I Cook 6 Meals a Week With 1 Button — Yes, This Pot Is That Good I have a specific memory that still makes my eye twitch. It's 5:17 PM on a Wednesday. I've just walked through the door after a day that started at 6 AM and included a dentist appointment that ran long, an email from my kid's school about a missing permission slip, and a moment in the grocery store parking lot where I sat in my car for seven minutes doing absolutely nothing because my brain had simply stopped. I'm carrying bags. My youngest is asking me for a snack while simultaneously telling me about a drama with a classmate that I am expected to follow in detail. My oldest is staring at me with that look that means they need something from the school website that I will have to log into with a password I reset last month and already forgot. And then comes the question. The question that has haunted parents since the beginning of time. "What's for dinner?" The answer, on too many of those nights, was frozen chicken nuggets. Or cereal. Or that backup frozen pizza that I kept in the freezer specifically for days like this, which meant I had already used it on Monday and Tuesday and now all I had was a bag of edamame and some questionable ground beef that needed to be cooked today or thrown away. I ordered takeout so many times that the delivery drivers started waving at me like we were neighbors. I was spending more on DoorDash in a month than I was on my actual grocery budget. Something had to change. That's when my sister, who has three kids and a husband who works nights, told me about the Instant Pot in the way that only someone who has been saved by an appliance can describe it. She didn't recommend it. She prescribed it. She said, "Just buy it. Don't think about it. Buy it and I'll send you three recipes and you'll be fine." I bought the Instant Pot Duo 7-in-1 in the 6-quart size. I still remember unboxing it and thinking it looked like a prop from a space movie — all stainless steel and buttons I didn't understand. There was a "Porridge" button. I don't eat porridge. There was a "Rice" button, a "Slow Cook" button, a "Sauté" button. It had more modes than my car. I put it on my counter and stared at it for two days before I worked up the nerve to use it. The first thing I made was hard-boiled eggs. I know, I know. But I needed a win. I needed something that couldn't possibly go wrong. I put the eggs in, added water, closed the lid, pressed the button, and walked away. Six minutes later I let the pressure release naturally and opened it to find the most perfectly cooked eggs I had ever seen. The shells slid off like butter. My kids ate them without complaining. I felt like a god. That small victory was all the confidence I needed. The next night I made a whole chicken with rice and veggies. One pot. Fifteen minutes of hands-on time. The chicken was so tender it fell apart when I tried to lift it out. My kids, who usually eat around anything that looks like a vegetable, cleaned their plates. I took a picture and sent it to my sister with a crying emoji. But I'm not going to pretend it was all smooth sailing. Because it wasn't. The third time I used it, I tried to make a creamy pasta dish and got the dreaded BURN notice. The display flashed at me, the pot beeped angrily, and I spent fifteen minutes scrubbing the bottom of the inner pot while my kids asked repeatedly when dinner would be ready. I almost threw the whole thing in the trash. I went on Reddit in a rage and found hundreds of people who had the exact same experience. One of the most common complaints in r/instantpot is exactly this — the burn notice scares people and makes them think they broke their new expensive pot. The fix is stupidly simple: you just need more liquid, and you need to deglaze the bottom after sautéing. I didn't know that. Now I do. And now I don't get burn notices anymore. Another thing nobody warned me about is the steam release. The first time I did a quick release, a jet of steam shot up like a train whistle and my toddler, who was standing three feet away, burst into tears and ran to the other room. My wife gave me a look that said "you will never do that again without warning everyone in a three-block radius." I learned to do natural pressure release for most things, or at least to announce "STEAM" like I'm about to launch a missile before I touch the valve. I also learned that the slow cooker function is not great. This is something the Instant Pot community knows but the marketing department wants you to ignore. If you want a slow cooker, buy a Crock-Pot. The Instant Pot does slow cooking at a lower temperature than most dedicated slow cookers, which means your food doesn't get as tender and the cooking times are a bit unpredictable. I tried to make a pot roast on slow cook once and ended up pressure cooking it out of frustration after six hours. It worked fine in the end, but I wouldn't recommend the slow cook function for anything that matters. Now, about the sizing question, because I agonized over this before I bought mine. The 6-quart is the sweet spot for most families. One Reddit user, u/Suboptimal_SeaSnail, said they've been using the 6-quart for a family of four without any issues, and I agree completely. I've cooked whole chickens, big batches of chili, enough rice for a week of lunches — all in the 6-quart. But I've also read u/chipsdad's argument for the 8-quart, and I see the logic. If you're the kind of family that meal preps on Sundays and wants to cook a whole bag of beans plus a roast plus vegetables all at once, the 8-quart gives you breathing room. One person on Reddit, u/chococat2021, told a story about starting with a 6-quart and quickly upgrading to an 8, and honestly I felt that in my bones. The only reason I didn't go bigger is that the 8-quart doesn't fit in my dishwasher, and I couldn't go back to hand-washing a pot the size of a small engine block every night. I do wish the rice function was a little better. It makes good rice, don't get me wrong — better than stovetop, not as good as a proper Zojirushi. A Redditor in r/Cooking, u/wordingbird, was trying to decide between a Zojirushi rice cooker and an Instant Pot, and I understand the dilemma. If you eat rice every single day and it's a core part of your identity, get the Zojirushi. But if you're like me and rice is just one of eighteen things you need to cook that week, the Instant Pot does the job well enough that you won't think about it. Another user, u/jessper17, summed it up perfectly: "I like my Instant Pot because it makes decent rice plus it slow cooks and pressure cooks. I can throw my stuff in there and in an hour or less have dinner ready." That's the whole value proposition in one sentence. The yogurt function surprised me the most. I never planned to make yogurt. I bought this pot for chili and pulled pork and the occasional hard-boiled egg. But I tried it once, and now I make a batch every two weeks. It's absurdly easy — heat milk, cool it, add a spoonful of starter from the last batch, let it sit for eight hours, and you have yogurt that costs a fraction of the store stuff and tastes better. My kids eat it with granola and honey and I feel like I'm winning at parenting. I've gotten faster over time. A Monday night dinner like chicken thighs with rice and broccoli takes me maybe twelve minutes of actual work. I chop the veggies while the pot preheats, sear the chicken using the sauté function, throw everything in, set it to pressure cook for ten minutes, and by the time I've set the table and poured the drinks, dinner is ready. Cleanup is one pot and a lid. No multiple pans. No splattered stovetop. I used to dread cooking because of the cleanup. Now I don't mind it because it takes ninety seconds. I saw someone on r/instantpot, u/ArmadilloDizzy9161, mention that the Duo Plus was on sale for 69.99 at Amazon, and that's the real advice I'd give anyone thinking about buying one — don't pay full price. The Duo 7-in-1 usually sits around 89 to 99 dollars, but it drops to 79 or even 69 during Prime Day and Black Friday. The 8-quart goes on sale for maybe 99. There are bundle deals that include a steamer basket and extra sealing rings, and those are worth getting because the sealing rings absorb smells over time and you'll want separate ones for savory and sweet. Another person in r/instantpot, u/The_Menu_Guy, called their Duo Evo Plus a "total workhorse" and said you just need to keep it clean. That's the truth. I wash the inner pot by hand most nights — the stainless steel is nonstick-ish but not fully nonstick, so a little scrubbing is needed. The lid goes in the dishwasher once a week. That's it. No moving parts. No complicated maintenance. There are people who will tell you the Ninja Foodi is better because it also air fries. And they're not wrong — if you want one appliance that does absolutely everything including making crispy french fries, get the Foodi. But I already have an air fryer, and I don't want to replace two appliances with one super-appliance that does both jobs decently instead of one job great. The Instant Pot is a world-class pressure cooker that also does other things okay. The Foodi is a good pressure cooker that also air fries okay. Pick your priority. Would I say this is the best multi cooker for busy families? Yeah. I would. But only if you're willing to climb the learning curve. The first week will be frustrating. You'll get a burn notice. You'll open the lid to find undercooked rice. You'll release steam too fast and spray starchy water on your ceiling. And then something will click. You'll make a chili that tastes like it simmered all day but only took forty minutes. You'll cook a whole chicken that your kids ask for by name. You'll realize you haven't ordered takeout in two weeks and your DoorDash driver has stopped waving at you. That's the moment the Instant Pot stops being a gadget and starts being a kitchen appliance. Like a stove or a fridge. Something you'd miss if it broke. I was skeptical. I was intimidated. I almost returned it after the burn notice incident. Now I use it six days a week and feel actual anxiety when the sealing ring is drying and I can't cook with it. My sister was right. The internet was right. This pot is the real deal.