7 Useful Tips to Make the Most of Your Instant Pot

You saw how your friend’s life has been made so easy with a versatile Instant Pot, and so, you too are planning to buy the appliance for you. It’s indeed a useful appliance that can do the job of many other appliances for you, and thus can save your time, energy, money and of course, counter space. However, you can still make even better use of your instant pot. Here are a few useful tips.

1. Multiple Buttons

When you compare instant pot models, you’ll notice multiple buttons on the appliance and you should make use of them in order to make the most of your appliance. For example, there is a Sauté button with which you can caramelize the onions when you start cooking. Next you can use the Manual pressure cooking button to use when you want to add the meat or vegetables. There is also a Keep Warm button to help you keep your dish warm until everyone is gathered around the dining table.

2. Temperature Adjustment

If you think that once you select a cooking function, your job is over, you are wrong. Actually you can even adjust the temperature while using the Slow Cooker or Sauté functions. This is great to get just the right temperature while cooking a specific dish.

3. Be Wary of Dairy

Although your instant pot has a yogurt-making function, this appliance doesn’t always necessarily cook cheesy and creamy sauces very well. The reason for this is that milk can curdle or scald quickly and cheese can turn watery or can even congeal. While making cheesy or creamy dish using dairy products, add the dairy ingredient once the cooking process is complete. This way the dish will become creamy and won’t become watery or curdled.

4. Use Liquid during Pressure Cooking

The principle on which a pressure cooker works is that a pressure is built with the help of steam and thus the food is cooked. To build this pressure, the inner pot should have at least half to one cup of liquid. You can build the pressure only in this way and therefore it’s crucial to remember this tip while using the pressure cooker setting on your instant pot.

5. Add a Few Minutes for Building Pressure

Even the best instapot takes around ten minutes to build the required pressure within the pot inside. Thus, when you’ll use the Manual or Pressure button while cooking, add around 10 to 15 minutes to the cooking time to allow the Instant Pot to develop adequate pressure. E.g. if your dish mentions 15 minutes of cooking time, you should input 25 to 30 minutes on the unit.

6. Let it be Closed

Although the instant pot is a very safe appliance, you should practice some safety measures that come through just common sense. Once you select the Pressure or Manual mode, make sure you turn the pressure valve to Sealing. This will help you seal the pressure within the unit during the cooking process. Once you select one of these modes, you get only ten seconds to press Cancel and discontinue the cooking process. Once those ten seconds are passed and if you want to cancel, never try to open the lid. As such, it’s very difficult to open the instant pot on these modes; but remember to avoid even trying it.

7. Multiple Inner Pots

There is an inner pot available with your instant pot to cook food. However several instant pot owners prefer to have multiple inner pots. This enables them to cook multiple dishes in a single cooking session and storage becomes easier too. A number of other Instant Pot accessories are also available such as silicone molds and steaming racks, with which you can cook a great range of dishes.

Make the most of your instant pot with the above tips and enjoy cooking!