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A slow cooker/crock pot might be a good option, as well.
One drawback to the IP, is that it is mostly one shot at cooking. You can't adjust the spices while it is cooking, adjust the temp up/down as needed, etc.
Mine went straight to my neighbors who have several insta pots in use.
For a 1-person household I would go with a multifunction airfryer, two good pans and maybe a small crock pot. If the choide were one item - good pan with high sides and a glass lid.
What is your budget, counter space, what do you like to eat? Basic cooking is not brain surgery. CD can teach you.
If you aren't really a cook, you might do better with something like an air fryer. I'm an occasional cooker. I can do it if I have to, but I don't really enjoy it. There are some things that I enjoy making in the Instant Pot (I made some soup last night), but honestly I get much more use out of the air fryer.
Something to keep in mind with the Instant Pot is that when people say that a meal cooks in 10 minutes, it's rarely just 10 minutes. There's the time to bring it up to pressure (~10 minutes), then the actual cooking time of 10 minutes, then there's the time to depressurize (anywhere from a couple of minutes with a manual release to another 10+ minutes for a natural release)
(PS, thank you for calling it the Instant Pot and not the "Insta Pot" ... pet peeve)
This. The air fryer can be used for more things he'll actually cook on a daily basis.
I don’t have one, but I’m not in a hurry to prepare meals. Even if I were someone who gets home from work at 6, hungry, I could still fix something in less than a half hour, with my stove and oven.
I suggest OP buy an Instantpot cookbook and browse. If there are several recipes that he’d like to try, then go for it.
I bought instant pots for a couple of my grandchildren when they got apartments, and I think they use them sometimes.
They are not magic, you will still have to read a recipe & learn how to cook certain foods. I totally agree with those who said, start small & cook something easy at home, with the tools you already have. If you have a favored dish, google it & add simple to the search request. See if you can do it, & progress from there, start with small steps. Cooking a chicken part & some potatoes & veg on a cookie sheet, in the oven is an easy introduction. I think they call them sheet dinners.
I received an Instant Pot as a gift a few years ago, and I use it regularly to prepare long-cooking ingredients like dried beans rather than leaving them to simmer on the stove. I do not generally use it to prepare meals, which I find much easier using traditional cookware on the stove. The Instant Pot saves a lot of energy both directly and indirectly by reducing heat build-up in the kitchen, which minimizes my use of air conditioning, so for that reason I keep it around. For the OP, though, I don't think an Instant Pot would really help him because it appears he doesn't know the basics. I think he'd be better off with a skillet, a small pot, a sheet pan, and an introductory cookbook. It really is the best way to start.
oh hell yeah, get one..one of those things will make a piece of shoe leather tender..remember, general rule of thumb is this..20 minutes cooking time per pound of meat..just guess..cup to cup and half of liquid per cook..use bullion cubes 1 or 2..throw vegetables in there with the meat..takes about 1/2 hour to come up to temp before cooking timing starts..let it vent by itself for at least 15 or 20 minutes..done..experiment..have fun..
oh hell yeah, get one..one of those things will make a piece of shoe leather tender..remember, general rule of thumb is this..20 minutes cooking time per pound of meat..just guess..cup to cup and half of liquid per cook..use bullion cubes 1 or 2..throw vegetables in there with the meat..takes about 1/2 hour to come up to temp before cooking timing starts..let it vent by itself for at least 15 or 20 minutes..done..experiment..have fun..
That amount of time would annihilate a lot of meat. Perhaps if it is a sizable roast, but if it is like chicken breasts or other smaller cuts of meat, they'll be beyond cooked.
My experience with Insta Pot is...
EPIC failure! I can't figure out the settings and this is after READING the instructions and doing a few simple _ get to know the buttons!
Stick with a crock pot.
I love tossing my stews in a crock pot and calling it ...
Something to keep in mind with the Instant Pot is that when people say that a meal cooks in 10 minutes, it's rarely just 10 minutes. There's the time to bring it up to pressure (~10 minutes), then the actual cooking time of 10 minutes, then there's the time to depressurize (anywhere from a couple of minutes with a manual release to another 10+ minutes for a natural release)
Plus it might take only 10 minutes to cook... but then there's the prep-- any washing, chopping, etc. that needs to be done.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Parnassia
Think about it. How many meals do you really need to COOK during the average week?
And leftovers are a thing of beauty and a joy forever. The beauty of being just one or two people is that can get 2-4 meals out of one recipe.
Quote:
Originally Posted by TheWiseShopper
I really should learn to cook, but I've tried and never done a good job. It appears to take a lot of trial and error, which I don't have the patience and time for.
Follow a recipe. Someone has already done the "trial and error" for you. Do what they say and you'll have success. Trial and error and playing around can come later when you have a basic handle on cooking and how recipes, ingredients, etc. work and are confident you can make substitutions, get creative, etc. with success.
(But I will say-- if the recipe is online, *read the comments.* That way you'll find out from other people's experiences if the recipe is bad, needs to be modified, someone else has come up with a way to make it even better or make variations, etc. It also can't hurt to look up the same recipe on different sites and make sure they're similar-- you'll spot any anomalies this way {"why do all of these macaroni and cheese recipes use X amount of cheese but this other one uses way more/all of these cake recipes say bake at 350 but this one says bake at 500? Might be a typo?"}-- and it will also give you an idea of different ways you can vary a recipe and you'll start to learn how recipes work. Yes, I once learned the hard way about due diligence on online recipes...)
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