Get the Best Price on the Instant Pot

This pressure cooker has an online fan club and claims to cook food 70% faster than other methods.

Homemade minestrone soup, traditional Italian food recipe.
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Guide to Scoring the Best Deals in 2018

Instant Pot is a pressure cooker/slow cooker/rice maker/steamer/sauté pot that claims to cook food 70% faster than other methods. Instant Pot has spawned copycat multi-cookers—some of which are cheaper and come with a nonstick inner pot—but buying the original entitles you to join the legions of home cooks and foodie fans who call themselves Potheads and use social media to proselytize to the uninitiated, share recipes and provide support.

The base model 6-in-1 V3 Instant Pot ($79.95 for the six-quart version, which feeds four to six people) comes with 12 built-in programs (say, for rice and meat/stew) and will bake a cake and cook eggs, too. Order directly at www.instantpot.com, where you’ll get free shipping and can download a free app with more than 450 recipes. Other large retailers generally charge at least the manufacturer’s suggested retail price. Amazon.com sells the most models and sizes with free shipping.

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Patricia Mertz Esswein
Contributing Writer, Kiplinger's Personal Finance
Esswein joined Kiplinger in May 1984 as director of special publications and managing editor of Kiplinger Books. In 2004, she began covering real estate for Kiplinger's Personal Finance, writing about the housing market, buying and selling a home, getting a mortgage, and home improvement. Prior to joining Kiplinger, Esswein wrote and edited for Empire Sports, a monthly magazine covering sports and recreation in upstate New York. She holds a BA degree from Gustavus Adolphus College, in St. Peter, Minn., and an MA in magazine journalism from the S.I. Newhouse School at Syracuse University.