Can You Cook In An Instant Pot

You can apply yourInstant Pot to cook a ton of foods and reduce the time it takes to cook things like beans, rice and tougher cuts of meat -- sometimes by hours -- all through the magic of even heat and steam. Yet for all Instant Pot's flexibility and kitchen prowess, it can't cook everything safely -- or if it tin can, you may find the results junior to more traditional cooking methods.

Steer clear of these 10 ingredients or dishes you shouldn't try to cook in your archetype Instant Pot. For more than, bank check out theseaccessories that tin sterilize items and cook food via the sous-vide method. The Instant Pot brand fifty-fifty has anair fryer you tin can use to make rotisserie chicken and homemade beef jerky.

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Crunchy, crispy nutrient

Unless you lot've purchased a specialty model, your Instant Pot is not a force per unit area fryer and isn't designed for the higher temperatures needed to estrus cooking oil for something like crispy fried chicken. Of course, an Instant Pot is perfect for a dish like carnitas, just to become the final crisp on the meat, later on you lot remove the meat from the Instant Pot, transfer to a skillet and brown for a few minutes or on a baking sheet to well-baked upwards in a hot oven.

Read more: Best Air Fryers Yous Can Purchase Now

Dairy

Only like in a slow cooker, most dairy products such as cheese, milk and sour foam volition curdle in an Instant Pot, no matter if y'all use the force per unit area cooking setting or the slow cooking setting. Add these ingredients later on the dish cooks or avoid making the recipe in the Instant Pot birthday.

In that location are two exceptions. One is when you're making yogurt, and that's merely if you lot use a recipe specifically for an Instant Pot. The other is if you're making a cheesecake, and again, but if you're post-obit an Instant Pot recipe.

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Pasta

While you technically tin can cook pasta in an Instant Pot, information technology may come out gummy or unevenly cooked. Honestly, unless you lot don't have the option, boiling the pasta in a pot on a stovetop is just as fast and easy and will yield consistently better cooked pasta.

Two recipes at once

Cooking a roast with potatoes and carrots is a time-honored recipe, correct? Not in this example. Don't try to melt a main dish with a side dish in your Instant Pot. They may fit in the pot together, simply each nutrient volition need its own cooking time. Cooking items together volition inevitably result in a dry or mushy mess.

Cakes

Yous aren't really baking a cake in an Instant Pot, y'all're steaming it. The cake will be moist -- which works for something like bread pudding -- but you won't get a overnice crust on the block or the chewy edges that anybody fights over with baked brownies. Yet, if you do need to throw something together for a potluck or quick family dessert, you can go a moist sponge in one-half an hour or so, excluding prep fourth dimension.

Canning

Canning, the art of cooking and sealing foods in jars, is often washed in a pressure level cooker. So, it may seem like a adept idea to make a batch of jams, pickles or jellies in your Instant Pot. Don't do it.

With an Instant Pot, yous're not able to monitor the temperature of what you're canning equally you would with a regular force per unit area cooker. With canning, cooking and sealing the food correctly is key. Improper cooking and sealing can pb to leaner growth that can cause nutrient poisoning.

While you want to avert canning with an Instant Pot, some of the newer models (like the Duo Plus)do accept a sterilize setting that lets you clean infant bottles and kitchen items like jars and utensils.

Rare or medium-rare meats

A pressure cooker is non a charcoal-broil. An Instant Pot does smashing with tougher cuts of meat -- which the force per unit area cooker tin can easily pause down -- just not so good with ones that are best eaten medium-rare, like a steak. Save those for the grill.

(If you lot are looking for beef recipes that are perfect for an Instant Pot, our companion site Chowhound has several squeamish collections for quick meals and summertime dining.)

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Yellowish and ruby lentils

We love lentils, just not all of them can be cooked in an Instant Pot. Brown and greenish lentils can hold upwardly to pressure cooking, but the more fragile xanthous and red versions turn to mush because they cook and then quickly. Unless y'all're purposely making lentil soup or dhal, stick to cooking cerise and yellow lentils on the stove to preserve their texture and shape.

Sous-vide

Don't endeavor this trendy method of cooking with most Instant Pots models. The Instant Pot Max is an exception because it gives you the ability to accurately control the cooking temperature. If you don't ain an Instant Pot that has that level of command, yous are ameliorate off using an Instant Pot attachment to exercise your sous-vide cooking, if you are actually prepare on using your force per unit area cooker this way.

Seafood

In full general, seafood such equally fish, oysters, shrimp, muscles and clams are just also frail for force per unit area cooking and slow cooking modes. They are foods that are meant to be cooked quickly at just the right temperature, which is hard to do with an Instant Pot. A few seconds as well long or at the incorrect temperature and you can end up with mush or rubbery lumps.

Besides, fish, shellfish and crustaceans are easily cooked with other methods, so breaking out the Instant Pot for them won't guarantee better results every bit information technology can for tougher meats.

The only exception is octopus and squid. Pressure cooking these tough creatures can brand them tender while keeping the meat juicy. Just exist sure to find a recipe that is specifically for the Instant Pot.

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