To ask how and what you use pressure cooker for?

[spongejack]

Thinking of buying one as we are having DD and SIL stay for sometime and bigger meals will be needed.

Are they better for larger meals to be made quickly?

What do you cook in yours and does it save time?

Love my pressure cooker. It has been a game changer.

Risotto in 10 min with no stirring.

Meat stews and casseroles, cook for 30 min instead of 1.5-2 hours. Veggie stews / curries, cook for 10 min.

Make amazing stock after we have had a meat joint or chicken. And then make the soup in the pressure cooker too.

I have an instant pot so it’s a pressure cooker and slow cooker combo. This week I have made a giant lamb stew for the freezer, a huge batch of pasta sauce for the freezer and last night I cooked rice for our dinner in it. A reckon you can get a good stew done in around 40 mins.

I have never bought one. I am convinced it will explode.

We have 2, a Pressure King Pro & a Ninja Foodi. We use them for all and everything; stews, chillis, curries, soups and for cooking the cheap cuts of meat that would normally need long and slow cooking.

I can have something ready to eat within 30/40 minutes of getting home. I love them more than I thought I would and have to say we are eating better because of them. All meals are now cooked from scratch and they are a dream for batch cooking work lunches throughout the week.

I have an old-fashioned stovetop pressure cooker. I use it all the time :
Stews (meat you can cut with a spoon in one hour)
Pulses
Vegetables (carrots and potatoes particularly)
The best stock in 60 to 90 minutes
Pork roasts (sear the meat first so that it looks nice)
Big batches of pasta sauce (it reaches higher temperatures than a standard pan and tastes nicer imo)

And it won't explode, I promise...

Whole chickens, gammon, pulled pork, beef stew, risotto, bolognese, rice, pasta.

All sorts.

I do all the veg in it when I do a roast now so much less steamy kitchen when cooking

I have two instant pots and I use them almost everyday.

I mostly use them to cook meat from frozen and boiled eggs. I also make curry, stew, chilli, jambalaya, rice and pasta in it.

I love not having to watch or stir it. It keeps it warm to so we can eat at different times if we need to with our having to reheat

Fascinated by this. I am not yet using the pressure function on my instantpot. Do you always use recipes specifically designed for an electric pressure cooker or can you adapt existing recipes and (crucially) if you can, are you reducing or increasing the amount of liquid that would be in a casserole for example.

Thanks all, it's the first time I'll be using one so hopefully it'll be a success!

I don't really follow recipes, I mostly just adapt by googling how long the main ingredient would take. For example if I was doing jambalaya I would look up how long the rice takes and then do my own thing.

I have an instant pot & use it for literally everything. Best purchase ever made! I’m not a cook, but making meals in the instant pot has been a game changer- my DH is certainly thrilled 😂!

I'm so scared of my instant pot, I am ashamed to say I have put it in the shed unused. I must face the fear.
Whats a good 'starter' meal for a newbie?

I love our instant pot. I was terrified of it to begin with (was given it as a gift from parents) but it is so useful. We make curries, pie fillings, stews, etc. And it's great for during the week when you're tired and just want something nice and fast. The fact you can cook your starch in a the same time is the game changer for me. We do spag bog quite often and it's as simple as browning the mince and onions, then adding all the other ingredients, pasta including (with equal amount of water) and setting it for 10 mins. It's perfectly cooked and all-in-one. We do the same with a chilli-mac where you add chilli ingredients to the mince and onions, and the pasta/water, then when it's cooked you stir through cheese and it is glorious.

I have an instant pot and an old fashioned (although modern, without jiggly weight) stovetop pressure cooker. Love them both and use them constantly - in fact I probably use the instant pot more often than I use the hob. I cook everything in them from risotto to bolognese sauce or chilli to a whole chicken or gammon to curry. They are brilliant for cooking cheaper cuts of meat that need a long cooking time. I never got on with the slow cooker because I wasn't organised enough to get everything ready and set it going so early in the morning before work.

I don't generally follow any recipes but as a rule of thumb, if I was going to cook something on the hob, I cook it in a pressure cooker for about a third of the time. For chicken breasts, 5 minutes and let the pressure drop naturally; for the whole chicken it's 15 minutes.

Things I don't cook in it are rice (use a microwave rice cooker), pasta (just in a pan, don't see the point of pressure cooking pasta), boiled eggs (everyone raves about these but I find it easier and more consistent in a small saucepan), and soup which I make in a thermomix as it does all the chopping/stirring/blending for me.

@SweetPetrichor pasta with sauce in one pot? Sounds great!
pasta including (with equal amount of water) You mean 500 g pasta and 500 g water for example?

@MrsCoyote I use the wee cup measure that came with the instant pot - but basically one cup of pasta to one cup of water. Makes life so much easier cause there's no extra washing up.

@SweetPetrichor I see! I was thinking about spagetti (not so easily measurable:-) Thanks.

I use my pressure cooker quite a bit for:
-rice
-risotto
-stocks
-chilli
-braised dishes
-porridge
-cheesecake
-pulses

It is not necessarily faster Except for stocks, pulses, and braised dishes, but it is convenient as I don’t have to keep an eye on it and it is auto shut off and keeps dishes warn until ready to eat.

I'm a horrible cook but even I haven't messed up pressure cooked risotto. I have an instant pot but presumably theres no too much difference between electric p cookers
www.happyfoodstube.com/instant-pot-chicken-risotto/

I was nervous of my instant pot a d it sat for a month without using, I think having the weights ping off my mum's 1970s pressure cooker had but me off. But I bought a book which goes through the instant pot functions step by step and a meat thermometer and I love it. Use at least three times a week. Did a £30 marks and Spencer turkey for Xmas in it and it was the best turkey I have ever cooked. For me having a cookbook gave me confidence to try. I bought how to instant pot and it definitely gets you started. Now I look up pressure cooker recipes online by I needed to feel confident using it first.

I use my Lagostina pressure cooker (20 cm at the top) every day because it’s the perfect size for me to put an ordinary pan lid on and cook everything traditionally, too.
I use induction so it just times itself out.

I tried an Instant Pot in the hope of finding more uses, but the warm-up time and the space it took up negated any benefits. I’m going to stick it on a local selling page!

I've got a hob top pressure cooker and whilst it gets used occasionally I could live without it. It does stews, bolognese, soups, stocks and stuff quickly but I prefer the taste when I use a cast iron pan and leave it on the stove for 4-5 hours.

Mongolian beef and chicken in the instant pot are both delicious and easy.

I didn't know you could still buy them, I see them as very 1970s old fashioned things like the Teasmade and hostess trolleys.

I bought an instant pot after reading about it on mumsnet, it's particularly handy that you can saute stuff in it first. Tough cuts such as shin beef cook in 40 mins. Chicken breasts come out really juicy and I also cook "roasts" such as leg of lamb or pork loin then finish them off under the grill. Risotto always comes out perfectly without all the faffing around of having to stir constantly. Love it!