The Best Electric Pressure Cooker Is an Instant Pot

The Instant Pot, a versatile multi-cooker, remains the best electric pressure cooker we’ve tested since 2016. It excels at pressure cooking, slow cooking, sautéing, and more, making dinner quick and hassle-free even on busy days.

The Instant Pot offers over a dozen models with varying features, but the Rio 6-quart stands out for its performance, ease of use, and value. Despite filing for bankruptcy in June 2023, Instant Brands secured funding to continue operations, so the Instant Pot remains available.

Instant Pot Rio 6-quart

The best electric pressure cooker

The Rio is a versatile, affordable Instant Pot model that handles all essential tasks effortlessly.

The Instant Pot Rio 6-quart is user-friendly and excels in core functions like pressure cooking, sautéing, and steaming. It features a durable stainless steel pot, an auto-sealing lid, and updates like a progress indicator and anti-spin grips. While it lacks advanced features, it’s an affordable option with all the essentials for most home cooks.

Instant Pot Pro 6-quart

More versatile

This model provides greater cooking control, a large LCD screen, and a pot with stay-cool handles for easy removal.

The Instant Pot Pro 6-quart offers thoughtful upgrades like a stovetop- and oven-safe pot with handles, a bright LCD screen, five customizable presets, and quieter steam release. It also features more precise sauté controls, an extra sealing ring, and compatibility with the QuickCool Tray for faster depressurization.

How we picked

Through years of testing, we found most pressure cookers perform well on basic dishes like beans and meats. Key differences lie in ease of use and features, so we prioritized:

User-friendliness: Intuitive controls and clear displays.
Versatility: Multi-cookers that can pressure cook, slow cook, sauté, steam, make rice, and yogurt.
Materials: Durable stainless steel pots preferred over nonstick for longevity.
Warranty: At least one-year coverage and availability of replaceable parts for maintenance.

How we tested

Since 2016, we’ve tested electric pressure cookers with tasks like cooking beans, rice, and sautéing onions, along with dishes like brisket, risotto, and even cake. While most handle basics well, we focused on usability, features, and build—favoring models that are easy to clean, versatile, and durable, with options like adjustable sauté heat and savable presets.

Our pick: Instant Pot Rio 6-quart

The Instant Pot Rio 6-quart, an upgrade of the Duo, delivers top performance at a great price. It handles core functions as well as pricier models and outperforms other brands. With an intuitive control panel, easy cleaning, a durable stainless steel pot, and accessible replacement parts, it’s a standout choice.

The Instant Pot Rio 6-quart is user-friendly, with a start button, dedicated temperature and time controls, and a progress bar for preheating, cooking, or warming. Its rubber stoppers keep the pot stable while sautéing, and it offers three heat levels for precise cooking. With versatile programs for rice, stew, yogurt, sautéing, slow cooking, and pressure cooking, it remembers your time adjustments for future use.

The Rio’s durable stainless steel inner pot, with a tri-ply bottom for even heat distribution, outlasts nonstick pots, which wear out over time. Its safer steam-release switch makes depressurizing easier, and the lid automatically seals the valve, unlike older models where you had to adjust it manually.

The Instant Pot is durable, with some staffers using theirs for over five years, still working well even after being dropped or handled roughly.

The Rio comes with a one-year warranty, and replacement parts are available online. The 6-quart size is ideal for most home cooks.

Flaws but not dealbreakers

The Rio has some hard-to-clean areas, like the rim that traps debris, but can be cleaned with canned air and a damp rag. The silicone sealing ring may retain smells, but it can be deodorized or replaced, with many opting for separate rings for savory and sweet dishes.

The Rio has many buttons, which can feel overwhelming if you don’t use them all. If you prefer a simpler control panel, we recommend our upgrade pick with fewer buttons.

The lid is heavy, weighing nearly 2.5 pounds, and gets hot during cooking. If you’re concerned about touching it, consider the Pro, which has a plastic lid. The lid must also be twisted to lock in place.

The searing performance is subpar compared to stovetop methods. For better browning, sear meat separately and then add it to the cooker.

The Rio has only one pressure setting, unlike the Duo and Pro, which offer both low and high. While low pressure can be useful, most recipes are designed for high pressure, and staffers rarely use the low setting.

Upgrade pick: Instant Pot Pro 6-quart

The Instant Pot Pro 6-quart offers key upgrades over the Rio, including a stove- and oven-safe inner pot with cool-touch handles, a large LCD screen, more sauté temperature options, and a gentler steam release. It also includes an extra sealing ring. The Pro’s inner pot can be used on the stove or in the oven, making it ideal for searing or finishing dishes, a feature not available in other Instant Pot models.

The Instant Pot Pro features a large, bright LCD screen with a progress bar that shows the cooking step and its progress. It has fewer buttons than the Rio, using a dial for program presets, and offers customizable time and temperature settings. Like the Rio, you can also turn off beeping noises.

The Instant Pot Pro offers a gentler, quieter steam release thanks to a valve cover that diffuses the steam. It features the same automatic sealing and quick-release switch as the Rio, with two customizable alerts for steam release. The Pro is also compatible with the QuickCool Tray (sold separately), which can speed up depressurization by up to 15 minutes.

The Pro’s extra functions are less useful. Its bake setting failed to cook small cake rounds properly, leaving them uncooked even after an hour. The sous vide setting also underperformed, running 5 degrees below target, so we recommend a dedicated immersion circulator for better results.

Despite claims of faster preheating, we found no significant difference in pressurization times between the Pro and other models, with the Pro taking 14 minutes 24 seconds.

The Pro is available in an 8-quart version, ideal for larger meals or making stock, while the Rio comes in a 7.5-quart version.

The included instruction manual lacks detail compared to the online PDF, so we recommend bookmarking the latter for reference.

Like other Instant Pot models, the Pro comes with a one-year warranty covering manufacturer defects, not misuse or accidents.