Instant Pot Duo 7-in-1 Electric Pressure Cooker Review

For the price, this kitchen marvel is an unbeatable cooking monster! You can chop cooking times down to a fraction of what traditional cooking requires, and the features of this machine are almost intimidating. As for the rice cooking feature, which was a big part of my motivation behind this purchase, it was refreshing to know that it uses a stainless steel bowl (refreshing after finding out that those $30 rice cookers have coatings that can come off onto your food (that has to be healthy, right?). Also interesting to note is that Zojirushi, a Japanese brand that specializes in super fancy rice cookers that start around $140 and go up to $440, has their top-of-the-line rice cooker as a pressure cooker and many reviewers claiming that pressure cooking is the best way to make the fluffiest rice. So while this unit doesn’t have induction cooking, or the magical ability to count how many times or for how many minutes the lid has been open in order to determine how much heat is required to keep the rice at the ideal temperature, this unit is less than a fourth of the price, but still shares the same pressure-cooking feature as their best model. For people like me not sleeping on piles of money, that’s not nothing!

One reviewer made mention that while you can cook plenty of things in the rice cooker, and make wonderful spicy dishes, doing so means that you will never really get normal perfect rice going on again. My initial thought (agreed upon by a close friend) was, “How about you just clean it better after using spices?” Well, after making some curry in my Instant Pot, I found out where he was coming from. This is a quality cooker, but nothing seals better than plastic, and, you guessed it, the seal around the lid is a plastic ring. Anybody who has worked with plastic before knows that plastic has a nasty habit of letting things penetrate inside. And so while you may give your machine a normal cleaning, that plastic ring can redeposit some of your previous recipes’ flavoring into your latest dish. It’s not so noticeable when you go from full dish to full dish, but when you transfer to just doing plain light-flavored rice, it can be noticeable. Is it possible to completely clean that rubber seal to prevent that from happening? Of course, but just be aware that it will take noticeably more effort than your average cleaning to get it back to how it was when you started – that or buy a lot of replacement rings. 😉 That being said, it is a relatively minor inconvenience for how wonderful this machine is, and is the reason I decided not to drop a star from the machine.

Another minor irritation is the steamer tray thing they give. Why not just provide a steamer tray, instead of a steamer thing that will hold a steamer tray? I didn’t bother with it at all since you still have to buy something to hold your vegetables in anyway, you might as well just buy the classic collapsible steamer tray to use in it and never use the thing they give you. I actually tried to steam some edamame on the tray they provided while waiting for my collapsible steamer to arrive from Amazon……I wouldn’t recommend that.

(On a side note, if you steam your vegetables with any spices on them, use the leftover water to cook your rice in. It not only tastes pretty darn good, but you get to save any of those nutrients that may have leaked out of the vegetables during the steaming process! I like to do that and add a little saffron to the rice before cooking it – outstanding!)

Another amazing feature is it’s timer function. It doesn’t have a clock, so you can’t give it a starting time of day (which would be nice), but it does have a delay timer, which basically is the same thing, only this method helps keep your math skills sharp! I used it every day so that I could wake up to Steel Cut Oatmeal ready made for me, and for anyone who doesn’t know, Steel Cut Oats can take up to 45 minutes to make on the stove if not prepared ahead of time. I know the manual says that you shouldn’t make oatmeal in it, but I made it every morning and never had a problem, so you can decide for yourself if it’s worth the risk. I would do it again in a heartbeat.
Notice that I said “I used it every day” and not “I use it every day”. Sadly it is no longer in my possession because I bought it when I went down to Texas for a military tour, and despite my optimism that all would be fine, I had to leave my machine with the baggage guy because it made my suitcase overweight. Early Christmas for him I guess. If it helps to tell you how much I enjoyed it while I had it, I’m thinking of repurchasing it again because I still haven’t found anything better in a similar price category.

If you are traveling and staying in a hotel for a while, this is perfect since most hotels don’t come with kitchenettes. But even just for your house, this is a wonderful addition!