table or used to serve straight out at parties. At 5.6 litres (5.9 quarts), this Crock-Pot is large enough for batch cooking or making big dishes for family gatherings, as well as fitting in a whole roast chicken.

The rectangular dish means you can fit larger joints of meat or a whole chicken for roasting - often the circular or oval slow cookers don’t leave enough room for this. The shape also makes it easier to slot into a crowded kitchen surface.

The Crock-Pot has five pre-programmed intelligent functions, which each have multiple settings. This bakes, roasts and steams but does not pressure cook. 

You can manually adjust temperature and timings, so it’s very customisable. Not all of the other machines we reviewed allow you to change the temperature, and as you become more familiar with the machine and the recipes you can achieve, it’s good to have the flexibility. 

With the Crock-Pot, the temperature ranges an impressive 65 to 230 centigrade. While a conventional oven can reach that high, it’s difficult to maintain in a larger space. Because the Crock-Pot is comparatively smaller, when a recipe calls for heat, you’ve got it with this. 

Compared against the Instant Pot, we loved that the Crock Pot allows a little more ‘hands on’ cooking. You can see the food as it works, adjust the temperatures and essentially make your own settings. If you’re the kind of cook that likes to tend to their dishes, you might be more at home with the Crock-Pot.

Performance

Very easy to use, the Crock-Pot CSC024 5.6L Digital Slow and Multi Cooker cooks consistently and fast. Curries, soups, roasts, risottos and even pasta bakes were a breeze. It reaches high temperatures quickly, and you can also leave it up to 12 hours in the slow cook mode.

Roast potatoes don’t need to be par-boiled, and they came out crispy on the outside, fluffy on the inside after just 40 minutes cooking time. The Crock-Pot came up to temperature so quickly for roasting, and it feels like a much safer option than having a tray of hot oil for roast potatoes. Instead, you just pop the potatoes in the pan and let the Crock-Pot do the hard work.

The Crock Pot is essentially a scaled-down surface-top oven that will achieve high temperatures with relative ease, but if you already have an oven that works reasonably well, it’s difficult to see the stand-out benefits of the Crock Pot when considering its roasting capabilities. 

On the other hand, it cooks lentils and pulses beautifully, and it is an excellent slow cooker. We left this on before heading out to work, and each day came home to something nutritious to prepare for dinner (or dinner itself if we’d prepped a stew or casserole!). The ‘keep warm’ function automatically kicks in after the cooking process, too.

What’s more, the pot and lid are dishwasher-proof, so you really do feel like you’re cutting down on washing up when there’s a crowd in tow. 

At £119.99, it’s one of the most expensive multi-cookers we reviewed. The brushed stainless steel exterior looks super stylish, it’s been designed with practicalities in mind and there’s a lot to play with here. However, while we didn’t find this to be an issue, plenty of other user reviews online have noted the non-stick pan coming away after prolonged use, and compared to the other slow cookers in this price range the pot certainly feels flimsier than a ceramic bowl or the Instant Pot.

With everything takes place in one pot, we’re hard pressed to find any safety issues. In fact Sunday roasts feel a lot safer made in the Crock-Pot, as there’s no spitting oil trays needed to be removed from a normal oven, and thanks to the glass lid, you can still keep an eye on everything that’s cooking.

Verdict

The old-school Crock-Pot has come a long way, and this is a great update on the traditional family slow cooker. Although it doesn’t offer the pressure-cooking capabilities of its competitors, high temperatures and quick roasting are a good, practical bonus if you’re cooking for a busy family. 

The only thing it’s really missing for this price point is a delayed start timer. If you can work around that, the Crock-Pot does what it does very well.

• Best Instant Pot, pressure and slow cookers: hearty meals, with ease

This is as close to an old school slow cooker as you're likely to see on TechRadar. Unlike other models, the Morphy Richards Sear & Stew 3.5L Hinged Lid Slow Cooker doesn’t claim to combine every other cooking appliance into a one pot wonder. No - instead it does one thing, really well: slow cooking.

You don’t know it’s on, but you can be slowly stewing lentils or cuts of beef and have incredibly nutritious meals ready at the end of the day, and at a great value price too.

Does its one trick nature let down an otherwise great cooker? Here's our full review.

Price and availability

The Morphy Richards Sear & Stew 3.5L Hinged Lid Slow Cooker has an RRP of £34.99 (about $45 / AU$65), but can regularly be found on sale for significantly less.

While it's one of the simpler offerings from our best Instant Pot, pressure and slow cooker list, it's worth your attention thanks to its compact nature and consistent cooking performance. At a discount price, it'll be particularly attractive to solo cooks, couples and smaller families.

Design

Morphy Richards certainly did its research with this. Every factor we’ve found irritating with other slow cookers (where to put the lid, how to wash up a cumbersome ceramic pot) has been dealt with. 

• The best Instant Pot deals: offers from the king of the multi-cooker

The hinged lid is perfect at catching condensation for slow cooks where you’ll be testing the meat at different intervals. The sear-proof pot means this is still a one-pot cooking job, and we appreciated being able to put the inner pot straight into the dishwasher after cooking.

At 3.5 liters (3.6 quarts) you can easily feed a family, but you might want to look at bigger models if you have pot-lucks and batch cooking in mind. For wanna-be Masterchefs with adventurous culinary creations in sight, you’ll also want to consider the fact there are only three cooking functions: low, medium and high.

Performance

The main thing this machine lacks is a timer, which is why you’ll pay less than other models. This means you can’t “set it and forget it” (although you could easily set an alarm on your phone, for example), or time it to start cooking while you’re at work. 

And yet, because the cooking modes are so long, you could start this cooking as you left for work and you’d get the 8-10 hours cooking time done. It makes light work of grains and legumes, such as the yellow split peas we tried, which usually take 12 hours of soaking before cooking. Here they were slow cooked to perfection in just four hours.

There’s no pressure cooking here, just the go-slow. When it comes to browning meat and vegetables for casseroles and stews, this machine could really do with insulated handles on the pot, as there’s no way to hold on to the pot when using straight on a hob. This is particularly tricky as it’s so lightweight and moves around easily on the hob, but an oven glove would help.

Of course, there were plenty of benefits too. When we returned from 8 hours at work, the slow cooker had retained all of the cooking smell in the pot, and the depth of flavor with the goulash we made was incredible.

The inner pot and lid are both dishwasher safe, and as the model is so light, we found everything about this easy to clean and take care of.

The price point seems very reasonable for a family slow cooker that gets all the basics right. With so few programmes, there’s little that can go wrong with the Morphy Richards slow cooker, and we were happy to leave this running while we went to work for the day.

Verdict

The pot is smaller than the others we tried, so if you’re cooking a joint of meat you’ll want to be careful to ensure that it will fit. But for stews and casseroles, this would easily feed a family.

Deceptively simple, this is actually a very practical model and an update on the old school design. It’s also small and lightweight, so great if you’re short on space. It would be helpful to have a timer included in the pot, but for this price, you’re opting for a strong budget option instead of an all-singing all-dancing machine.

• Best Instant Pot, pressure and slow cookers: hearty meals, with ease

A slow cooker that can also sous vide? With the promise of upping our dinner party game, Russell Hobbs’ Sous Vide Slow Cooker was too tempting to pass up. 

Priced at the higher end of the market, this machine would need to cover superb slow cooking as well as the more ostentatious offerings. And it does incredibly well, especially if you're a meat-lover.

But, crucially, can it beat the Instant Pot? Read on to find out.

Price and availability

Russell Hobbs’ Sous Vide Slow Cooker has an RRP of £99.99 (about $130 / AU$180), but can regularly be found at hovering around the £70 mark, too.

With its temperature probe and large capacity, it's worthy of that price, and definitely worth picking up on sale. But we're still smitten with the Instant Pot Duo V2 for the ultimate in multi-cooking slow cooker appliances.

Design

If you’ve always dreamt of conquering braised steak, pork belly and lamb shank with a slow cooker or red snapper in the sous vide, the Russell Hobbs Sous Vide Slow Cooker could take your kitchen game from zero to hero. Whole roasted chickens can be accommodated, the temperature monitored to perfection, and we even strayed into preparing homemade seitan and salt beef for the weekends.

The glass lid makes all the difference for slow cooking, and we liked using it for checking on food hours into the process, without having to take off the lid. The lid seal and lid handle also make it really easy to use even after hours of high temperature cooking.

• The best Instant Pot deals: offers from the king of the multi-cooker

But we were mystified by the metal clips. Initially, we assumed these were for a pressure cooking setting, but this machine doesn’t cover that. According to instructions these are for making the container air tight so you can transport a meal to a party or a pot luck, although we’d struggle to carry this machine anywhere.

At 6.5 litres (6.8 quarts) it’s huge, and it takes up a large quantity of kitchen surface space. The inner ceramic dish is also heavy, meaning it’s not super practical to be carrying to the table like other multi-cookers we reviewed.

Performance

It’s frustrating that this model doesn’t offer a sear option, so you can neither start a recipe in the pan or finish one off. However, despite being more limited with the number of functions it offers, the results of the food we did test were so delicious, we’re willing to put that to one side. If tender cuts of meat and succulent fillets of salmon are your MO, this machine will suit you to the ground.

In reality, the sous vide element is a metal stand (akin to a toast rack) that sits in the pot, and into which you can sit bags of food to be gently cooked for hours at a regulated temperature (thanks to the probe). Russell Hobbs have utilised the slow cooker in a brilliant way without (seemingly) having to change the traditional set up too much. It is a shame not to get some sous vide bags in the set though.

This is a hefty machine, which is reflected in the price. It feels robust and like the kind of machine that will last years. The ceramic pot is heavy (albeit dishwasher safe), and it would take up a fair amount of room on a work surface or in a cupboard when not being used. But because its purpose is so focused on meat and fish, you are going to want that volume. You could easily fit a chicken in here and not have to worry about taking a tape measure down to the butchers with you.

Safety-wise, with a sealed lid and sturdy base, we found this machine felt safe to use no matter which program we tested. 

It costs around what we'd expect from the higher-end of this market, but if you’ve been considering also picking up a sous vide or temperature probe separately, it makes sense to combine purchases with one model. The heavy ceramic pot feels much sturdier than cheaper models, too.

Verdict

If you’re a meat fanatic, or keen to impress friends with temperature-specific dishes then this is a great choice. The depth of flavor of everything we made was fantastic, and we were really sold on the slow cooker benefits with this machine. Even cheaper cuts of meat or ingredients as simple as a good stock and a few garlic cloves completely transformed our usual recipes after cooking for 6-8 hours.

The array of cooking programs this machine can achieve will change the recipes you’ll consider cooking for a crowd. Surprisingly, it doesn’t have a sauté option, which means you can’t begin recipes in this, or quickly reheat food in the pot. That’s where we recommend considering the Instant Pot or Crock Pot as an alternative.

However, if meat, fish and stews are your bag, this is a great modern classic machine, and that’s why we’ve scored it so high. Not for the range of programs, but for how pleasing it is to use and the fact it feels like something that will last for years.

• Best Instant Pot, pressure and slow cookers: hearty meals, with ease