Is Instant Pot a brand name, or a generic description? What size should two people who don't cook and might use it twice before moving to the old folks home buy? Cliff has been bemoaning the loss of two crock pots sold at a garage sale last year. Mind you he used a crock pot once every other year and we never really found a recipe that was worth fussing with a crockpot. But $49 has me intrigued.
Its a multi-function machine. Depending on what model you buy, it has different functions. But primarily: pressure cooker, slow cooker, steamer, sear/saute, rice cooker, porridge makers and yogurt maker.
Generally speaking, the 8 quart model is considered most practical, because you can sear/saute meat in larger batches (because of the larger size of the pot). Obviously though 8 quarts is a lot of food for 2 people.
We are also a family of 2 and I already have a pressure cooker, slow cooker, a steamer basket, pots/pans/stove to sear/saute, and I haven't made yogurt at home in years. But I've been looking to replace my rice cooker, it just doesn't do a good job with brown rice.
Honestly a better rice cooker is probably what I need. But Amazon Prime has a deal today on the 3 quart Instant Pot Ultra (the Ultra is the model with the most features)- its $50, normally $100. So I bought it. I figure it might be kind of small and I might have to sear in batches, which I'm ok with because I think the 3 quart size will suit our family-of-two needs a little better.
The Walmart special is an Instapot Lux, which is the entry-level least-featured model, 6 quart size.
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