What we’d leave: Other reviewers have expressed concern that the lid on this machine didn’t feel like it locked tight. The lid does feel a bit loose if you’re shaking the machine back and forth; it doesn’t have that secure locking feeling that other lids have. However, in all of my tests (cooking beans, whole chickens, and rice), I never had any issue with the machine not properly coming to pressure. In my experience, the lid looseness is simply a feeling, not an actual problem.
If I were really nitpicking, I could also say that the lid’s easy-to-use design does mean that it’s bulkier than other stovetop machines. The button on top is bulky and makes the pot tall and harder to store.
This pressure cooker is heavier than other models, which helps it heat evenly, though it makes it cumbersome for users who may want easier maneuverability.
The best budget pressure cooker: Cosori
Cosori 6 Quart Pressure Cooker
What we love: This pressure cooker is about $20–$30 cheaper than the winning Instant Pot Rio at the time of writing, making it as cheap as our winning stovetop model. Despite the low price, it performed all of the cooking tests just as well as our winner, making chicken, beans, rice, and slow-cooked pork with aplomb. It’s easy to set up and use out of the box, and very easy to clean due to a nonstick coating on the pot.
What we’d leave: This machine’s construction feels much cheaper than that of the Instant Pot, and because of that I have concerns about its long-term durability. I’ve owned the Instant Pot Max for the past seven years and have had no issue with its operation over the years, even after near-weekly use. The nonstick coating on this pot makes it more likely to degrade over time, and since this is a PTFE coating, scratches to the coating could make dangerous chemicals leech into the food you’re cooking. Make sure you don’t use any metal utensils on this machine.
Pressure cookers are a great way to make beans because they save a significant amount of time; you should be able to cook beans without soaking them overnight, as you’d have to if you made them in a regular old pot, and the whole cook time should be 15–20 minutes at high pressure. I cooked two cups of dried, unsoaked white beans in each of the electric and stovetop pressure cookers, looking for evenly-cooked beans that were tender all the way through, without being mushy or falling apart.
I placed a whole chicken, covered in water, in each pressure cooker and cooked it at high pressure for 15 minutes. I wanted a pressure cooker that would produce fall-off-the-bone tender chicken—not chicken that soft and stringy because it was overcooked. I operated every pressure cooker for 15 minutes at high pressure, which, according to a variety of online recipes,
