Which do you use more - food processor or instant pot (or other pressure cooker)?

I think it mostly depends on what kind of food you like. I think my slow cooker is tied with my immersion blender for usefulness in my kitchen, although I love my stand mixer as well, but could live without it. I don't have an instapot, so I can't comment on that, but I also don't feel like I want one. I also really like my Nutribullet, but that was a gift and I don't know if I would have bought it for myself. I only get my food processor out once in a while.

We have an old-style "jiggle top" stovetop pressure cooker that gets 1-2 uses/wk in the cooler seasons. Drops off in the warm (but now I'm using our grill 5+ times/week). Slow cooker varies about 3-4x/month during the cooler season. I'd use the slow cooker more, but I tend to run behind on my daily meal preps, so by the time I'm ready to cook, it's early to mid-afternoon and we wouldn't be eating until late due to slow cooking - my wife is up for work at 0500, so that's not going to work for us. I use the pressure cooker for a variety of things, for whole meals, soups and sides (rice, beans, etc.). It's large, 8L. The slow cooker mostly for whole meals and soups. I'm a bit lazy and usually use a crock liner bag to save on cleanup; this impacts my ability to easily run an immersion blender in the soup to puree it up.

I use both a full-size and mini food processor 1-2+/wk all year. I just used both today - the mini to render a bunch of cilantro for an herb-y mixed bean salad, and the full-size to shred up veggies for coleslaw. I agree with the poster above, that a good chef knife and cutting board are often more convenient, esp. including the cleanup. For instance, for the bean salad, I used normal knife skills for some veggies and the green beans for the bean salad, but got lazy and just piled fresh cilantro into the mini chopper. Likewise, I manually peeled carrots and cleaned them of their greens, plus chopped the cabbage head, before putting them through the feeder into the large food processor. Although my larger Cuisinart claims dishwasher-safe bowl/etc., I always hand wash them - the thing has thus lasted over 15yrs. The replacement bowls are expensive.

Which is better? We get a really great veg-beef stew from the pressure cooker, and an OK one from the slow cooker. On the other hand, chicken-barley soups and stews are better in the slow cooker. Depends, depends ....

I don't usually do anything with the food processor that goes into either the pressure cooker or slow cooker. Knife skills for more chunky recipe components are usually called for. One exception: slow cooker salsa chicken using my food processor to make the salsa.

Good luck!

I only have a few kitchen "gadgets," and two are food processor and slow cooker.

I tend not to like how things taste coming out of the pressure cooker (or maybe that was just how my mom cooked), and I am paranoid that they will explode. I know it won't...but I still fear it, haha.

I use my Instant Pot all the time. It's amazing. I use my food processor pretty often, but if I personally had to give one of the two up, I would keep the Instant Pot.

I personally love the ninja mini food processor we have at home. I use it to prep veggies for meals throughout the week (and make chocolate avocado "pudding" or frosting), the cleanup is easy because it's so small, and it doesn't take up much shelf or counter space. We also use the Instant Pot a lot, but some stuff comes out with weird flavors IMO. Makes a fantastic cheesecake and hardboiled eggs though! And it's super quick in comparison to other methods for dishes that traditionally take longer to cook.
If I chose between the two, I'd pick the food processor for prepping purposes, easier cleanup, and storage space. I'm surprised no one has mentioned spiralizers, as it's super useful. I have a hand-held version that works pretty well.

My Instant Pot sees the most action, followed by my Vitamix, followed by my food processor. I'd actually rather chop things with a knife than drag out the food processor and have to clean it afterwards. I'm good at chopping. But I do use it for ricing cauliflower or grating carrots.

I use my (multi-function) pressure cooker at least 2x a week - so often it sits on my counter. My food processor...it's in the back of a cupboard somewhere. If you have a stand mixer that has add-on components - such as a slicer, grinder, pasta maker, I use that instead of the food processor 99% of the time.

I don't even know what an instant pot is, and I have a food processor that I thought I needed, but never use. I use my crock pot and George Foreman grill all the time though. Couldn't live without either.

Definitely the Instant Pot!

mjbnj0001 wrote: »

janejellyroll wrote: »

I use my Instant Pot all the time. It's amazing. I use my food processor pretty often, but if I personally had to give one of the two up, I would keep the Instant Pot.

I had also meant to say above that, while I like my "ol' trusty" jiggle-top pressure cooker, I'm beginning to lust after that nice, push-button, multi-use Instant Pot.

The other thing to say about pressure cooking is that nice, "frozen meat brick to tasty meal in one fairly quick step" facet.

I'm vegan, but it's as awesome for dried beans as I hear it is for frozen meat!

Instant Pot was my best friend when I was on a normal diet or typical body building diet. I'm trying Keto now so I really haven't had time to adapt my new recipes to it. Used it daily! With out it I would've struggled to eat healthy. Still use it every night for pot-in pot white rice and chicken breast for all my pets. Frozen chicken ready in 30 minutes. I think my bean soup took an hour. The texture and flavor of food is amazing when cooked in it, and it's near impossible to mess up a recipe

Instant pot makes great rice. It's a stainless steel insert, so I've found it easy to scrub clean.

I am a gadget gal and I have neither. I have a favourite knife, a mandoline (both very sharp), a grater, a blender, a slow cooker, a George Foreman, an air fryer and a well seasoned cast iron frying pan.

Lately I have been experimenting making waffles directly on the George Foreman. The slow cooker gets regular workouts, and I use my frying pan the most.

I don't have a good food processor but I would probably use it quite a bit if I did - to chop veggies and make pie crusts mostly - but really, it just saves time. The Instant Pot does make some things way easier and can save much more time for things like stew, for example. I mostly use mine for mashed potatoes, stew, and rice, but it makes great risotto (SO EASY) and rice pudding too.

Definitely loving my instant pot purchased last week. Have a food processor but use mandolin slicer and spiralizer more. Instant Pot pot is stainless and very easy to clean or goes in dish washer. Power cooker has non stick pot which I don't care for using on a regular basis. Instant pot hard boiled eggs, pressure cooked chicken and pot roast using slow cook setting all came out perfect and brown rice is awesome too!