To Transform Your Weeknight Cooking, Turn On the Instant Pot
The hardest ingredient to find for any weeknight recipe is time. Tuesdays after work just don’t have a lot of it, and it’s not as if you can order it online.
A slow cooker can help by doing the cooking while you’re at the office. Just load it up in the morning and come home after work to a fragrant, hearty meal.
The big thing missing here is spontaneity. If you’re not the kind of cook who can commit to and then start prepping your dinner before you’re fully caffeinated — or if you just can’t get yourself organized to start cooking in advance at all — a slow cooker won’t do you much good.
But a multicooker like the Instant Pot just might.
A multicooker is dinnertime convenience in stainless steel form, an appliance that combines an electric pressure cooker with a slow cooker, electric steamer and rice cooker. Several manufacturers make multicookers, including Breville and Fagor, but Instant Pot has become the best known in the United States. (Note that while most multicookers include a pressure-cooking function, there are some models that only slow cook, so check before you buy.)
There’s no other single gadget that can make weeknight cooking easier. It can cook food either quickly or slowly, and it does both consistently, evenly and automatically. Get one, and you can get rid of your slow cooker.
I bought a multicooker almost a year ago to report on for this newspaper. I figured that after publishing my article, I’d stick the machine in the basement with all the other once-in-a-while appliances (like that electric deep fryer). Then I’d dig it out for braising the occasional large hunk of meat to tender perfection, which, as I immediately discovered, it does better than any other piece of equipment — Dutch ovens and slow cookers included.
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