The Best Multicookers

The most current Instant Pot multicooker is a great, easy-to-use appliance. Its flat-bottomed interior pot allows for even searing. Stay-cool handles mean you can easily move the pot, even when it’s hot. The streamlined interface was easy to navigate. A “favorites” feature lets you save go-to recipes. It has a pressure-release switch that keeps your hand away from the hot steam when you vent the machine, and a diffuser on the vent makes the steam disperse slightly more gently. We liked that we could disable the “keep warm” function so that the food wouldn’t keep cooking once it was done. You can also program a timer to alert you after 5 or 10 minutes of natural pressure release, which saves you a trip back to the machine between cooking stages. A few quibbles: The baking function uses steam, so it’s excellent for cheesecake but not much else. The machine doesn’t have a fan to circulate the water and isn’t as accurate as a good sous vide machine, so it’s not capable of true sous vide cooking. It also couldn’t slow-cook large cuts of meat well. But none of these issues was a deal breaker for us. The pressure-cooking, rice, sautéing, yogurt, and steaming functions were all excellent and are reason enough to get a multicooker.

 This multicooker has the same great features as our winner, just in a smaller package. It’s a stellar pressure-cooker, and it also does an excellent job of searing and steaming food, cooking rice, and fermenting yogurt. As with the larger version, this multicooker does fall short in a few areas. It can’t be used for sous vide cooking, since it can’t circulate water or hold temperatures as accurately or reliably as a true sous vide machine. And unless you only want to make cheesecake, you can’t really bake in it either. It also isn’t great at slow-cooking large cuts of meat well. Ultimately, however, we think that these flaws are far outweighed by the machine’s significant advantages. If you have limited storage space, this multicooker is a fantastic option.

This multicooker had a lot of advanced features that made it not only great to cook in but also easy to use. It made excellent pressure-cooked beef stew, baked beans, white rice, and pulled pork. Unlike previous Instant Pot models we’ve tested, it was able to slow-cook well, yielding tender meat and creamy beans within recipe times. Its stainless-steel cooking pot seared food evenly, and its light-colored interior made it easy to monitor browning. We loved this multicooker’s clear, intuitive digital interface and unique pressure-release switch located away from the escaping hot steam. Another asset was the silicone handles on the inner pot, which stayed cool and were easy to grab. While it took a little extra scrubbing to fully clean the stainless-steel cooking pot, this wasn’t a huge issue. This model also had some extra features including sous vide, yogurt, and bake functions. We didn’t test the “bake” function, since we don’t have any recipes that call for that function and Instant Pot hasn’t released any recipes of its own; however, we did test the sous vide and yogurt functions. The sous vide function took too long to heat and didn’t maintain the consistent temperature necessary for successful sous vide cooking, but we were able to make creamy, fully set yogurt using the yogurt setting and Instant Pot’s recipe. Overall, we think this multicooker’s overall performance and ease of use deserved top marks.

Like the 8-quart version, this multicooker was easy to use and produced excellent pressure- and slow-cooked food. Its controls were identical to the 8-quart model, with all the same features: an intuitive digital display, a lid that sealed automatically, a pressure-release switch, and silicone handles on its cooking pot. It made great beef stew, baked beans, and rice. Its stainless-steel cooking pot seared well, and the light interior made it easy to monitor browning, but it was slightly harder to clean than the nonstick pots. Like all the 6-quart pots, it had a smaller cooking surface, so we had to brown in more batches. However, if you want a smaller, equally capable multicooker, this is an excellent option.

This pricey, large multicooker produced great rice and slow-cooked beef stew and baked beans. We initially received a “NO PRESSURE” error message when pressure-cooking beef stew, perhaps due to sautéing onions first or not adding enough liquid, but were able to get good results after restarting the machine. We were able to pressure-cook beans without further error messages, but the beans themselves were mushy. The pot’s nonstick surface made for quick cleanup. There’s a slider on the lid you have to shift to reveal all the settings under “Pressure,” “Steamcrisp,” or “Air Fry/Stovetop,” and it took some time to find the one we wanted. We had mixed results when using this multicooker as an air fryer. While it had racks that enabled us to cook four chicken cutlets at a time, it cooked food unevenly when we used both racks. Food cooked more consistently when we limited it to a single layer.

Our former favorite multicooker once again produced excellent food. It made great pressure- and slow-cooked beans and rice. But it didn’t get as hot as our top-rated model, and when we compared the pressure-cooked beef stew and pulled pork made in the Instant Pot Duo Evo Plus to the same recipes made in this model, the former featured meat that was more tender. This being said, the Zavor still did a great job. It seared and sautéed deeply and evenly, and its stainless-steel cooking pot made it easy to monitor browning (but required a bit of scrubbing to clean). We liked this model’s digital interface but found it to be a bit more complicated than our top-rated model by Instant Pot. Plus, its control knob easily jumped around between settings with even the slightest movement. It also gave its “brown” temperature in degrees, which we found a bit trickier to use than the more familiar stovetop readings of “low, medium, high.” A helpful feature: The multicooker’s control panel can be locked, so no one can accidentally cancel cooking midway through or adjust the settings.

Similar to its 8-quart version, this multicooker produced good pressure- and slow-cooked food, but it had a more complicated interface than our top-rated model by Instant Pot. It made great pressure- and slow-cooked beef stew and beans and good white rice. It also seared and sautéed food deeply and evenly, and its light-colored stainless-steel interior helped us monitor browning—but did require a bit of elbow grease to clean. The smaller cooking pot meant that there was less room for browning and sautéing, and it took longer than the 8-quart version did to reduce liquid. We liked that we could lock the screen, preventing it from being accidentally adjusted or canceled mid-cook. Overall, it’s a great 6-quart multicooker.

At nearly half the price of our favorite multicooker, this inexpensive model produced excellent pressure- and slow-cooked food but had a busier, less intuitive control panel. Instead of a digital screen, the button-heavy panel was inundated with presets, making it tougher to navigate. It made excellent white rice and pressure- and slow-cooked beef stew and baked beans, though, yielding tender meat and beans within our recipe times. This multicooker’s nonstick cooking pot was easy to clean, but browning beef took longer. It reduced liquid efficiently and sautéed well, and we liked that it had a manual start button. Overall, this more budget-friendly model produced great results.

This multicooker made great rice but gave a “C7” error message when we tried pressure-cooking beef stew. We couldn’t find anything about the “C7” message in the manual and had to Google to find out that it meant the heating element failed or there wasn’t enough liquid. After adding more liquid and restarting the pressure-cooking process, this machine made stew with tender beef and perfectly cooked potatoes and carrots. We didn’t receive any error messages when pressure-cooking baked beans, but the results were a little mushy. After slow-cooking beef stew for 8 hours, the beef was tender, but the potatoes and carrots were undercooked. Slow-cooked baked beans were a bit mushy too. The stainless-steel pot required some extra effort to scrub clean. The buttons and settings were intuitive to use, but we found that they often didn’t respond to our touch on the first try, and we had to press more than once to get them to work. When used as an air fryer, this machine produced juicy, golden chicken cutlets but somewhat unevenly cooked french fries.

Like its larger sibling, this multicooker produced well-cooked food, but its control panel was tricky to use. The button-heavy controls made operating the machine more confusing, but we liked the manual start button, which allowed us to make adjustments to time and temperature without having to restart the cooking cycle. This multicooker made great rice and pressure- and slow-cooked beef stew and baked beans. Its nonstick cooking pot was easy to clean. However, a smaller cooking surface meant that it didn’t brown as efficiently as its 8-quart sibling. We liked that this 6-quart model had a pressure-release switch located at the front of its lid that made manually releasing pressure easier and safer. (We had to poke the traditional valve on the 8-quart model with the handle of a wooden spoon.)

This handsome 6-quart multicooker had lots of promising bells and whistles but was harder to use than other models. We particularly disliked its attached lid, which stood vertically when opened. The lid made sautéing and searing frustrating, as our hands frequently bumped into the lid, which activated a safety mechanism that turned the cooker off. Despite taking longer than other models to reach its maximum pressure-cooking temperature, this multicooker made good white rice and pressure- and slow-cooked beef stew and beans. Its ceramic nonstick cooking pot took longer to heat up, but it seared beef well. The cooking pot was easy to clean, but the lid was another matter—we would have had to unscrew it from the base before putting it in the sink, a tedious task not worth the bother. We did like the steam-release button on the control panel and the fact that its screen changed colors to tell us when it was pressurizing, cooking, and releasing steam.

We appreciated this 6-quart multicooker’s straightforward, bare-bones control panel. It also pressure-cooked food well, producing good rice, beef stew, and baked beans. However, this multicooker struggled with slow cooking. The beef stew took 8 hours, which was acceptable, but the baked beans were still not cooked after 6 hours, a full 2 hours longer than other models. A small quibble: The minimum slow-cooking time allowed at the low setting was 6 hours, which is not ideal when preparing recipes with shorter cooking times. It did a decent job searing and sautéing, but it heated up somewhat unevenly, resulting in a few pieces of beef along the right edge of the pot that were less browned than others.

Our previous Best Buy still produced excellent pressure-cooked food, but it faltered when it came to slow cooking. Slow-cooked beef stew had pieces of too-tough meat after 9 hours, and beans were still a touch too hard after 7 hours. We did like this model’s pressure-release switch and its stainless-steel cooking pot, which browned beef nicely. However, we found it odd that the multicooker had only one temperature for sautéing and slow cooking (there were no high or low options), and we disliked the multicooker’s jumbled interface and the fact that it automatically started after we chose the temperature and time.

Like its 8-quart sibling, this multicooker made great pressure-cooked food but wasn’t as successful at slow cooking. While pressure-cooked beef stew, baked beans, and white rice came out excellent, slow-cooked beef stew and beans weren’t done even after an extra hour of cooking. This model also had only one temperature for sautéing and slow cooking (there were no high or low options), and we disliked that the control panel was jumbled and inundated with presets and that it automatically started after we chose the time and temperature. We did like this model’s pressure-release switch and its stainless-steel cooking pot, which browned beef nicely (because of its smaller cooking surface, browning had to be done in more batches). While the cooking pot did require a little extra scrubbing to come clean, this wasn’t a big issue.

Not to be confused with our winning multicooker by Instant Pot (also, confusingly, with Duo in the name), this ubiquitous model pressure-cooked, made rice, and seared well, but it struggled with slow cooking. After 9 hours, its beef stew was underdone, with tough, chewy meat; crunchy carrots; and raw potatoes. We had more success when we tried slow-cooking baked beans on high (instead of low, as we did with the other models), but even then it still took an hour longer to cook than other multicookers. We also found the control panel to be a bit jumbled, and we disliked that this machine automatically began cooking as soon as we selected a cooking program and time. We often had to cancel and restart the machine if we needed to make setting and time adjustments. However, it did pressure-cook well, and its stainless-steel cooking pot browned and sautéed food deeply and evenly. That stainless-steel pot was a bit tougher to clean than nonstick models, but it was nothing a little elbow grease didn’t solve.

Like the 8-quart version of this multicooker, this model pressure-cooked, made rice, and seared and sautéed food well, but it struggled with slow cooking. At the end of the beef stew’s suggested cooking time (8 hours), the potatoes and carrots were raw and the beef was still pink. We found the control panel to be too busy and disliked that the machine automatically began cooking after we selected a cooking program and time. Its stainless-steel cooking pot did brown and sauté well, but its smaller cooking surface meant that we had to brown the meat in smaller batches. Its stainless-steel pot was also harder to clean.

This model’s only redeeming quality was that it slow-cooked well. Otherwise, its small control panel featured a tiny screen that was tough to read, it was unable to produce an acceptable pressure-cooked beef stew or baked beans, and its rice was underdone around the edges of the cooking pot. Its seal wasn’t tight, so water pooled around the lid and dripped onto the countertop (we tried multiple copies and experienced the same issue). Searing beef, sautéing onions, and reducing liquid were also a struggle in this model. Its removable nonstick cooking pot made cleanup easy, but its lid, which was attached to the base by a hinge, stood straight up in the air when opened and couldn’t be easily cleaned in the sink unless we unscrewed it from the base. It also impeded our access to the pot.