In Defense Of The Instant Pot

The Instant Pot has been misunderstood. This happens to anything useful that becomes popular too quickly. People see it everywhere, hear everyone talking about it, watch a few overly enthusiastic people make chili in it, and decide they have seen the whole picture.

"It's just a soup machine." No. That is kitchen defamation. The Instant Pot is not just a soup machine. It is not a fad appliance. It is not some countertop cauldron for people who gave up on chewing. It is one of the most practical, forgiving, quietly revolutionary kitchen tools of the modern home and the reason people underestimate it is because it does not look revolutionary.

It does not have the romance of a cast iron skillet. It does not have the drama of an open flame. It does not have the ceremonial weight of a Dutch oven being pulled from the back of a cabinet like Excalibur. It just sits there, squat and digital, looking like a small robot that got assigned to lunch duty.

But that little device can save dinner and that matters the most.

The Instant Pot took pressure cooking, something many people associated with hissing, family folklore, and the vague possibility of death or maiming, and made it approachable. Safe pressure cooking is a big deal because pressure cooking used to feel like kitchen witchcraft performed by an aunt who had seen things. You respected the pressure cooker. You did not turn your back on it. You did not ask questions. You simply hoped the lid stayed where engineering intended.

Then the Instant Pot came along and said, "What if we made this less terrifying?" That alone deserves respect. It turned pressure cooking from a generational dare into a weeknight option. It gave ordinary people the ability to cook faster, smarter, and with less panic. That is not a gimmick. That is progress.

And yes, it makes soup. Congratulations. So does a pot. Calling the Instant Pot a soup machine because it makes soup is like calling a pickup truck a grocery bag because you once used it to bring home paper towels. It is technically true in the smallest, most useless way possible.

The Instant Pot is a pressure cooker, slow cooker, rice cooker, steamer, sauté pan, egg machine, meat-rescue device, and emergency dinner stabilizer. It is a multi-tool with a heating element. Truly, the Leatherman of the countertop and it is not a one-trick pony. It is a kitchen horse with range.

One of the Instant Pot's greatest miracles is that it can cook from frozen. This is not a minor feature, this is literally the difference between "We are ordering food again" and "Actually, dinner is happening."

People like to pretend they are always organized. They meal prep. They thaw responsibly. They have little containers with labels. Good for them. Bless their tiny glass rectangles. The rest of us have stood in front of the freezer at 5:07 p.m. holding a frozen brick of chicken like it contains an answer from the gods.

The Instant Pot looks at that brick and says, "Fine. We can work with this." That is not just convenient. That is merciful. It meets you where you are and it does not judge the frozen meat nor shame the lack of planning. It does not require a lecture about mise en place; it simply builds pressure and gets to work.

There is something deeply comforting about an appliance that can salvage your poor decisions without making a whole thing about it. And then there is the meat. The Instant Pot can take the gnarliest, toughest, most suspicious cut of meat and turn it into something tender enough to make you feel like you knew what you were doing all along. That is power. A lesser appliance sees a tough roast and panics. The Instant Pot sees connective tissue and says, "Hold my trivet!"

It understands transformation. It understands that not every ingredient starts glamorous. Some things need pressure. Some things need time. Some things need heat, moisture, and a sealed environment where they can break down without being bothered.

The point is that the Instant Pot expands what is possible for normal people on normal nights. It makes cheaper cuts more usable. It makes batch cooking less painful. It makes pulled chicken, shredded beef, stew meat, ribs, beans, rice, potatoes, broth, and sauces feel less like a weekend project and more like something you can actually do after a full day of being professionally perceived.

That is not small and that is the exact difference between "I cook sometimes" and "I can feed people." And feeding people is one of the oldest, most useful forms of competence there is.

The Instant Pot also deserves a medal for hard-boiled eggs. Not a mention. Not a footnote. A damn medal. Perfect hard-boiled eggs in bulk, consistently, is one of those achievements people do not appreciate until they have lived through egg chaos. [4-5-5 is the cheat code for perfect hb's(4 minutes under pressure, 5 minutes natural release, 5 minutes in ice bath)]

The pot method, or any other gimmick, seems simple until it betrays you. Sometimes the yolks are chalky. Sometimes the shells cling like they were installed with industrial adhesive. Sometimes one egg cracks early and turns the water into a sad looking lava lamp. The Instant Pot comes in like a calm professional and says, "Would you like eighteen of these done correctly and the same exact way?" Why yes. Yes, I would.

For meal prep, holidays, snacks, deviled eggs, salads, breakfasts, lunches, and random moments when you remember protein is a thing, the Instant Pot is absurdly useful. It turns cooking into a repeatable system and that is the whole point of good tools. They reduce friction. They make success easier to repeat.

The Instant Pot is not magical because it does everything better than every other cooking method. That is not the argument. A grill is still a grill. A skillet is still a skillet. A smoker is still a smoker. Nobody is asking the Instant Pot to develop a crust on a steak and wear sunglasses about it.

The defense is simpler than that because the Instant Pot makes a huge number of useful kitchen tasks easier, safer, faster, and more forgiving. That is enough. Not every tool has to be the best at one perfect thing. Some tools are valuable because they are very good at a lot of important things. The Instant Pot is not trying to replace the entire kitchen. It is trying to be the appliance you reach for when you need dinner to become possible. That is a noble calling.

There is also something democratic about it. You do not need to be a chef to use it well. You do not need advanced knife skills, a French vocabulary, or the emotional bandwidth to babysit a pot for three hours. You can be tired. You can be distracted. You can be working with frozen food, cheap cuts, pantry staples, and limited patience.

The Instant Pot still gives you a path and that specifically is why the backlash feels unfair. People love to sneer at convenience, as if difficulty is the only proof of quality. They act like making something easier somehow cheapens the result. Nonsense, I say. Convenience is absolutely not the enemy of care.

A tool that helps someone cook at home instead of giving up is not cheating. A tool that helps a parent get dinner on the table is not lazy. A tool that helps a beginner build confidence is not a shortcut in the shameful sense. It is a bridge. And bridges are useful because they let more people cross.

The Instant Pot deserves defense because it does what the best household inventions do: it quietly changes expectations. It makes hard things feel manageable. It takes old techniques and removes fear > turns pantry odds and ends into meals > rescues frozen chicken from the land of regret > gives tough meat a second life.

It is not glamorous and it is not precious. It is definitely not trying to impress the cast iron people. It just works and that should still count for something. So yes, defend the Instant Pot.

Defend the squat little pressure robot. Defend the freezer-brick redeemer. Defend the machine that looked at dinner panic and built a control panel. Because the Instant Pot was never just a soup machine, it was a revolution with a sealing ring.

And anyone who thinks it is a one-trick pony has not asked enough of the pony.