- Today we are testing the popular Instant Pot
versus your traditional pressure cooker.
The one thing about pressurizing food is
it's quick, but it doesn't really develop the flavors
as much as a slow-cooking method.
So compared to your basic pressure cooker,
which is just a pot,
the lid that pressurizes,
you're using it on a standard stove top.
This guy is supposed to be a slow cooker,
and a pressure cooker all-in-one.
80 to 100 dollars for the pressure cooker.
160 dollars for the Instant Pot.
This one is a smart cooker,
it cooks everything in a quarter of the time
that it would normally take.
Sometimes there's a little bit of an issue,
people get scared, just a little bit dangerous
sometimes to use if you don't know how to use it correctly.
We're going to test it with beef stew.
It is literally... (Instant Pot beeps)
Oh, it's singing.
I like gadgets that sing to me though.
Honestly, that is one of my favorite things.
The very first thing that we're gonna do
is saute the meat.
So, we'll let this heat up,
and then we will let heat up on a stove top.
We'll add a little bit of oil.
Using one and a half pounds of stew meat...
Normally in a regular pot, I would say a beef stew
would take anywhere between hour, hour and a half.
These guys 15 minutes,
or so they say.
It's been a few minutes.
My guy over here is already browning quite nicely.
Pull it off the heat for a second.
This just seems like a very medium heat.
I just don't think that the saute function on this
is as great as your regular stove top.
But the meat is browned.
So at this point I think I'm going to add my vegetables.
So I just have some carrots, onions, celery, and potatoes.
I have some nice caramelization going on here.
Here is not even boiling,
it's just sorta steaming together
without much action happening.
I have a quart of beef stock, tomatoes,
Worcestershire, some bay leaf, chile powder, give it a mix.
We're gonna put the lid on,
let it pressurize 15 minutes and boom.
(Instant Pot beeps)
We have a stew button, so that's what I'm going to press.
We're going to do 15 minutes.
The manual says that we are in preheat mode,
which can range from anywhere between 10 to 40 minutes,
depending on the content that's inside this pressure cooker.
That's a really large range.
With my standard pressure cooker,
you let the stew come up to a boil.
At this point, you're just gonna close the lid.
I'm going to put this on two,
which means high cooking.
A delicious beef stew is obviously really tender meat.
Veggies should be soft, but not like totally mushy.
So, here's the thing,
when you're pressure cooking anything,
you want to bring it up to a boil,
then put the lid on,
then it starts pressuring.
So, right now, this guy is still at the preheating stages.
Whereas, this one has already been boiling.
This finally is pressurizing.
So it took 15 minutes just to come up to a pressure.
So, really the cook time would be 30 minutes on this.
15 minutes.
(loud steam releases)
Releasing the steam.
(pot lid clicks)
Smells really good.
Looks like the vegetables are pretty soft.
The meat is tender.
(Instant Pot beeps) There we go.
(loud steam releases)
The beef is still very hard, it's not soft.
(upbeat music)
Let's taste.
Oh, yeah, that's good.
The meat is soft,
it's thickened slightly.
I would say that that is like really, really good beef stew.
With the Instant Pot, a little bland,
this definitely needs more time.
The beef is not soft at all yet.
I'm not sure if you can write it off as instant,
because what is instant really mean,
it means quick cooking.
And if you're gonna give an hour for the beef stew,
I'm not sure if you can really say that that's instant.
Especially compared to a true pressure cooker.
I feel like the reason why this didn't cook
as fast as this one,
is definitely because of the heating element.
It just didn't get as hot as the pressure cooker
on the stove top.
Well, I don't want to completely write it off
because I still kind of like it.
The greatest function about this is, I feel like,
you can just throw everything in a pot,
put the lid on,
walk away, do your laundry, go to the gym,
I don't know, go to work maybe,
and come back and you have your food ready.
It'll keep food warm for up to 10 hours.
It's very similar to the slow cooker.
It's just a shorter amount of time.
In my restaurants, when I have to put out food
in like an hour,
and I need to make stock in 10 minutes,
I would recommend this.
But, if you are just,
you know, using it for convenience,
something that you don't really have to think about,
and just throw in a pot and walk away,
I would say this is great.
For more great kitchen gadgets,
click here.
There you go, so let's do this.
Plugging in the pizza machine.
My beautiful pizza,
and close.
(dramatic music)