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Instant Pot Duo Plus

PRICE$99-$130
RATING8.6 / 10
BEST FORPeople who cook beans, stews, or big-batch meals regularly and want less hands-on time
WORTH IT

The Instant Pot Duo Plus is worth buying if you regularly cook beans, rice, stews, or hard-boiled eggs and want to cut hands-on time significantly, but it's not the miracle multi-tool that replaces every appliance in your kitchen. Buy it for pressure cooking and slow cooking specifically, not for sautéing or as your main rice cooker if you already own a good one.

PROS

  • Cuts dried bean cook time from an 8-hour soak-and-simmer to under 45 minutes total, no soaking required
  • 9 functions genuinely cover pressure cooking, slow cooking, rice, yogurt, steaming, and warming in one footprint
  • The sauté function lets you brown meat directly in the pot before pressure cooking, one less pan to wash
  • Inner pot is stainless steel, not a nonstick coating, so it holds up to metal utensils and scrubbing
  • Enough built-in presets that a beginner doesn't have to guess pressure and time settings for common foods

CONS

  • The silicone sealing ring absorbs strong smells like curry or garlic for weeks unless you buy a second ring to swap in
  • The sauté function runs noticeably weaker than a stovetop burner, closer to medium-low heat than a real sear
  • Natural pressure release adds 10-20 minutes to total cook time that recipe cards rarely mention upfront

I've had my 6-quart Duo Plus in constant rotation for about two months now, and the place it's genuinely changed my routine is dried beans. I used to skip recipes that called for them because of the overnight soak, and now I dump dried black beans straight in with no soaking and have them fully cooked in under 45 minutes including pressure build time. Same story with bone broth, which used to eat up a whole Saturday on the stove and now takes about 90 minutes start to finish.

The 5-5-5 method for hard-boiled eggs, 5 minutes pressure, 5 minutes natural release, 5 minutes in an ice bath, is the other thing I use it for weekly, and the shells peel clean almost every time, which never happened with stovetop boiling for me. The yogurt function works too, though it's a 8-hour process that ties up the pot, so I only do it on weekends.

The sealing ring smell issue is real and not a fake nitpick. After making a curry, my ring smelled like curry for the better part of a month even after washing it, which meant the next few things I cooked, oatmeal included, picked up a faint curry note. I ended up buying a second ring for about $8 and now keep one dedicated to savory food and one for anything sweet or neutral.

At $99 to $130 depending on size and sales, and 3, 6, and 8-quart options covering everything from a couple to a family of six, it's a fair price for what it replaces. I still use my stovetop for quick sautéing and searing since the Instant Pot's sauté setting tops out weaker than a real burner, but for anything that benefits from pressure or long slow cooking, this has earned a permanent spot on my counter, not tucked in a cabinet.

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