Latest news with #InstantPot
CNET
a day ago
- General
- CNET
Stop Cooking These 10 Foods in Your Instant Pot
The Instant Pot is an incredibly convenient appliance, especially in the summer when you don't want to spend a lot of time in front of the stove. It offers multiple cooking options and features, but there are limits to its power, and some foods don't fare well in the machine. To save you time, money and having to eat something awful, we've devised this list of foods you should never cook in the Instant Pot. Here are 10 food items and recipes you should never cook in your Instant Pot. And for more cooking tips, check out nine cooking hacks that actually work, why you might be ruining your chef's knife and the top slow cooker mistakes to avoid. Seafood Shrimp is best cooked on the grill or in a sauté pan. David Watsky/CNET In general, seafood such as fish, oysters, shrimp, mussels and clams is just too delicate for pressure cooking and slow cooking modes. They are foods that are meant to be cooked quickly at just the right temperature, which is hard to do with an Instant Pot. A few seconds too long or at the wrong temperature, and you can end up with mush or rubbery lumps. Besides, fish, shellfish and crustaceans are easily cooked with other methods, so breaking out the Instant Pot for them won't guarantee better results as it can for tougher meats. The only exception is octopus and squid. Pressure cooking these tough creatures can make them tender while keeping the meat juicy. Just be sure to find a recipe that is specifically for the Instant Pot. Fried and crispy food Fries and other crispy foods don't work in the Instant Pot. Elevation Burger Unless you've purchased a specialty model, your Instant Pot is not a pressure fryer and isn't designed for the higher temperatures needed to heat cooking oil for something like crispy fried chicken. Of course, an Instant Pot is perfect for a dish like carnitas, but to get the final crisp on the meat, after you remove the meat from the Instant Pot, transfer it to a skillet and brown for a few minutes or on a baking sheet to crisp up in a hot oven. (However, if you're looking for an air fryer that will get your food nice and crispy, you can check out our tested picks for the best air fryers of 2025). CNET Dairy-based food Just like in a slow cooker, most dairy products such as cheese, milk and sour cream will curdle in an Instant Pot, no matter if you use the pressure cooking setting or the slow cooking setting. Add these ingredients after the dish cooks or avoid making the recipe in the Instant Pot altogether. There are two exceptions. One is when you're making yogurt, and that's only if you use a recipe specifically for an Instant Pot. The other is if you're making a cheesecake, and again, only if you're following an Instant Pot recipe. Pasta and noodles A pot of boiling water is the only way to cook pasta properly. Getty/JannHuizenga While you technically can cook pasta in an Instant Pot, it may come out gummy or unevenly cooked. Honestly, unless you don't have the option, boiling the pasta in a pot on a stovetop is just as fast and easy and will yield consistently better cooked pasta. Read more: No, Salted Water Doesn't Boil Faster and 7 Other Pasta Myths Two recipes at once Cooking a roast with potatoes and carrots is a time-honored recipe, right? Not in this case. Don't try to cook a main dish with a side dish in your Instant Pot. They may fit in the pot together, but each food will need its own cooking time. Cooking items together will inevitably result in a dry or mushy mess. Cakes You aren't really baking a cake in an Instant Pot, you're steaming it. The cake will be moist -- which works for something like bread pudding -- but you won't get a nice crust on the cake or the chewy edges that everyone fights over with baked brownies. However, if you do need to throw something together for a potluck or quick family dessert, you can get a moist sponge in half an hour or so, excluding prep time. Foods for canning Canning, the art of cooking and sealing foods in jars, is often done in a pressure cooker. So, it may seem like a good idea to make a batch of jams, pickles or jellies in your Instant Pot. Don't do it. With an Instant Pot, you're not able to monitor the temperature of what you're canning as you would with a regular pressure cooker. With canning, cooking and sealing the food correctly is key. Improper cooking and sealing can lead to bacteria growth that can cause food poisoning. While you want to avoid canning with an Instant Pot, some of the newer models (like the Duo Plus) do have a sterilize setting that lets you clean baby bottles and kitchen items like jars and utensils. Good steak A pressure cooker is not a barbecue. An Instant Pot does great with tougher cuts of meat -- which the pressure cooker can easily break down -- but not so good with ones that are best eaten medium-rare, like a steak. Save those for the grill. Yellow and red lentils Not all lentils can stand up to an Instant Pot's pressure. James Martin/CNET We love lentils, but not all of them can be cooked in an Instant Pot. Brown and green lentils can hold up to pressure cooking, but the more delicate yellow and red versions turn to mush because they cook so quickly. Unless you're purposely making lentil soup or dhal, stick to cooking red and yellow lentils on the stove to preserve their texture and shape. Cookies Cookies aren't going in your Instant Pot, are they? Getty Images Cookies are another baked food that doesn't work when made in the Instant Pot, either on pressure cooker or slow cooker mode. Instead, try your luck with convection heat by way of a wall oven, toaster or air fryer.
The Guardian
4 days ago
- Business
- The Guardian
Why is there a Maga-branded Instant Pot? Because capitalism never sleeps
If you want to demonstrate your fealty to Donald Trump through the medium of branded merchandise (and who doesn't?) there are ample ways to do so. You can pick up a Trump bible and some of Melania's lovely 'Vote Freedom' jewellery. You can stay in one of his hotels, golf in his resorts, and get yourself a Trump watch. You can buy some of the Trump-branded cryptocurrency that has made the family extremely rich. You can also, as announced on Monday, buy a gold Trump smartphone for just $499 and use Trump mobile as your service provider for $47.45. I know what you're thinking. All this is wonderful, but where are the Trump-branded home goods? How can I demonstrate my loyalty to the president while cooking stew in my kitchen? Well, I have great news. Because capitalism is relentless, the Instant Pot brand is coming out with a Trump-inspired design. (Instant Pot, if you're not familiar, is a pressure cooker that gained a cult-like following several years ago, then went on a downward spiral when it was bought by a private equity firm.) The company is apparently planning various products emblazoned with 'Make America Great Again'. According to Semafor, a portion of the profits of the Instant Pot collaboration will be donated to the 'Trump Presidential Library'. At least two other home goods companies are also reportedly planning Trump-related releases, with profits being donated to Trump's library. These include a tableware and collectible items company that has proposed plates with Trump's face on them. Another company is thinking about a 'Mar-a-Lago' and 'White House' sheets collection. So you can really get into bed with the government. It doesn't end here, does it? I imagine product development teams across the US are in brainstorming mode right now and we can look forward to more Trump-adjacent products with profits donated to Maga causes. Perhaps some enterprising confectionery company will come out with ICE cream: with every purchase going towards deporting an immigrant. Supplement companies could start selling red pills. If Elon Musk gets back in Trump's good books, perhaps we'll get Musk-branded contraception: guaranteed to never work, to help his pro-natalist plans. And, considering Trump's purported nickname ('Trump Always Chickens Out' or Taco), Taco Bell surely has scope to get in on the action. Arwa Mahdawi is a Guardian columnist.
Eater
4 days ago
- Business
- Eater
Who Wants a MAGA Instant Pot?
In the months leading up to and following Donald Trump's re-election to the presidency, there has been no shortage of products branded with 'Make America Great Again' or Trump's bronzer-spackled visage, many created for the president himself to profit from this distinctly racist and hateful moment. Now, even the makers of your Instant Pot, the once-trendy appliance that you lug out to make chicken soup every once in a while, are getting in on the action. Semafor reports that Instant Pot Brands, the Canadian-born company behind the Instant Pot, plans to debut a new line of Trump-inspired products in the coming months. Dubbed the '45/47 Collection,' the as-yet-unnamed appliances will be emblazoned with Trump's favorite slogan. The move comes weeks after the company complained a few months ago that Instant Brands would have to raise the retail price of the Instant Pot nearly $40 to mitigate the impact of Trump's on-again, off-again tariffs on China. The parade of companies and executives seeking to cozy up to Trump has been never-ending in recent months, a strategy that makes some sense when you consider that the president has demonstrated a real openness to flattery. Perhaps Instant Brands believes that if it sticks Trump's face on enough Instant Pots, he'll keep backing off his plans to implement the impending steel tariffs that have the potential to increase the prices of all appliances. If they can both flatter the president and sell a few MAGA-branded Instant Pots to his fans, what is there to lose? This is, unfortunately, a natural consequence of the way that corporate brands have increasingly felt compelled to pander to political trends in recent years. It's like the ugly alter-ego of Target's beleaguered and frequently-embarrassing Pride collection. But while there's nothing wrong with buying a rainbow-colored toaster, there is something distinctly gross about buying a small appliance just because it has MAGA written on the side of it. MAGA isn't a colorful pattern that might fit your aesthetic, it's a rallying cry that has emboldened the most hateful among us and inspired the targeting of immigrants for mass deportation, racist hate crimes, and a broader crumbling of social decency. Usually when it comes to MAGA paraphernalia, Trump is the one doing the selling. His official Trump store is populated with everything from pickleball paddles to, of course, food. Right now, if you were so inclined, you could buy bars of chocolate shaped like silver bullion on the Trump Store ($9.60), or peppermint-chocolate popcorn ($6.40). Coffee, wine, whiskey, and koozies printed with 'TRUMP 2028' on them are also for sale, and the man himself gets a cut. On some level, the surprise here isn't that a Canadian company would make a product praising him — it's that Trump would let them without trying to take a majority of the profits. Trump, of course, will indirectly benefit from the sales of these Instant Pots. Instant Brands has announced that it will donate a portion of its profits to Trump's forthcoming presidential library. It is not at all surprising that Trump will at least get a small cut — the president has reportedly made millions of dollars licensing merch of all kinds — and food is no exception. Trump loyalists have demonstrated an incredible willingness to spend money on pretty much anything Trump-branded, so why wouldn't the most cynical among us seek to profit from that? Just in case the hats, the t-shirts, the sneakers, the flags, the bumper stickers, and the Lenox china weren't enough, now you can display your unhinged love for the president in every single facet of your life. It's almost as if everyone, even the home appliances crowd, realizes that the MAGA fans will buy damn near anything, even if it is a total piece of garbage.
Gizmodo
5 days ago
- Business
- Gizmodo
Your Next Instant Pot Might Be Made by Donald Trump
America has become a parody of itself. Donald Trump sells everything from Trump-branded Bibles to MAGA sneakers, as the billionaire hustler profits from the presidency in a way that no other U.S. leader has ever attempted. And it looks like we can add a few more products to the list today, including a MAGA Instant Pot, if you can believe it. The new Instant Pot is being dubbed the 45/47 Collaboration, according to a new report from Semafor, a reference to Trump being both the 45th and 47th president of the United States. It's not clear yet what the MAGA Instant Pot will look like exactly, but it's likely to include the tagline 'Make America Great Again,' and will be publicly available starting July 4. What does Trump get out of it? According to Semafor, this 'collaboration with representatives of the Trump administration' will see 'a portion of the profits' go to the Trump Presidential Library. That's highly unusual, to say the least, since presidential library foundations are non-profit entities that typically fundraise after a president has already left office. You can think of each presidential library as essentially being two parts: One part of the library holds the president's documents from his time in office and is administered by the National Archives and Records Administration. The other part is the private, non-profit entity that fundraises to build and run the museum and physical space where visitors can come and walk through a kind of shrine to the president's life. The Semafor report doesn't make a distinction between which half of the Trump Library is getting the donation of the Instant Pot proceeds, but it feels like a safe bet to say it's the private part controlled by Trump's people. Instant Pot brands didn't respond to questions emailed Monday morning. The Trump Organization also didn't respond. Instant Pot merged with Corelle Brands in 2019, which is owned by private equity firm Cornell Capital. But Instant Pot filed for bankruptcy in 2023 and became a new company called Instant Brands. The company was sued in 2024 after lenders accused the private equity firm of loading up Instant Pot with $450 million of debt before declaring bankruptcy, a story that's extremely common in the world of private equity. The firm allegedly took out a loan for $450 million in 2021 and paid $345 million of that as a dividend to Cornell Capital, according to Fortune. The Instant Pot isn't the only new collaboration Trump is trying on with a home goods company. Lenox Corporation is also planning to make 'fine porcelain dinnerware' that features images like the White House logo. Gold-plated utensils along with MAGA glasses are also in the works, according to the news outlet. Bedding companies like Live Comfortably and Simply Interior Homes have also been looking at producing MAGA products. A representative for the brands working on Trump products told Semafor: 'All of these companies […] are extremely supportive of President Trump and the MAGA Agenda, standing with the president with their efforts to onshore and show public support.' To top it all off, Trump Media also announced a new Trump-brand mobile phone on Monday. The news release is patently ridiculous, and it's not clear yet when it'll come out. But the fact that they're trying to do it at all is pretty mind-boggling. Trump has turned the presidency into a profit-making machine, according to financial disclosure forms filed last week. The president made $57.3 million from World Liberty Financial, a cryptocurrency platform launched last year with his help. He made $3 million from a 'Save America' coffee table book, $2.5 million from his sneakers and fragrances, $2.8 million from his watches, $1.3 million from his bible, $1.1 million from his NFT licensing, and $1 million from his guitar. And none of that includes Trump's cryptocurrency $TRUMP, which wasn't released until shortly before he took office in January, meaning that it wasn't required on the president's latest financial disclosure forms. CBS News reports that Trump's cryptocurrency ventures have contributed billions to his family's net worth. All of this is supposed to be illegal, according to the Emoluments Clause of the U.S. Constitution. Presidents aren't supposed to be making money from their office. Several lawsuits were brought during Trump's first term, but none of them went anywhere. And that seems to have given Trump a green light to accelerate his businesses while in office for his second go-around. Laws are fake until they're enforced. And Trump knows that as the most powerful person in the world, nobody can actually enforce laws meant to keep the powerful in check.
Tom's Guide
5 days ago
- Health
- Tom's Guide
I'm trying to cut out ultra-processed food — here's the 3 kitchen appliances that actually help
If you've been on the internet for the past year, you've probably heard of 'Ultra Processed People' by Chris van Tulleken ($9-$18 on Amazon). Now I'm not going to claim I'm a dietician or a scientist (because I'm not — I'm just a humble journalist), so you can do your own research about the concept of ultra-processed food. This is just my personal experience, not a peer-reviewed study. However, this book did get me thinking: should I really be eating so much stuff with ingredients I can't pronounce? I decided, no, not really, and embarked on a mission to shift my eating habits. Thanks to my job as a reviews writer, I get my hands on a lot of kitchen tech. I've tested loads of the best Instant Pots, best air fryers, best stand mixers, and more. I've been able to narrow down the selection of appliances to just three of the best. I genuinely use these three appliances to cook 99.9% of my meals, and here's why you should too. I have the Instant Pot Pro (2025), but if you're in the U.S., I'd recommend the Instant Pot Pro Plus. These machines work pretty much identically. What makes the Instant Pot so good is its capacity. It boasts a massive 5-quart capacity, allowing me to prepare up to 10 servings of various healthy meals easily. I've made chili, bolognese sauce, veggie-loaded curries, and meal-prepped about 15 servings of rice in this beast. The Instant Pot Pro Plus not only has smart connectivity (so you can turn it on/off when you're not even at home), but a massive 5-quart capacity so you can prepare a week's worth of meals in one go. When I prep the week's meals ahead of time, I'm not tempted to go to the grocery store and buy a ready meal or order takeout. Get instant access to breaking news, the hottest reviews, great deals and helpful tips. The best part of the Instant Pot is that it's a press-play-and-leave-it-alone sort of machine. All I have to do is fill it up with my ingredients, set the time, and I can do something else for that time. I don't have to sweat over the stove stirring sauce. The Instant Pot means I've always got meals in the freezer, so I know I've got a healthy dinner even after a busy, stressful day. 10/10 would recommend. I'm human, which means I crave food like fries and burgers on the regular. While there's nothing wrong with eating the food your body wants, I'm trying to stay away from fast food. This means that if I want fries, I have to do it myself. Thanks to my air fryer, though, this is never easier. I have the Philips 2000 Series Air Fryer (complete with a window, so I can always check on my food), but my parents have the Ninja Foodi DualZone and can't stop telling me about how good it is, so I'd recommend that one too. I have this air fryer, and I use it almost every day. It's big enough to roast a whole chicken (in just 52 minutes) and helps me make crispy, crunchy fries with very little oil. I also can't help but watch my food cook through the window. Because air fryers are mini, quicker ovens, I can make fries from scratch in about 20 minutes in my 2000 Series. I also make homemade cakes in my air fryer, and it means I don't have to turn the whole oven on for a single-serve dessert. I love this one because of the window. Yes, I know it's lame, but I love watching my food cook. I'm boring — I know. The consensus online is that bread is one of the most highly processed foods available. As a result, I wanted to start making my own. About five months ago, after getting my hands on a sourdough starter, I embarked on my sourdough journey. Sourdough is fermented, so it's generally better for the gut, and it also tastes delicious. I'm not going to share a picture of my sourdough because I am utterly pathetic at scoring my dough, but I'll tell you about how my KitchenAid Artisan Stand Mixer has helped me cut out shop-bought bread. While pricey, the KitchenAid Artisan Stand Mixer isn't a one-trick pony. It comes with a dough hook, flat beater, and whisk, so you can make everything from bread to meringue with just the starter attachments. Using the dough hook attachment, I mix my flour, water, starter, and salt. Then, during the bulk fermentation stage (when the dough rises and becomes bubbly), I use the dough hook on speed 1 to mix the dough every 30 minutes for the first 2 hours. I proof the dough in the KitchenAid bowl, too, so I don't need to transfer to another bowl and do more washing up. After the bulk fermentation, I transfer it to my Dutch oven for the final proof and shaping. While I know I could mix the dough by hand, the stand mixer helps me develop the gluten and saves my arm muscles while it kneads. I adore my stand mixer, and can't believe I lived so long without one!
