The Cooking Methods To Avoid In An Instant Pot, According To An Expert

It's long been the dream of busy modern people to have one kitchen device that can do it all and do it fast, and the closest we've actually come to creating that is still the Instant Pot. When it burst onto the scene in the 2010s it quickly became the darling of food blogs, promising quick and easy meals with limited prep time, mostly due to the Instant Pot serving as a combo of a slow cooker and pressure cooker. Of course the other half of its appeal was how many tasks it claims it can take on, including being a rice cooker, steamer, and even an air fryer in more recent models. But while it can do a lot of things, Instant Pots aren't always great at all dishes. So we reached out to Coco Morante, a recipe developer and the author of "The Instant Kitchen Meal Prep Cookbook," to ask her what cooking methods she avoids when using it.

Morante tells us, "Anything you want to have a crispy crust, browning, or something along those lines, you won't be able to achieve that in an Instant Pot!" This is tough to hear because one of the Instant Pot's breakthroughs was having a dedicated sauté function that lets you brown food on the bottom of the pot. And you can do that, but it doesn't work that well. The Instant Pot has limited temperature control for sautéing, and more importantly, it's a small surface in a tight, contained space. Searing or sautéing food too close together creates steam, which inhibits the browning process. So if you want good browning in an Instant Pot you need to cook in very small batches, which can defeat the convenience of it all.

The shape of the Instant Pot also creates issues with other food. As Morante explains, "I'd also avoid trying to sear delicate items like white fish — you can do a sort of steam-poaching method with those, but if you try to sear and flip them in the pot, you'll probably end up with lots of little bits of fish stuck to the pot."

The quality issues also sometimes combine with styles of cooking where the Instant Pot isn't that much more convenient either. Morante says, "I'll admit, I've written a lot of recipes for baked goods in the Instant Pot, but I don't tend to fall back on those any more these days." She tells us that the Instant Pot can be a good option for baking when you don't have a traditional kitchen set-up available, like cooking while camping. However she notes, "on a daily basis, in a well-equipped kitchen? The oven is my favorite appliance for baking, hands down."

There are obvious issues like a lack of space for things like cookies that need to spread out, or an inability to fit pans and molds. But the Instant Pot's wet-cooking environment also limits the air circulation and dry heat many recipes need to be their best. There are certain specific types of moist desserts Instant Pot can do pretty well, generally simple cakes and brownies, but those are some of the easiest dessert recipes anyway, so the Instant Pot isn't much of an upgrade. But don't take it too hard, Instant Pot, there are so many things you do well, you don't have to do it all.