Ok. So I have a slow cooker I never use for the following reasons:
When I try to make meaty things in it, I end up not liking the meat texture (like it’s all squishy soft and stringy at the same time???). I accept this is quite possibly me just fucking it up, but I’ve tried multiple recipes and keep being disappointed.
I either work from home (don’t need the time saving properties of the slow cooker much) or from Big City, which entails 14 hours away from home (leaving food on warm in the cooker that long freaks me out a bit).
The Instant Pot intrigues me for the yogurt + pressure cooking beans bits. However, the extra cost (over a pressure cooker + manual yogurt making methods) has not justified it for me for those two things alone.
Basically someone please convince me that you can make NOT-gross one-pot dishes in the Instant Pot.
You can do it, and you can do it fast after getting home from a long day.
I mostly don’t eat any meat but chicken, so I can’t speak to that. But you can throw frozen chicken breast, a couple cans of beans, and a jar of salsa in the thing and have good tortilla soup in 30 minutes total counting the time it takes to come to pressure (eat with either tortilla chips or corn bread). It cured the fear of leaving things in the slow cooker for me - I don’t.
For me, the time thing was a real game changer. I don’t have to remember to defrost things, and I don’t have to think about supper until I get home from work as long as I have the freezer stocked from sales.
It doesn’t just magically make yogurt for you You have to boil the milk, let it cool, and then set it in yogurt mode (basically keeping it warm at the right temperature). I was taken aback the first time I made yogurt (Marmalade had been doing it) and at all the steps that were necessary!
I like my Instant Pot for things that either take a long time like sweet potatoes or rice, or things that take forever due to altitude like dried beans or beets. I used it for a pork butt and it came out so moist and tender - that was a definite win.
I don’t use it much for vegetables that I can steam on the stove top. By the time the cycle builds and then relieves the pressure, it hasn’t saved any time. I also couldn’t check on the veggies during cooking so it was harder to control how ‘done’ they were.
I tried yogurt once and don’t think I will do so again. It only heated up to 165F; when I make it on the stove I heat it to 180 - 185F. I use 2 gallons of milk at a time, so I had to do two heating cycles instead of one in my 3 gallon pot. And worst of all, for whatever reason the yogurt didn’t set up as firm as usual. This was thin enough I could pour it instead of scooping it. Clean up was easier though as the milk did not scald on the bottom of the pan.
Chicken seems less likely to come out tough than in the slow cooker. I don’t think I’ve cooked any or meat in there aside from salt pork for flavoring.
Oh, of course! Boiling milk is fine, but keeping a constant warm temperature in my kitchen (cold and shared with 5 other adults) is a bit of a joke. An IP would make that much easier, and since we eat 2-4 lbs of yogurt most weeks…
To keep the yogurt at a constat temp, I use an insulated cooler or ice chest like one would use for camping. Cool the milk to 120F, distribute into 2 qt. mason jars with yogurt starter added to each, and place the jars in the cooler. By the time I’ve done that the milk temp is usually 110F. Heat water up to 130F, pour it into the cooler around the mason jars. I figure the temp averages out to 120F. As long as the cooler has reasonably good insulation, it keeps the yogurt warm enough to culture well. My house is usually around 60F in winter and up to 80F in summer, and I’ve had consistently good results with this method.
My former yogurt method was also jars in a cooler. With the Instant Pot I still heat the milk on stovetop; I just find it easier to go from that to jars for incubation, probably out of habit more than actual simplicity.
In my kitchen conditions, I’ll admit I’ve never gotten goat milk yogurt to set much at all until I incubated in the IP.
This one is sadly not safe in my kitchen - 5 other housemates (some of whom are not particularly aware of their surroundings) means that putting something in the oven risks getting it cooked.
The cooler method may be more fruitful, I think one of the housemates has one lying around that could get used… I hadn’t thought about that at all.
I’ve started down the path with last night’s chili. It was in a rice cooker, not the IP, but today might be the day when I’m sick and stuck at home. Because the best time to cook food is when you might have a viral infection, right?
More things I want to try:
Black bean soup: downside - will add dishes from blender step, and the whole point is to make things easier
You have to boil the milk, let it cool, and then set it in yogurt mode (basically keeping it warm at the right temperature). I was taken aback the first time I made yogurt (Marmalade had been doing it) and at all the steps that were necessary!
. I’ve done the oven method with jars wrapped in towels.
