 All right it's time to pull your Instant Pot either out of the box or out of your pantry because it is time to learn how to use it correctly. So I've made a how to use an Instant Pot before but it is now three years old and the Instant Pot has updated quite a bit. So I have two here with me right now so this one is the Instant Pot Duo and if you don't know what kind you have just if you come over here you will see right there this is the title of every Instant Pot and then this one is the Instant Pot Duo Crisp Air Fryer. It actually comes with an air fryer lid but you can use it as a normal Instant Pot too. So I chose these two Instant Pots because the lids are a little bit different, the functions are a little bit different and we're going to talk about all of it. First we're going to talk about the Duo lid. Now this is an older version of the Duo so that means it has a little knob. Most newer versions of the Duo don't have this knob. If you have this knob that moves it's always going to be a little bit loose that's okay and you want to make sure right before you cook anything it's always on ceiling, not venting. This is venting, this is ceiling. Okay so this is a little bit newer version and it just has a button so it doesn't turn at all. So you can just put your lid on and just leave it as it is. So every Instant Pot also has one of these silver little rings. When your Instant Pot has come to pressure this little ring will pop up then when you release the pressure then this little guy will go back down. So that's a good way to know if it's pressurized or if it's not pressurized and this pot has it too. Now we're going to open up the Instant Pot. Every Instant Pot has a ceiling ring. Now this is very important that this ring is in place and it's not off just a little bit. If it's off a little bit guess what your Instant Pot is not going to pressurize so you want to make sure before you cook anything your ceiling ring is in place it will fit a little loose around the main ring. Now inside of your pot you just want to make sure that there is never anything in the bottom of this. So your pot will rest safely and dry in there. We don't want to cause any problems. Then also with your pot each pot has a spot where they hit their max fill line. I would never suggest filling up your Instant Pot all the way to here so I would go about three fourths of the way full. Now on the Instant Pot Duo Crisp it also has a max line it says PC max and then two thirds so that's that is your max line. Now I'm guessing the majority of you have the Instant Pot Duo that's usually the cheapest one and to be honest it's actually my favorite. Now I'm going to be completely honest with you I don't really use the soup the meat the beans the poultry the rice the multigrain the porridge or the steam very often at all. The only buttons I really use is pressure cook and then I also use the plus and minus button because that changes my time and then I will make when I make yogurt I will use the yogurt button other than that I just use pressure cook. Now the reason why is because those other functions they just set a timer that's it they don't set the pressure they don't set other things so I want to manually set my own timer like for rice I think it's set for 11 minutes when really rice only takes about seven minutes to cook and the other button I use of course is the saute button I use that quite often. Now on this one this one is a little bit different because it's also an air fryer so I for sure use pressure cook and then I set my time I love using the saute button the slow cooker button on all Instant Pots I would never suggest using it is way slower than a normal slow cooker and it just doesn't cook things all the way through very well. When I'm using my air fryer on this I will use air fry and roast and broil. Now the one thing about this Instant Pot that's a little bit different is that after you set the timer you have to push start so if your Instant Pot has a start most likely you're going to have to push it before your machine will start working. Now the easiest way to figure out how to use your Instant Pot is to actually cook something in it so I'm going to show you how I cook rice in my Instant Pot. Now before I start I always check underneath make sure nothing is in there I have half a cup of rice that I'm just going to pour into the bottom. Now for every cup of rice you need one and a fourth cup of liquid so I had half a cup of rice so I'm going to add half a cup plus a little bit more and then yep I just use my fingers you just want to make sure all the rice is touching the water. Now this is the duo so you're going to put the lid on so you'll hear a little jingle when you put it on and when you turn it you'll hear a jingle that's a good sign that means you're doing it right. Now this little knob we're going to go to ceiling not venting just because this one has a knob then I'm not going to push rice because remember that's just a setting so we're going to go to pressure cook and then I like to move my timer it's going to be seven minutes now with this Instant Pot once you set the timer you can just walk away and you're going to hear a little sound any second there we go once you hear that beep that means you're good to go. So this is the duo crisp we're going to put half a cup of rice again same thing so half a cup of water plus a little bit more make sure all the rice is covered with the water so you're going to put the lid on you hear a little noise that means it's good you're going to turn it hear another noise that means you're doing good so you don't have to do anything with this knob you just have to set the lid on if your top looks like this now with all the Instant Pots they're all going to cook about the same so we're going to push pressure cook and hear Harper in the background she's just chatty today and this one we're going to go all the way down to seven minutes okay once you hit seven minutes here with this Instant Pot we just need to push the start button now once it comes to pressure it will start counting down so we started at seven minutes right so then it will start counting down this one took about oh four minutes to come to pressure if your Instant Pot is really full sometimes it can take 15 to 20 minutes to pressurize okay this one was just about a minute or two behind it so they even though this one is an eight quart and this one is a six quart they are really close in cooking time okay once the timer is done on this Instant Pot an L will appear and then this will start counting up so whenever you see the L on your duo and the number so say it's like 12 or seven or six that means it's already done cooking about six minutes ago so when your Instant Pot is done cooking you have two options you can let it sit here that's called natural release that means it's going to sit here for as long as you want it to as soon as it's done cooking it will go to something called keep warm so you can leave it on keep warm or you can do a quick release and that's when you take this little knob and you turn it to venting or if you have a button you're going to push the button it just both will let all the steam out so we're going to do a quick release here so you can kind of see it so we're going to go from sealing to venting all right once all the pressure is out you can carefully open the lid now do realize this is going to be hot as you open the lid so you want to make sure you're kind of out of the way of it and just like that you have perfect sticky rice all cooked through and literally a matter of minutes and I didn't have to watch anything just perfect okay just like the other instant pot this one shows an L and it's starting to count up so it's been done cooking for about a minute so we're going to go up here and we're going to push the little button to let all the pressure out if you see that little pin it's still up because it's all the pressure still in it so we're going to push the button okay if you can see that little pin just dropped so that means all the pressure is out and we're going to carefully open our lid there we go and open it up yes all the rice is done and this one has perfect sticky rice too now I think one of the biggest questions that I get asked is how do I know the cooking time how do I know how long it needs to be in there and so we actually have a free instant pot cheat sheet now if you want that I'll put a link down below for you it's totally free and it will give you the times for all the meats of what I cook them for now if you want some instant pot recipes that are super simple I have plenty for you you can find my most favorite ones just right up there all right everyone thank you so much for cooking with me we'll see you next time