The Lazy Genius Podcast - #181 - The Instant Pot Episode

Episode Date: October 26, 2020

Here’s what we’re going to go through today: what the Instant Pot is great for, what it’s not great for, how to start using one including my favorite tools and resources, and my own personal Instant Pot rhythm. Because here’s the thing: not everybody needs an Instant Pot, and everyone that does have one uses it differently, for different types of recipes and different speeds of regularity. Stuff Mentioned Windblown Grateful studs are back for a very short time! You can get a pair here. The Instant Pot I own and use My Magic Instant Pot Curry Rice recipe Tools and Resources I use and love: Coco Morante’s two cookbooks The Essential Instant Pot Cookbook and The Ultimate Instant Pot Cookbook; tongs; kitchen thermometer; metal steamer basket Buy a copy of my book The Lazy Genius Way! Download a transcript of this episode. This podcast is hosted by Kendra Adachi and executive produced by Kendra Adachi, Jenna Fischer and Angela Kinsey. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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From binge all episodes exclusively on Paramount Plus. Hello, you're listening to The Lazy Genius Podcast. I'm Kendra Adachi, and I'm here to help you be a genius about the things that matter and lazy about the things that don't. Today is episode 181, the Instant Pot episode. This has been a long time coming, so get ready. If you just bought an Instant Pot for a Prime Day or are thinking about it when Black Friday or Cyber Monday rolls around, this episode can be your starter kit on how to think of it.

about it, like if you actually want to get one, and then how to use it. First, real quick, I want to tell you about something super fun. This is not technically an ad. It is about jewelry, though. It is not about the instant pot. So I wear jewelry pretty much from one place, windblown jewelry. It's jewelry that is legit made for people who don't like or wear jewelry like me, and it's perfect. There is this one pair of earrings that I wear a lot that I get asked about every single time I wear them. They are open gold circles that lay flush against your earlobe. They're small enough to feel casual, but not so small that they don't feel special. So Rachel and her team over at Windblown, they just, they know how to create jewelry that works. Well, anyway, these earrings are called

the grateful studs and they are discontinued, which makes me sad to tell people that every time I get asked about these earrings. However, Rachel said, what if we need? We need. We need. We know. We need. We make the Gratefuls available for like a short time for your audience since they ask about them a lot. Because yes, like y'all go to Windblown and y'all ask them about these earrings because I think that you know they're going to be your new favorite earrings if you can just get your hands on them. Well, so good news. The Grateful Studs are available starting today for just a few weeks for you to snatch up and then they're like legit going away. Like even more than, you know, Disney Vault movies back in the day before we had Disney Plus and

movies would actually disappear forever. So these earrings would make such great holiday gifts. So I just want you to like know that they're coming. You can click on the link in my profile. Not on my profile. This is an Instagram. You can click on the link in the show notes to go get a pair or two of these grateful steads before they're gone for good. I promise you that these will be your new favorite earrings. I am so glad that Rachel brought them back just for you. Like legitimately just for you. These are basically lazy genius earrings. I mean, they're just, they're perfect. So I'm here for them. A link is in the show notes again, if you want to check them out. Okay. Let's pivot to the instant pot. Here is what we're going to

go through today, what the instant pot is great for, what it is not great for, how to start using one, including my favorite tools and resources, and then my own personal kind of instant pot rhythm. because here's the thing not everybody needs an instant pot and everyone that does use one they use it differently for different types of recipes and different speeds of regularity right plus remember this for my book the lazy genius way that principle of putting everything in its place you cannot put something in its place until it has a place now an instant pot is a fairly large appliance that needs a place to go. So a critical part of deciding whether it's a good call for you to get one is if you have a place to put it. And it's a place that works for you. Don't buy stuff unless you know where it's going to go.

That is the sneaky secret way a lazy genius keeps his or her house from going to pot. Don't get something unless you know where it's going to go and then you keep putting it back in its place. Okay. So first, what is an instant pot great for? It is great for anything that requires cooking where the heat is contained or anything that requires liquid to cook. Okay, so think about it this way. Think about any recipe that you make that you put a lid on or anything that uses a decent amount of liquid to cook. So soups, stews, chilies, a pot of rice or barley or quinoa, vegetables that you steam on the stove, braised short ribs or a pot roast, baked chicken and rice dishes. that go in a casserole dish, you know, that you put in the oven.

Pasta. The list is actually pretty long, okay? Those kinds of recipes or meals or ingredients or whatever are fantastic in the Instapot. Another way to thinking about it is any recipe that you would never want to dry out. The Instant Pot basically eliminates dried out, tough, final dishes. Also, I'm not trying to make you feel dumb with this, but nobody ever actually explained to me what an Instapot does. So I'm going to tell you. real quick because I wish someone had explained it to me. An instant pot is a pressure cooker.

That means it uses high pressure and the liquid inside the pot to cook your food quickly. Hence the word instant. It basically is like rocket fuel for steaming, boiling, stewing, and brazing, and it takes no time compared to when you do that on the stove. depending on the model you get, and I'll link to mine in the show notes, by the way, it can basically operate as a pressure cooker and a slow cooker and a rice cooker and a yogurt maker. Like it knows how to manage, it knows how to manage time and liquid and pressure to quickly cook all kinds of foods without them getting tough. I mean, really, it is kind of magical. So for example, we love Japanese curry rice in my house. It's my husband. It's my husband.

husband's like favorite meal. He grew up on it as a kid. And all of my kids range from tolerating it to loving it. Now the instant pot version of it is on my website and in the show notes if you want to check it out. But before I adapted it for the instant pot, I would just cook it in a Dutch oven on the stove, which works great, right? But it takes like three or four hours to get the meat tender easily that long. So it's kind of like a half a day thing you have to plan to be home for. which is fine, but sometimes, you know, you don't have half a day. The other thing about it is with a lot of brazed dishes, which is, you know, kind of low and slow with some liquid, you have to babysit the pot a little bit because you always want to make sure there's enough liquid to keep the meat

from drying out, but not too much liquid that everything is just covered and it just sort of like weirdly boils. Also, you have to watch the heat and make sure it's consistent. because if it cooks, if it's like too bubbly, then the meat will get tough. If it's not bubbling at all, nothing's really happening. So I do love the process of brazing and I still do it sometimes. But that kind of babysitting and time, it just doesn't work all the time. Sometimes you need to pull out the instant pot and have curry rice ready in less than an hour rather than in at least four. So it's just really great for recipes and cooking that require closed moist cooking. And it's great for people who like those kinds of foods and who also could use a bit of a time saver.

Now here is where the Instant Pot is not great. It is not for recipes and cooking approaches that require high open exposed heat. So think about sauteing and grilling and roasting. Foods that need to be spread out and get zapped with high heat to get crispy or caramelized or anything like that. Those things should not be cooked in the instapot. This is not like an appliance. It's going to be a stand-in for every piece of cookware you have. It is if your Dutch oven and a soup pot and a slow cooker and a rice cooker all had like a really smart, nerdy baby.

But skillets and sheet pans do not contribute to its DNA. Okay. Now there is, this is where it can feel a little bit like, but wait, Kendra, there is a saute function on the Insta. pot and I use it often but only as the first step of like a couple of steps in using the instant pot as its best self. So like browning the beef for the curry rice first to develop a little bit of flavor but then I add the liquid and the vegetables to actually cook it. So if you're like primarily a stir fry person or you put stuff on the grill all the time you're a sheet pan meal person, you might not actually really use the instant pot enough to justify its cost or even more than that

to justify the space that it takes up. It just doesn't work for everyone or for every recipe. Not everything should be made into an instant pot recipe. It's kind of like pumpkin flavored stuff during the fall. Just because you can put pumpkin in something doesn't mean that you should. Okay, so let's say that you're like, all right, yes, this appliance is for me. I cook oatmeal and rice and beans and soup and chicken and rice dishes and all that stuff you just mentioned all the time, Kendra. Yes, I could use some time saving in the kitchen. This isn't a plan for me. All right, so now what? How do you get started with this thing? Okay, so first, depending on when you're listening to this, Black Friday and Zyper Monday, historically have been excellent times to get

an instant pot. The model I have is, I think it's like $100 on Amazon, like $99 or whatever, on a regular day, but on Black Friday, it's been as low as like $60, which is great, obviously. So if you want to like hang tight until then you can. All right, but okay, let's, and also let's do a quick huddle on how to decide whether or not to purchase something like this, how to justify the cost. Okay. Now, everyone has their own way to decide if they're going to spend almost $100 on an appliance when they might already have a slow cooker and a rice cooker and a Dutch oven and why do I actually need this thing? This is a very valid question. And I applaud you're asking it. Okay. You're not like a cheap skate for asking. Here's how I look at stuff like this. Let's say I think I'm going to use the instapot three times a month,

just as an arbitrary number. Once a week might feel like a lot. So let's just say three times a month. That is 36 times a year. Now assuming that this puppy saves me some time by like half and then sanity by even more because you really just put stuff in there and press a button is great. This is also a great appliance for getting other people to help make dinner because it is as easy as dumping stuff into a bowl and pushing a button. So let's also assume I spend full price on this just for the say, of the math in this argument. That is, so like it's 37 times, 36 times over a year and about $100 for the thing. Okay. That is less than three bucks a meal in a year. Now, that doesn't include ingredients or whatever, but that's what I'm paying for the use of this appliance. Now, if somebody

walked into my house and said, hi there, I would like to speed up your dinner making. I would like to help you breathe easier and I'd like to help your family members share some of this dinner making load with you. I can do this for you for about once a week for about an extra $3. I would throw my money at this person as hard as I could. And that's just for a single year at less than one meal a week, right? Not like the years and years that you would have it. And I know a lot of people who use their instant pot, like they use it several times a week. So that's how I personally figure out if something is worth buying. I spread it out over time and see if I would be willing to pay that thing, you know, however many bucks or pennies per experience. And if I am, I'm like,

okay, let's do this. Okay, so that's just like a little sidebar. Aw, isn't something we need to travel for. It's something waiting for us in everyday life, whether in a city street or a moment with a work of art. I'm Dr. Keltner, host of the Science of Happiness podcast. Join me for of awe, a special series on how our public spaces can spark awe, wonder, and enhance the quality of public life. You can find us wherever you listen to your podcasts. Back to the instant pot. Getting started with it. Okay. Hear me. This is what happens. You've bought it. You've opened the box. You are so ready. And then you see all the buttons. And you read warnings about pressure. And you're like, wait, is this a time capsule? Did this fall?

from space. I think that there is no greater, like, pleasure plummet than the anticipation of a small appliance. And then you open the box and being like, wait, why did I do this again? This is too hard. So let's avoid. We don't want to, we don't want that to happen. All right. So here's the first rule. Here's the first rule of instant pot club. You never talk about instant pot club. I'm sorry. I had to do it. Okay. So the first rule of instant pot club is you start small. that is a lazy genius principle in my book the lazy genius way it works on instant pots too if you look at the buttons and see all the potential if you open an instant pot cookbook and you see all the recipes if you open the instruction manual that comes with the instant pot i encourage you to read it

and you see all the settings and functions and rules you will put the thing back in its box and you will hate me for telling you about it but that's not because of me As much as I'm happy to take the force of your displeasure, it is because you're assuming you have to figure it all out right away. And that is not a thing. So listen to me. Before you even order this, decide once, another lazy genius principle. Decide once right now what food you will learn to cook first and ignore everything else for now. Okay? Keep it simple. Do something like hard-boiled eggs or rice or oatmeal or one particular dump and stir recipe that doesn't require anything but just dumping and turning one function, right? Know where you'll start and start small. That is rule number one.

Rule number two is understand the seal. Okay. The whole reason a pressure cooker works is because it forces the food to cook under high pressure. And there are two main things to know about that so that your food cooks the way it's supposed to and you don't accidentally get hurt. Now, should you be concerned for your mortal life because of a small appliance that costs as much as like two hummers full of gas? No. It's not scary. But a lot of the language around instant pots is kind of dramatic for valid reasons. But we think everyone is like chicken little and we don't pay full attention to the stuff that we actually should pay attention to because everything's so dramatic. So here are the two things to know about understanding the seal.

So first is the pressure seal and then second is the pressure valve. Okay, so there's this silicone sealing ring that is part of the instant pot lid. Its job is to keep the pressure in the pot. If that movable silicone ring, because you can take it off, if it is not correctly positioned around the immovable metal ring on the inside of the pot, the pressure won't stay trapped, which means your food won't properly cook, and sometimes your instant pot will just turn off, which is a massive bummer when you're trying to make food. So before you secure your lid, you want to check to make sure that silicone ring is not gaping anywhere.

I just made hard-walled eggs for Ben for lunch, and I didn't check the seal, and it like started hissing when it should not hiss. And I was like, oh, I guess I didn't check my ring. So just check your ring. The second part of understanding the seal is the pressure valve. Okay, here we go. In order for your food to cook the right way, the pressure cannot escape the instant pot, right? That's the point. Also, in order for you to open your instant pot after it's done cooking your food, you have to release the pressure that has built up inside. The machine is actually built to not open under that intense pressure because you will get a face full of steam and a really horrible injury. So the instant pot, it will not physically open until the pressure or its steam is released.

There's like this little tiny metal thing that pops up and down to lock it if the pressure is not released. So there is a valve, there is a pressure valve that is set to either sealing or venting. That's what it says on the top of the lid. Ceiling means it's sealed and the pressure is trapped. Venting means the pressure is slowly being released or vented out. Now, I wish that it was a switch or a button or something really concrete that you could flip from ceiling to venting, but there is not. instead there's this little black plastic doohickey on top of the lid that does this very important job of sealing and venting but doesn't to me look as important as it should you basically like toggle the thing black back and forth from ceiling to venting I don't know it just feels kind of flimsy to me so just a warning because if you're like wait is this working but as long as the black thing the little toggle is pointed at the right word it is okay So before you put on your lid, when it's time to cook something, make sure that that silicone

ring is secured around the wire ring. And the next, when you secure your lid, you want to make sure that the black piece of plastic is toggled to the word sealing so that the pressure will actually stay inside the pot. When the recipe is over, which is when the timer beeps, you have a couple of options. You could immediately turn that toggle to venting and steam would just spew out at you like lava. I mean, not at you. That's dramatic. It goes straight up. That's how it's designed. But it is a little intense the first time. It's called a quick release, which makes sense. It's when you quickly or like almost immediately vent out the pressure once the cooking is done and the timer has gone off. Okay. Now remember too that the pressure cooking is precise and it is run by those buttons on your instant pot.

So you'll always set a timer. That's just how the instant pot works is you're going to be like pressure cook for 12 minutes and then it'll beep and do the thing. But there's a second release option, not quick release. It's called manual release. Manual release is basically waiting a little bit of time to let the pressure settle on its own before you turn that toggle from ceiling to venting. and it's not quite as dramatic. Some recipes actually call for a manual release of like, say, 10 minutes or something, which means that after the timer beeps and the cooking is technically done, you still wait another 10 minutes before you vent out the steam. Some recipes actually benefit from that

because they're still cooking happening even after the pressure stops. Okay? So again, rule number two, understand the seal. Once you understand that basic idea, it's just, it's not scary. And for me, those are really the only two rules you need to get started. Start small and understand the seal. Otherwise, you'll find your own rhythm of using the instant pot in your life, which I guess leads me to my own rhythm. Wait, wait a minute. I guess I did say I was going to share favorite resources and stuff, didn't I? I'll do rhythm first and then share a few resources. Okay, so plus everything's going to be linked in the show notes. Okay. So once you get started, you'll find a bit of a rhythm with your instant pot. So first, I want you to think again about where you're going to store it. I beg of you to not say your counter. The counter is not the best place for anything in most situations, especially something that's not pretty. I mean, the instant pot is fine, but she is not pretty. So please try and find a place that it is not seen. That is not your counter. Now here's a thing, you guys. Where you store this will have a direct impact on how often you use it. Okay? My instant pot is in my

kitchen in a cabinet and it is easy to get to. It's like in a bottom cabinet. So yeah, it's easy to get to. So that means when I decide to use it, I don't have to move a bunch of things. I don't have to go to a garage or a closet somewhere else to grab it. I want you to think about that. Think about the things that you own because this is not the first time this happened. This happens to a lot of us. Think about the things that you own that you don't use very often because it's just annoying to get them out. if you want to use this appliance to serve you well, you need to store it somewhere where it can find its own rhythm without being annoying. Okay. So my personal rhythm. I don't actually use the instant pot for singular ingredients except for hard boiled eggs. My family doesn't really like beans. We don't eat a lot of

grains other than rice and we have like a special Japanese rice cooker because my husband is Japanese and we care a lot about our rice. We don't eat a lot of yogurt, so I don't really make yogurt. So all of the individual ingredients that a lot of people use the Instantopot for, I do not, which means my rhythm is not regular. You know, like a lot of people will use it once or twice a week for meal prep. I don't. I'm just not in a season of life where I'm doing a ton of meal prep.

So, you know, like our recipes are not varied and done all in one chunk, really. I'm more in the season of like, hey, y'all, let's eat the same 20 meals for the next three months from a limited ingredient list and we'll be cool with it. And we are. Like it's fine. Now, will I use it for prep like more in the future probably? You bet your buttons I will. But not now. And that's fine. So for me, I use it maybe once a week, maybe for a complete recipe. Also, by the way, a lot of people use it to bake, but I do not. All right. So this is indeed actually with the baking thing. This is a segue from a very short rhythm section to favorite tools and resources. Okay, there are tons of accessories and tools that a lot of people recommend for the instant pot. So far, in terms of cookbooks, I'm going to start with that and then I want to talk about tools. So I have really enjoyed two of the cookbooks from Cocoa Marante that are all instant pot recipes. There is the essential instant pot cookbook and the ultimate instant pot cookbook. She does it. a great job at giving you kind of a crash course and pretty much everything you need to know

about the Instant Pot. However, she has a list of recommended tools like most cookbooks do. And I have said this before. A tool for your kitchen is only essential if you use it. It does not matter what experts say. It does not matter what I say. It doesn't matter what your mother-in-law or your best friend says if somebody swears by something but you do not use it, it is not essential to you. Not everyone has the same list of essential tools, okay? So when it comes to the instant pot, because of how I use it to cook, which is pretty simply, I do not have most of what Cocoa Morante says are must have tools. That's how it's labeled, must have tools. She recommends silicone oven mitts. I don't use those because we serve straight from the pot. And

And if I need to lift the pot out, I'll just use regular oven mitts. She recommends an extra inner metal pot because it's like an actual, the cooking happens in a metal pot that you put inside the actual like appliance or whatever. And she recommends an extra one of those. But we don't cook with the instant pot enough to use two, let alone store two. So I don't have that. She recommends a tempered glass lid. So you can see inside when you're using the slow cook setting.

I don't use that. She says to have jar lifters and jam. funnels and a seven-inch cake pan so you can fit your cake into the pot and a fat separator and silicone muffintins honestly of the dozen things she says are most must-haves i have i have counted them i have four only four of the 12 one of them comes with your pot it is this it's like a stainless steel trivet and then the other three are things i already have tongs a kitchen thermometer and a metal collapsible steamer basket so here's your permission to not get what every else says you should until you actually need it. This is the problem with new gadgets and hobbies

and systems that we build is we have to support them with all this extra stuff. Everybody says is essential, but if you don't use something, it is not essential. It is just noise. Okay. So that's actually an entire principle slash chapter in the lazy genius way about how to essentialize things. you only keep what is essential to you. You have to. Otherwise, we're just, we have too much stuff. Okay. Also, can y'all believe we've already pulled four lazy genius principles into an instant pot episode? And they're not even like cooking ones, like batching or the magic question. This is why I love being a lazy genius. We learn how to think about our lives in ways that makes sense for us, even with a topic like the instant pot. Okay, so my personal essential tools, this is my. This is my.

list are just tongs to easily move stuff around, but that's true for like most cooking. The metal trivet that comes with a pot, I do use that for eggs and stuff. A wooden spoon so that I don't scratch the bottom of my pot when I'm stirring. And also I sometimes use a plastic scraper or bench knife to get into the edges of the pot if something got like a stubborn burn to it at the end and I need to scrape it clean. Now that has happened just a couple times. and it's user error. It's just because I didn't have enough water in there or whatever. So, but for me, I don't use or need anything extra or special that doesn't already come with

the instant pot itself. Like, I already use those things for other stuff too. Now, that might not be true of you, right? And that's okay. Just start small with how you learn to use the instant pot and what you're going to cook with it. And then only buy extra things if you know you will use them. And remember, let's go back to our principle of putting everything in its place. Know where you're going to put that extra stuff. Otherwise, it's just going to clutter your kitchen. And that is our least favorite thing. And that's the Instant Pot episode.

Okay. I'm going to put links to all the things in the show notes. Or you can go to the lazy genius collective.com slash lazy slash instant pot. Thank you so much for listening. Don't forget to check out the limited release earrings from When Blonde Jewelry. They're so beautiful. They won't make such a good gifts. And you know what?

As I say that, you could give a pair of those earrings, along with the copy of the lazy genius way, to about any woman in your life and have like a stellar holiday gift, for real. You could wrap it up in a pretty detail for an extra touch. I'm really digging this idea. All right. That is it for today. Thank you so much for being here. And until next time, be a genius about the things that matter and lazy about the things that don't.

I'm Kendra. I'll see you next week. Have you ever felt like you were living just a B or B plus life? It's so dangerous to live that. More dangerous than a B minus or a C plus life? Because when you're living a B or B plus life, you don't change it. You think it's good enough. Is it? I'm Susie Welch.

I host a podcast called Becoming You. People think, okay, an A plus life is not available to me, but there is a way. We are all in the process of becoming ourselves. Listen to Becoming You wherever you get your podcasts.