Do Chefs Use the Instant Pot (Pressure Cookers?) The Instant Pot, colloquially known as the Instapot, is the most popular pressure cooker on the market. Widely loved and praised for its ease of use, safety, and hands-off cooking, it is the kitchen application of choice for many busy families.
Many Instant Pot beginners find themselves saying, “Surely this is be too good to be true.” Subsequently, one common follow-up question is, “do chefs use Instant Pots?”
Instapots are multi-cookers. In addition to pressure cooking functionality, they offer a variety of bonus features (depending on the model). Your Instant Pot can act as a pressure cooker, slow cooker, rice cooker, steamer, sautér, food warm, yogurt maker, sterilizer, cake maker, canner, and sous vide-er.
Because even the most bare-bones Instant Pot models are comparable to ‘traditional’ pressure cookers, the question you really want to know is…
Do Professional Chefs Use Pressure Cookers?
Answer: Yes! …and, no! The answer is nuanced, so let’s explain.
When are pressure cookers commonly used in professional kitchens?
They are most commonly used in industrial settings to quickly prepare meat or stocks. However, in most scenarios, Elite Chefs avoid using pressure cookers because they provide less control over the final dish. Chefs often prefer slow cooking techniques that accentuate and pull out the flavors of the food.
Benefits of Cooking With an Instant Pot
- Even professional Chefs find benefits in the Instant Pot’s ability to reduce total cooking time.
- The pressure cooker’s steam moistens the food in the pot. This cooks the food quickly without losing moisture.
- Little to no nutritional value is lost because pressure cooking is a closed cooking method.
- The Instant Pot does not heat up the kitchen and saves on energy costs.
- The style of cooking prevents flavors from escaping and fully extracts flavors from bones and herbs in minutes.
What Dishes Do Chefs Cook with Instant Pots?
Pressure cookers are popular among chefs, but they aren’t the primary cooking technique they employ. One of the most popular dishes Chefs use pressure cookers for are curries. An Instant Pot will allow them to cook curries considerably faster with little downside.
Check out this video where professional Chef Carla demos how to make Polenta Cacio e Pepe with the Instant Pot!
Why Are Instant Pots Popular Appliances in Busy Kitchens?
If you need to prepare food on a tight schedule, a pressure cooker is one of the most popular go-to cooking tools. With the power to prepare food rapidly, this innovative kitchen appliance transformed domestic kitchens.
As a result, it may appear natural for experienced cooks who are continuously pressed for time to employ it. Surprisingly, this is not always true. Do chefs make use of pressure cookers?
Disadvantages: Why Chefs Don’t Use Instant Pots?
Time, speed, and efficiency aren’t everything! There are several key reasons why some chefs opt for a different style of cooking.
Ingredients cook at different rates
Some ingredients cook quicker than others. For example, root vegetables take longer than leafy greens. So, you might struggle to use a pressure cooker for recipes with many components that require varied cooking periods. This might not be noticeable for at-home recipes, but a Michelin star chef will disagree!
The solution: traditional pans allow chefs to keep adding ingredients at various stages of cooking.
A pressure cooker’s cover cannot be opened while cooking because all the steam (and pressure) will be released. Any recipe that requires gradual ingredient additions won’t be suitable for Instant Pots. Another solution: modify the recipe or avoid using the pressure cooker.
Zero visibility – you can’t check on the food as it cooks
Chefs frequently check on their foods while they cook. The best usually continually taste, color, etc.
An Instant Pot does not allow you to monitor the food inside. Although most recipes have perfected the exact cook time, your food may be overdone or undercooked if you are experimenting with something new.
The solution: Either use an excellent recipe or take a chance. The issue frequently occurs when a recipe’s duration is unknown.
No ‘season-as-you-go’
A chef’s meal is a work in progress, from start to finish. You will be hard-pressed to find a chef who doesn’t like to taste his or her meal (multiple times) while preparing it.
This continual tasting process helps them to fine-tune the flavor and texture. A pressure cooker does not allow for highly granular control. Seasoning can only be applied before or after cooking. Renowned chefs will find it tough to achieve comparable taste depth with using a pressure cooker versus traditional gradual cooking.
What Are The Worst Foods For Chefs To Cook With An Instant Pot
Pressure cookers are especially unpopular for the following dishes:
In conclusion, just because most of the top Michelin Star chefs might not use pressure cookers on a daily basis, doesn’t mean the Instant Pot isn’t a perfect addition to your kitchen! Unless you’re preparing highly specialized meals and have all day to prepare, it is unlikely that the opinion of the world’s top chefs should seriously impact your decision to use an IP in your day-to-day cooking.
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FAQs
Even professional Chefs find benefits in the Instant Pot's ability to reduce total cooking time. The pressure cooker's steam moistens the food in the pot. This cooks the food quickly without losing moisture. Little to no nutritional value is lost because pressure cooking is a closed cooking method.
Why do chefs use pressure cookers? ›
In a pressure cooker, you put the food in and something that takes hours and hours, like short ribs, can cook in just 45 minutes or an hour. Instead of simmering chicken stock on the stove for hours, you can make it in about an hour. As a Personal Chef, speed is of the essence and I use my pressure cookers a lot.
Are pressure cookers used in restaurants? ›
Pressure cookers have become an indispensable tool for busy kitchens in restaurants all over the world.
Are Instant Pots good pressure cookers? ›
Yes, we do think an Instant Pot is worth it, particularly for pressure cooking. There's a reason it's one of the most popular kitchen appliances out there.
Do people still use Instant Pots? ›
More recent data would suggest that the Instant Pot's popularity is on the decline. Search interest for the device in June 2021 was the lowest it's been since 2018, and its big spikes in interest — which happen like clockwork every winter — failed to hit the same highs in 2020 and 2021.
Are instapots worth the money? ›
If you're looking to save counter space or don't want to spend a lot of money on separate appliances, then an Instant Pot could be worth the expense. However, if you're only going to use one or two functions of the Instant Pot, it's worth considering if separate devices would be more cost-effective.
What are the disadvantages of cooking in a pressure cooker? ›
However, starchy foods may form acrylamide, a harmful chemical, when pressure cooked. Consumption of this chemical on a regular basis may lead to health issues like cancer, infertility, and neurological disorders.
What can you not cook in a pressure cooker? ›
Foods containing dairy, like milk, cream, or yogurt, should not be pressure-cooked. The high heat and pressure can cause dairy products to curdle or separate, ruining the texture, taste and flavour of the dish. Cooking fried foods is a strict no no, when it comes to pressure cookers.
Do people still cook with pressure cookers? ›
But while such hazards may have been possible in the past, they're practically fiction today. Pressure cookers are safe to use. More than that, they're incredibly useful. In this age of speed, efficiency, and optimization, there are few tools in the kitchen more suited to cooks who demand good food quickly.
Is brisket better in slow cooker or pressure cooker? ›
Because pressure cookers utilise steam to cook food very quickly, they are the perfect choice for cooking meals such as beef brisket that can take a much longer time than slow cookers, yet provide almost identical results.
If you are interested primarily in slow cooking, you should buy a dedicated slow cooker. They're more reliable with a range of slow-cooker recipes than an Instant Pot. We found Instant Pot multicookers specifically could not successfully slow-cook dense, high-volume recipes such as beef stew or pot roast.
Why are Instant Pots so popular? ›
The Instant Pot became nothing short of a phenomenon because it makes the wonders of pressure cooking (that is, cooking things very fast) seem practical. It's easy to use, and it also does the job of a slow cooker and a rice maker, all without taking up too much space.
Which pressure cooker is best for health? ›
Stainless steel pressure cookers are generally considered to be the better choice for health, as they are less likely to leach metals into food during cooking. Additionally, stainless steel is more resistant to corrosion and rusting, meaning it will last longer.
What Instant Pots are being recalled? ›
The recall involves batch codes 1728, 1730, 1731, 1734, or 1746, which are printed on the rating label on the underside of the device. The recalled Instant Pots were sold at Walmart stores nationwide and online between August 2017 and January 2018 for about $80.
Do Instant Pots still explode? ›
Explosions can occur if there are manufacturing defects, if the lid is opened too soon, if the vent gets clogged, or if safety features like the blowout preventer fail to work properly. Users can also suffer burns if they overfill their Instant Pot or fail to put in enough water.
Are Instant Pots a fire hazard? ›
Units can overheat and melt, posing a fire hazard
Learn more. Instant Pot today recalled 104,000 Gem 65 8-in-1 Multicookers because they can overheat and melt on the underside, posing a fire hazard.
What is the advantage of cooking with a pressure cooker? ›
Reduced Cooking Time
Pressure cookers use steam and heat inside a sealed pot to quickly produce rich flavors. In fact, food can be cooked up to 70% faster than conventional cooking methods. It can cook chicken from frozen in a little over 5 minutes or make tender and juicy pot roast in under an hour.
Why is pressure cooking better than boiling? ›
As steam builds, pressure increases, driving the boiling point of water past 212°F (100°C). In general, this higher temperature shortens cooking times and, due to a lack of evaporation, extracts flavor more efficiently from foods.
Does food taste better in a pressure cooker? ›
Pressure cookers also preserve the color of foods when compared to other cooking methods like boiling. The end result is foods that look more appetizing, taste flavorful and contain more healthy nutrients. Pressure cooker meals tend to be one-pot meals, which makes them both easy and energy-saving.
Why are meals cooked faster in a pressure cooker? ›
Food cooks faster in a pressure cooker. Its because the pressure increases inside the cooker, which also increases the boiling point of water. So, more heat is required to reach the boiling point and is sufficient to cook food in a reduced time.
