How Much Energy Does A Crock
A Crock-Pot uses considerably less energy that an electric range. Electric ranges use between 2,000 and 2,800 watts of electricity at medium heat. Crock-Pots use a fraction of that, depending on the size and model. The smallest 1.5-quart Crock-Pot is rated at 120 watts, while the most popular 8-quart model is rated at 320 watts.
The cooking temperature and length of time for cooking determines how much energy you actually use, but even cooking a pot roast for eight hours or more will consume considerably less energy than a conventional oven running for three hours. Because energy use can vary widely, use the Appliance Energy Calculator from the U.S. Department of Energy to compare your brand of appliance, energy use and cost to see what you really save.
Save Money Using A Slow Cooker Or Instant Pot Instead Of The Oven
Cooking low and slow is one of our all-time favorite methods, but running your oven for hours gets expensive. Here’s how much you can save with a more energy-efficient appliance.
David Watsky
Senior Editor / Home and Kitchen
I live in Brooklyn where I write about food subscriptions, cooking, kitchen gadgets and commerce. Anything with sesame is my all-time favorite food this week.
There’s no food quite like slow food. Be it braised beef short ribs, slow-cooked baby backs or a tender mound of pulled pork, these foods take more time but are worth every minute. One downside that comes with cooking slowly is a potentially bloated energy bill since you’ll need to run your oven for several hours, and gas ain’t cheap these days. Other appliances including slow cookers and Instant Pots can mimic the results of slow oven cooking without using all that energy or turning your kitchen into a sauna.
There’s no wrong way to save money on your monthly utility bills with energy costs as high as they are. Little shake-ups in your routine can add up to savings, and one of those could be opting for a slow cooker or Instant Pot over the oven. Both small appliances use significantly less energy per hour than a full-size oven. For slow-cooked meals and recipes, that difference could mean a few extra hundred dollars in your pocket over the course of a year.
Tips For Saving Money With An Instant Pot
It never hurts to want to save a little extra money on your electrical bill, even if you are opting for the budget-friendly instant pot over microwave or an oven.
These appliances are one of the most energy-efficient in any kitchen alongside the slow cooker. However, if youre an avid instant pot user who wants to further reduce the overall cost of food and running this appliance daily, here are some suggestions.
Also Check: Can You Make Bacon In The Instant Pot
Recently Discontinued Instant Pots
As its product line has grown and evolved, Instant Brands has retired some of its older models.Instant Pot Viva: Discontinued in the U.S.The Instant Pot Viva began as a QVC exclusive and was later sold through other retailers. The Viva has since been discontinued in the United States but this 6-quart model is still available in Canada.
Duo Nova Instant Pot: 10-quart Size DiscontinuedWhile you can still get a Duo Nova Instant Pot in 3-, 6-, and 8-quart sizes, the 10-quart Instant Pot Duo Nova has been discontinued.
Instant Pot Nova Plus: Discontinued
The Nova Plus was a Costco Instant Pot exclusive that is no longer available. The Nova Plus was similar to the Duo but had the blue LED screen of the Duo Plus.
Instant Pot Duo Evo Plus: Discontinued
The Duo Evo Plus was an upgrade on the standard Duo and has been discontinued by Instant Pot. It had an upgraded blue LED display panel like the Duo Plus and a sleeker interface.
Instant Pot Lux: Discontinued
This early Instant Pot lacked many of the features you can get in even the most basic models available in 2022. The Lux has been discontinued by the brand, though you can sometimes still .
Instant Pot Smart Wi-Fi: DiscontinuedThis Wi-Fi-enabled 6-quart Instant Pot has been discontinued and replaced by the Instant Pot Pro Plus 6-quart Smart Multi-Cooker.
Instant Pot just got delivered? Put it to use with one of these Instant Pot recipes:
Cost Of Store Bought Greek Yogurt
For the purposes of this calculation, Im going to be using the price of Fage All-Natural Greek Yogurt brand without any club, member, or coupon discounts. These prices are from Seattle, WA in May 2018. Ive also used Lucerne whole milk to make the yogurt. The price would increase if you use organic milk.
Store Bought Greek Yogurt Cost by Container Size
7 ounce container: $1.69 total 24.1 cents per ounce17.6 ounce container: $4.29 total 24.4 cents per ounce35.3 ounce container: $6.99 total 19.8 cents per ounce
Immediately we know that if youre going to buy Greek yogurt from the store, its the most economical to buy the large container. Just make sure you use it all!
Read Also: What Is Instant Pot Natural Release
Can I Plug My Crock
Cars are rather complicated to use as batteries to power electronics. However, it can be done. You can run pretty much anything from your car battery these days, including your crock-pot.
Remember, that the power will come from the alternator when your cars engine is running.
The battery only becomes the source of power when the engine is switched off.
Therefore, if you want to use your crock-pot while you are not driving, then you should install an additional battery to make it worth your while.
Side note: think about including a cutoff switch to the main battery. It is extra work but massively increases your safety.
Best Instant Pot 202: Our Top 6 Multi
Find the best Instant Pot for your kitchen, with the help of our reviews of the Duo, Pro, Crisp, and even a few alternatives from Ninja
Choosing the best Instant Pot can be overwhelming. After all, it’s an expansive line, with a range of functions and capacities to choose between. That includes the Duo, Pro, and Crisp lines, all of which have various differences that will make them more suited to some users than others. So, which is the best Instant Pot for you?
We’ve been busy reviewing all the best Instant Pots over the past few months to bring you our top picks, and we’ve also included a few alternatives from Ninja, which have in-built crisper lids as well as pressure cooking functions. A lot of Instant Pots come with crisper lids too, meaning they will double up as the best air fryers, as well as steaming or pressure cooking any food you could hope to make.
One of the major perks of owning an Instant Pot this time of year is the sealed-in, compact design. On a hot day, the last thing you want to do is pour over a hot stove, but the best Instant Pot will do all the cooking for you, and it will prevent your kitchen from overheating while it works. And when your meals are done, you can expect to put all removable parts in the dishwasher to take all the effort out of mealtimes. For our top picks of the six best Instant Pots, keep on reading.
Read Also: How Do You Cook Potatoes In An Instant Pot
Is An Instant Pot Worth The Money
Lets take a look at the instant pot and whether or not its worth the money. Depending on the time of year, and what kind of deal you can find, the average Instant Pot will set you back anywhere from $70 to $150.
While its not the cheapest kitchen appliance on the market, it does have multiple uses and can take the place of other expensive appliances you might need.
You can purchase a stove top pressure cooker or slow cooker for around $25. Does that mean the Instant Pot is overpriced, or something you shouldnt consider buying? I dont think so.
If you arent sure if youll actually use it, the Instant Pot may be a waste of money. On the other hand, youll end up using it quite a bit if you keep it on your counter and use it as your pressure cooker, slow cooker, and rice cooker.
Ive found that those who purchase an Instant Pot and then promptly put it in a cupboard and never look at it again are the ones who say its not worth it. The first step is always the hardest.
If you vow to use it at least once or twice when you first receive it, it will be an investment thats well worth it. After I used mine the first few times, I couldnt put it away. I was using it every day.
Look through some recipes, borrow a friends Instant Pot if possible, and see if this seems like the type of appliance that will work well for you and your lifestyle.
He Used His Own Money And Sold It On Amazon
It took Wang roughly 18 months to develop the first iteration of the Instant Pot, including finding a manufacturer, ironing out the kinks of design, and tweaking the firmware and algorithms before releasing the first product on Amazon in October 2010.
Wang sank roughly $300,000 of his personal savings into the project to get it to market, he tells CNBC Make It. He originally had two partners who had previously worked with him at Nortel, but he says, “They did not believe in the idea” and left after just five months . Wang carried on by himself for another six months, he says, before another group of partners joined the effort, including two former BlackBerry employees: Yi Qin, who is now Instant Brands’ vice president of product management, and Dongjun Wang, who serves as vice president of quality assurance.
During those 18 months, Wang says he worked to identify “prominent pain points” for consumers who cook at home with electrical appliances so he could design a product that offered solutions.
One of those pain points was an overcrowded kitchen, so Wang created Instant Pot to combine the functions of multiple devices.
Another big frustration for home chefs? Burned food. “It’s a very frustrating experience,” Wang says. “So as one of the key objectives, we needed to design a certain burn protection mechanism.”
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Best For Low Prices Runner
If youre looking for a little more cooking space for roughly the same or lower price as a basic Instant Pot , the Presto 02141 6-Quart Electric Pressure Cooker could be right up your alley.
This pressure cooker can handle many different types of cooking such as stews, meats, veggies and several varieties of rice. However, it lacks multicooker features for yogurt and steaming.
Notably, it does feature both high and low pressure settings, which gives it a degree of versatility that some multi-cookers otherwise lacks. Overall, the Presto is a great choice for home cooks looking for a versatile appliance with plenty of space for larger meals.
If I Already Have A Slow Cooker And A Rice Cooker Do I Really Need Another Appliance
Well, we cant dictate what you need. However, the Instant Pot is more functional than both a slow cooker and rice cooker combined because it can also pressure-cook. The word instant in the name gives it away: You can cook things astonishingly fast in a pressure cookereven notoriously slow-cooking or labor-intensive foods like risotto and brisket.
We think rice cooked in the Instant Pot is fine for most people, though the grains dont come out as fluffy and light as they do from a high-end rice cooker like our upgrade pick, the Cuckoo CRP-G1015F. Rice aficionados might want to keep their rice cooker, especially for cooking sushi-grade grains.
If youre worried about clutter, you can donate your old appliances to a charity, or hand them off to someone in your life whos just starting out. Were sure theyd appreciate them.
Read Also: How To Air Fry In Instant Pot
Competition Is Heating Up
Instant Pot’s popularity has helped invigorate the larger market for multicookers in the U.S.: It has grown by roughly 99 percent so far this year, after increasing by about 79 percent to more than $300 million in 2017, making multicookers one of the fastest-growing product categories in the retail sector in the past two years, NPD analyst Derochowski tells CNBC Make It.
Derochowski expects multicookers like Instant Pot to be among the top-selling products during the current holiday shopping season, with sales continuing to grow in 2019.
While Instant Pot enjoys a significant market share advantage according to Wang , rival products are actively trying to take a bite out of its lead.
You could argue that Crock-Pot, which sold millions of products several decades ago before enthusiasm died down, was the original Instant Pot in terms of its popularity as a time saver in the kitchen. Now Crock-Pot is looking to siphon off some of the buzz around Instant Pot with its own versions of an all-inclusive multicooker â a line it’s calling the Crock-Pot Express Crock Multi-Cooker â that hit the market in .
The new Crock-Pot products are a potential threat to Instant Pot, according to Derochowski, because of its “brand heritage and brand knowledge.” He also points to other potential competitors like the Ninja Foodi multicooker, which recently added an air fryer to a list of functions that also includes pressure cooker and steamer.
Ways The Instant Pot Saves Money
January 24, 2018 Last Updated February 28, 2020
If I had to guess, 98% of people who buy the Instant Pot do so because theyre trying to get dinner on the table faster.
Another 1% bought it because everyone else was buying it.
And then the last 1% of people are seeing if the Instant Pot saves money.
Turns out, that last 1% are on to something
I honestly hadnt thought about using my Instant Pot to save money until I started the Instant Pot Basics challenge. What started as a goal to use my Instant Pot once a day, making a bunch of things I normally make anyway, turned into me having to get a bit creative with the daily posts.
I mean, one can only make so much Instant Pot chicken stock, Instant Pot beans and Instant Pot brown rice, right?
The thing though, is by having the Instant Pot on my counter and at the ready, its already saved me money. Heres how.
Read Also: How To Cook Broccoli Instant Pot
How Much Does It Cost To Run An Air Fryer
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Air fryers are, in my opinion, incredible kitchen devices that can help you significantly reduce the amount of oil you need to cook with and in some cases, drastically reduce your cooking time. However, they all require electricity to run.
On average air fryers use between 1,400 and 1,700 watts of electricity which converts to between 1.4kwh and 1.7kwh per hour of use. The average cost to fun an air fryer will depend on the energy prices and how long you use your air fryer within a month period.
In this post, Ill be discussing the different factors that determine the number of watts an air fryer uses as well as how that translates to kWh and real money.
This should help you to decide whether purchasing an air fryer is the right choice for you and your family.
Contents
Why Use An Instant Pot
The Instant Pot is one of the most useful kitchen appliances you can buy, because it drastically cuts down on the cooking time for developing flavors in soups and stews, getting tough cuts of meat tender, and even baking a cheesecake. And there are many accessories that will help you get more out of your Instant Pot.
If you dont have one yet, check out our guide on which one to buy. You can also check out our Instant Pot page for more information.
Recommended Reading: How To Use Air Fryer Instant Pot
Why You Should Trust Us
Wirecutter senior staff writer Lesley Stockton has spent her entire career in the culinary industry and has covered electric and stovetop pressure cookers for Wirecutter since 2016. For the original version of this guide, she interviewed pressure-cooking experts Lorna Sass, author of Cooking Under Pressure, and Mike Vrobel, author of the blog Dad Cooks Dinner. In 2020, Lesley tested the Instant Pot Duo Evo Plus against our picks.
For the 2019 and 2021 updates, staff writer Anna Perling spent more than 30 hours cooking beans, onions, cakes, butter chicken, rice, and risotto in pressure cookers, as well as air frying two whole chickens, french fries, and mozzarella sticks in new and notable cookers. She also consulted Hip Pressure Cooking, The Veggie Queen, Serious Eats, and Miss Vickie Pressure Cooker Times for guidance.
Can You Use A Pressure Cooker Instead Of An Instant Pot
A pressure cooker cooks food on the stovetop, while an electric pressure cooker/instant pot has its own heating elements. It allows you to use an electric pressure cooker on its own, without a kitchen stove. So for the sake of this article, I will use the terms instant pot and electric pressure cooker interchangeably.
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