The Best Instant Pots Pressure Cookers

We've recommended the Instant Pot Pro for years because it sears better than most electric multicookers and is easy to use. This pot pressurized faster than any other pot we tested.

The Instant Pot Pro is one of the more advanced models in the line. It also features a sous-vide cooking function, low and slow water bath, along with 28 other cooking programs.

We selected the upgraded Instant Pot Duo Plus as our top pick. It offers everything that the best-selling Duo does, and then some, without much additional cost.

It also has an upgraded display that's bigger and brighter and lets you edit the cooking time and pressure level while the machine is in use.

It also aced our pressure-cooking and slow-cooking beef stew tests. The controls are intuitive and include settings for making soup, meat, stew, beans, poultry, rice, yogurt and other Instant Pot recipes.

The Instant Pot Duo is the company's most popular series and for good reason. It's super simple to operate and offers seven versatile cooking functions: pressure cooker, slow cooker, rice cooker, steamer, sauté, yogurt maker and warmer.

The beef stew we made (using both the pressure cook and slow cook settings) was very tender with perfectly cooked meat and vegetables. The broth was flavorful and rich in color. It excels at making rice too, not a mushy grain in sight.

This produced the most tender pressure-cooked stew out of all the machines we tested, leaving the meat and veggies perfectly cooked and the broth rich in color and flavor.

Chicken thighs were rendered wonderfully tender with an excellent pull-apart texture; beans were soft and flavorful but still retained their shape; and rice fluffed up perfectly without a hint of gluiness.

We liked that the lid was attached to the body of the machine, which eliminated the need to awkwardly maneuver it on and off. The LCD interface is also wonderfully intuitive, and we liked that steam is vented at the touch of a button.