Which pressure cooker is the best?

BEST DEALS ON NINJA FOODIS AND INSTANT POTS

Celebrity chefs and influencer foodies make everything look so easy.

Food vloggers speed up a 20-step recipe into an Instagram video and make it look as simple as microwaved ramen. Antoni from Queer Eye is like, “Here, person with no cooking experience, let’s whip up some pork tenderloin canapés over a fire on this casual Tuesday night.”

But attempting an intricate recipe doesn’t have to be as intimidating as we make it out to be. Not with a pressure cooker, at least.

Instead of hoarding a separate countertop appliance for every different cooking method you may need, these multifaceted devices tackle functions from sautéing, to broiling, to cooking a pot roast in half the time (often even less) than a traditional slow cooker requires.

The Instant Pot and Ninja Foodi are far from the only pressure-cooking multicookers that exist in the current kitchen device market — but they’re so far ahead of the competition that, in a way, they are the only pressure cookers in the market. Putting them head to head only makes sense.

Is the Ninja Foodi the same as the Instant Pot?

Not exactly, but kind of.

Instant Pot invented the pressure cooking game. Though the first Instant Pot model came out in 2008, the hype around a single kitchen device grew to unprecedented levels around 2015. People — both seasoned food enthusiasts and those who only cook out of necessity — obsessed over it so much that it felt like no appliance would ever even share the spotlight.

Ninja founds its way in when it diverted from the fancy blender realm to create the Foodi: a pressure cooker that doubles as an air fryer. Instant Pots didn’t have this capability for a while, and required the purchase of a separate air frying lid.

The Instant Pot has more than caught up in the crisping game since then though, offering several air frying models at different price points. But the rivalry lives on. The “Instant Pot vs. Ninja Foodi” debate is the center of countless articles, Reddit threads, and YouTube reviews. You can barely Google one without the other one popping up in autofill, and both are stars of Black Friday and Prime Day.

Which is better: Ninja Foodi vs. the Instant Pot

The complicated answer to the Ninja Foodi vs. Instant Pot debate changes every time either brand launches a new iteration of its device. New releases happen much more often than you’d expect for the humble countertop cooker.

The blind spots each had a few years ago have mostly been covered at this point. (For instance, Instant Pot was leading the charge in more niche methods like yogurt making or sous vide for a while, but multiple Foodis do that now.)

Both have LCD screens, multiple pressure settings, inserts that are dishwasher safe, and the rest of those expected specs. Which cooker you should get depends on the appliance features that you want to pay for — and which one you think would look better on your counter, honestly.

Prices for the Foodi start at $169.99 and max out at a $279.99, with about four models in between. Prices for the Instant Pot start at $89 and max out at $249.99, with a few more models in between to ensure your perfect price point. The newest Instant Pot Pro Plus debuted at $169.99, comparing to the price of the oldest Ninja Foodi model that’s all but discontinued.

Keep reading as we dive deeper into where each device wins and loses, based off the models available in November 2021.

Where Instant Pot wins: More models with more tailored features

“Instant Pot” is an umbrella term. Like a grandmother yelling “or whatever your name is” to a gaggle of grandchildren, the Instant Pot family is so versatile that it can be hard to remember which model does which — but that’s a good thing.

The Instant Pot lineup includes the most basic model, the 7-in-1 Duo for $89 (but often on sale, especially during Black Friday) while the most advanced is the 11-in-1 Pro Crisp for $249.95. (We break down the differences here.) Every Instant Pot can pressure cook, slow cook, cook rice, steam, sauté, and warm, and as the models level up, more sophisticated features are added, like yogurt making, baking, or sous vide.

The models with “Crisp” in the title are obviously the air frying ones. But if you already have an Instant Pot, air frying can be added to most models with the separate air frying lid. (Non-compatible models with the air fryer lid include the Smart WiFi, Duo Evo Plus 6, Duo SV, and Max 60.)

Most models are available in the popular 6-quart size as well as a mini 3-quart model and a family-friendly 8-quart model. (There is no 3-quart version of the Foodi.) Instant Pot models vary so widely to the point where they’re almost customizable to your skill and budget.

The best part is that if you don’t need all of those functions, Instant Pot won’t make you pay for them.

But where the Instant Pot really hits home is how easy it makes recipes that are traditionally a pain. Rice never turns out right on the stove, but the Instant Pot has nailed that moisturized-but-not-too-sticky texture. A rushed breakfast is less stressful when you can hard-boil, soft-boil, or poach an egg without having to think too hard about it. The best part is that if you don’t need all of those functions, Instant Pot won’t make you pay for them.

More liquidized recipes like soups, dips, and stews seems to be the Instant Pot’s specialty. Each model has built-in smart programs that get more specific than the number of appliances it replaces: bean/chili, meat/stew, soup/broth, sauté, poultry, steam, congee, multigrain, rice, pressure cook, warm, and slow cook. Purées require a special attention to detail, especially when meat is cooking simultaneously in the dish. These programs are already pre-set with the time and temperature needed for that specific texture, eliminating much of the guesswork on your end.

The Instant Pot Max also stands out with 15 PSI, which speeds up pressure cooking even more and opens the door for precise pressure canning — a must for wannabe chefs, grandmas, and homesteaders who preserve everything possibly. The Foodi maxes out at about 12 PSI.

When the Instant Pot Max (the first Instant Pot with a sous vide feature) came out in 2018, it became very clear that the ability to hold water at a precise temperature for hours was a cooking function that people hold dear. Now, almost every new model that comes out is equipped with a sous vide feature, including a Duo model dedicated to sous vide. If this is one of your main requirements, Instant Pot has many more sous vide-ready options than Ninja does.

No one really cared that the Instant Pot couldn’t air fry until the Foodi came along. The birth of the Instant Pot Duo Crisp as well as a removable air fryer lid for people who already had an Instant Pot certainly gave the brand traction in the booming healthy frying sector. But the Ninja Foodi is still better at air frying and crisping — at least with bigger batches.

Comparing pressure-cooking Instant Pot and Ninja Foodi models (disregarding other toaster oven or air fryer models for the sake of a direct comparison), the Instant Pot’s cylindrical shape doesn’t leave much room for a spacious air fryer basket. If you’re cooking for more than just yourself, this could mean multiple batches or a squished arrangement of various snacks that should probably be spread out. Don’t get us wrong, the Duo Crisp and separate Instant Pot air fryer lid definitely do their jobs. It’d just be nice to have more options to layer food or do more at once. The extra space provided by the 6.5-quart Foodi could be irrelevant for your needs, but multiple reviewers who have both devices say that they noticed the difference.

The Instant Vortex Plus or Instant Omni are bigger capacity options, but these mini ovens can’t do any of the pressure cooking, soup making, yogurt making, or sautéing that classic Instant Pots can — thus still requiring you to buy two devices.

Ninja has been perfecting its TenderCrisp technology for longer than Instant Brands, and anyone picky about balanced browning may feel better with that experience.

But one Foodi model works particularly well for people who do a lot of roasting. The $349.99 Foodi Smart XL comes with a built-in thermometer that operates with the Smart Cook system, which uses four smart proteins settings and nine doneness levels.

The Foodi expertly browns by providing the space food needs to receive consistent hot air.

We’ll also give props to whoever came up with the Foodi’s design overhaul. While the original models were bulky, resembled Pokémon, and took up more counter space than necessary, the later ones are cylindrical like the Instant Pot and look nice.

The new (and slimmer) lid is still attached via hinges and can get in the way if you have low-hanging cabinets above your countertop. The regular Instant Pot lid and the air frying lid are completely removable.

There are fewer ways to “customize” your cooker needs here, both function-wise and size-wise. Despite what seems like 20 different Foodi models, only a few of them are actually pressure cookers. There’s less clear scaling up in terms of what each model can do, and cookers that are dedicated toaster ovens or air fryers are still just called the Foodi — just with “XL” or “Deluxe” tacked onto the end. The Foodi doesn’t come in a mini 3-quart size at all.

While you can sometimes score an Instant Pot for as low as $50-ish if you’re fine with only six appliance functions, buying a Foodi locks you into spending at least $169. And it’s a bummer that the Foodi costs so much and doesn’t even have a stainless steel insert. The nonstick coating isn’t as fragile as Teflon, but there are reports of chipping from the metal rack being pulled in and out. Some people also aren’t comfortable with their food chilling in a plastic-y ceramic coating for hours.

The verdict: It’s a toss-up

Really, it comes down to how much you want to be able to do with your cooker.

That seems obvious, but there are a few caveats. When deciding between an Instant Pot and a Ninja Foodi, the first piece of criteria is easy: Do you care about air frying? If not, a more basic Instant Pot without the special lid can be purchased for a lot cheaper than a Foodi (which all air fry).

If air frying is important to you, then go with an Instant Pot Crisp model over the Ninja Foodi. Both of these models can do most of the same things, though the Duo Crisp can’t make yogurt and pinning down sous vide with Ninja means paying $100 more than the most expensive Instant Pot.

A well-done roast is Foodi’s wheelhouse. On the other hand, Instant Pot takes the guesswork out of testy dishes like soups, dips, and rice, and offers more versatile features at each price range, letting you opt out of spending more money on functions you won’t use.

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