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MyFitnessPal Community

Which pot for us? Recommendations?

tripitena

Lookibg to purchase our first instant pot. I have decades of experience with a 1970 Presto Pressure Cooker and I love it. I hear I am missing out.

There are 3 adults in my house, eventually 2 when daughter moves out.

Brand, size advice? I want one that will replace the vintage much loved Presto with as many options as possible.

We do a lot of legumes, whole grains (bulgur, barley, rices), lots of vegetables. The primary meat used here is chicken and not a lot of it as only one of us is true omni.We roast a lot of veggies and the chicken. Lots of soups and stews. Have an air fryer for the little bit of that we do, like tortilla shreds for soup.

Anyway. Install pot brand? Other? Size? Functions? Lemme hear it, pros and cons.

Oh and cant wait to try sum of these posts.

Replies

Lorleee

We are two adults and find the 6-quart perfect. I like to make soups and stews and I like leftovers for lunches and second night dinners. I think the 8 would be a bit too large for our needs.

Lorleee

And yes, it's great with beans and lentils. I also do carrots and sweet potatoes and they turn out really well.

baygirl2019

Yes I would recommend a 6 quart. Depending on what you want to do with it? Do you want to make Yogurt? That is the big question to decide what you are going to make. Here is a great link that has a diagram to help you to decide which pot to buy for your needs.
Which Instant Pot to Buy

ExistingFish

I have a 6.5 quart Ninja Foodi, it's a pressure cooker AND an air fryer. It's fabulous. We have two adults and 3 kids (all small). I wish I had the 8 quart TBH, but it was a gift. In the future, I may upgrade to the 8 quart (I know lots of people have two....) and gift the 6.5 quart. We'll see, this will probably work until the kids are older.

You can make yogurt with any model, despite some not having a yogurt button. Mine doesn't, and I've made yogurt twice already in it (I just got it for Christmas!). It just requires a bit more hands-on work.

baygirl2019

You can make yogurt with any model, but only cold start with pots that have a yogurt button.

ExistingFish

baygirl2019 wrote: »

You can make yogurt with any model, but only cold start with pots that have a yogurt button.

Not so. I made cold start last time. You have to have a keep warm button. Now, I'm not sure if it's a total cold start, as I warmed my milk up to 115 on the stove, but then put it right in the pot, not to 180 like non-UHT milk. I did an experiment and found it would take the pot about 30 minutes to bring the milk from room temp to 115 if I didn't use the stove, so that was an option too.

You have to use jars or a bowl, put it on the trivet and use the keep warm button. With water in the bottom it keeps it about 115, dry about 110. If you put water in the bottom, it will evaporate by the time your yogurt is done.

ExistingFish

Now, I was not thrilled with the texture. I'm not sure if it was the fairlife or what, I also tried added sweetened condensed milk. Not worth the hassle. I'm just using regular milk, either UHT, or regular and heating it from now on. I was not impressed with Fairlife yogurt.

baygirl2019

Well I'm not gonna argue with you since I have never made yogurt. Don't really like yogurt, but I've heard of people who hate store bought but are loving the instant pot yogurt. I do not like the sourness or tartness of yogurt.

ExistingFish

baygirl2019 wrote: »

Well I'm not gonna argue with you since I have never made yogurt. Don't really like yogurt, but I've heard of people who hate it loving the instant pot yogurt.

I starting making it because my kids could mainline it. It's not a good deal though if you buy Fairlife, you might as well by yogurt premade. The cost savings really only come in when you buy a gallon of regular.

Yeah I just want to get the word out, people don't know you can make yogurt (even cold start!) in a pot without a yogurt button. I'd check it though, I put my trivet and jars in the pot and tested it with water and a thermometer for over an hour to make sure it'd hold the temp I wanted.

Anyone reading this, you still MUST use UHT pasteurized milk for cold start. Fairlife is just a brand of filtered UHT milk. All the organic milk at my store is UHT pasteurized and Kroger sells their brand too, it's in different bottles.

If it's regular pasteurized, "gentle" pasteurized, etc - you have to scald it first. Also, you can tell by the expiry dates. UHT can be like 6-8 weeks out, where regular will be about 2 weeks out.

baygirl2019

Good to know, I'll pass that on.