What not to cook in an Instant Pot

Date:
Mon, 28 Feb 2022 10:30:00 +0000

Description:
Dont waste food on failed experiments, read our guide on what not to cook in your Instant Pot

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Cooking the same type of meal regularly, can lead to food boredom. After all, variety is the spice of life, so whether youre trying to impress friends and family with an array of cuisines, or you simply want to liven up dinner time for yourself, there are plenty of handy kitchen gadgets to help.

The Instant Pot is perfect for this. Already a cult product, this
multi-cooker offers an array of cooking functions including slow cooking, pressure cooking, steaming and sautin. It also speeds up cooking duration so youre no longer chained to the stove.

Food bloggers and recipe creators across the globe are continually giving us new and tasty recipes designed specifically for Instant Pots and the alternatives from brands such as Ninja and Sage. This means theres no
shortage of inspiration and advice to help you make the most of cooking in this appliance.

However, thats not to say you can ditch your oven or stove completely and
cook everything in a multi-cooker, there are some foods that absolutely do
not work in an Instant Pot and Im talking from experience here. Best Instant Pot deals

Read on to discover what you really shouldn't use an Instant Pot to cook, or if youve already decided you want to invest in a multi-cooker, check out the best prices right now: My Instant Pot baking disaster

Recently I used an Instant Pot for baking cakes and cookies but Ill never do it again despite the fact that there are several recipes online saying it works. I tried three cake recipes in my Instant Pot, a chocolate cake, carrot cake, orange cake and even an oatmeal raisin cookie recipe for good measure.

The only one that was enjoyable or edible for that matter was the chocolate cake. Thats because if a chocolate cake doesnt rise and has a dense moist texture, you just need to change the name and suddenly its a delicious brownie. The rest came out dense and chewy at best or completely inedible at worst and the cookie just wasnt a cookie, it was a weird dry flat cake. I thought the Instant Pot was going to revolutionize my cake baking so to say I was disappointed with the results would be an understatement.

You might call me nave for thinking I could bake a cake in a pressure cooker but in another bid to test my Instant Pot cooking skills I made cheesecake in an Instant Pot and Ill never go back to my usual method . Cheesecakes cook brilliantly in an Instant Pot so all is not lost when it comes to baking
sweet treats in a pressure cooker. What else doesnt work in an Instant Pot?

Unless youve got one of the newer and more expensive models that can air fry, such as the Instant Pot Crisp + Air Fry, dont even think about attempting to bake bread in an Instant Pot. Bread needs to brown and develop a crisp crust, this is a big part of its appeal and is important to the flavor too, but a crust is something you just cant achieve using pressure cooking or slow-cooking methods.

If youre a regular bread baker though, you might be interested to know that while it wont bake bread to perfection, you can use your Instant Pot to proof the dough. The yogurt function is a low-temperature setting thats designed to ferment yogurt cultures and works just as well at fermenting the yeast in
your bread dough. Using the yogurt setting will give you a consistent
proofing environment, which can help you perfect your method and make some of the best homemade bread.

In just the same way as an Instant Pot cant give you a crisp crust on bread, the same goes for all other foods that are best served browned and crispy, including breaded or battered foods such as chicken or fish. Youll be able to heat these foods in an Instant Pot, but theres no way of crisping the crumb
or batter, so its unlikely youll be pleased with the inevitably soggy end result. Anything with pastry should be included in this bracket as well, pale mushy pastry is rarely anyones aim.

As a rule of thumb, if a crisp texture is important to the overall enjoyment of the food, then youre best sticking to other methods like broiling,
grilling or oven baking. Alternatively, when its time to upgrade your Instant Pot, look at investing in one with an air fry lid, these models can brown and crisp foods and will take your Instant Pot cooking to the next level.

Creamy dairy-based sauces can also be troublesome in an Instant Pot.
Depending on what youre making, sauces made with cream, cheese, and milk are prone to curdling when pressure cooked. Most Instant Pot recipes advise
adding cream and cheese at the end of cooking. You can use the saut function if some heat is needed to melt cheese and this allows you to keep an eye on the consistency and to stir it regularly.

Slow cooking and pressure cooking both work well to tenderize tough meats and will give you excellent falling-off-the-bone textures, both of these cooking methods allow you to get the most from cheaper cuts of meat. I wouldnt recommend putting expensive cuts of red meat into your Instant Pot though, because to do justice to these pricier cuts, they should be served pink in
the middle. And unless youre using the saut function to fry up a steak, you cant achieve rare or pink results in red meats when cooking them in an
Instant Pot.

Similarly, very delicate foods like fish and shellfish dont work well in an Instant Pot. Its almost guaranteed that youll overcook most fish and
shellfish regardless of whether youre adding them to a slow-cooked or pressure-cooked recipe. You can still create tasty meals like paella in your Instant Pot, in fact, its one of the best ways to cook rice, but youll just need to add the cooked shrimp at the end. Check out these great cheap instant pot deals



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Link to news story: https://www.techradar.com/news/what-not-to-cook-in-an-instant-pot/


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