Instant Pot Duo Crisp + Air Fryer 11-in-1 Multicooker, 8L - Pressure Cooker, Slow Steamer, Sous Vide Machine, Dehydrator with Grill, Food Warmer & Baking Functions

First, I'm not a chef. I'm a single person household, and I like to dine well. So my kitchen's "my castle" anyway, as small it may be and although I'm not a chef.Compared to other Instant Pot multicookers, the Duo Crisp AF 8 has a slightly different set of cooking programmes available through its control panel:There are only types of cooking available (sauté, pressure cook, steam, air fry etc), there are no buttons anymore for specific types of meals (e. g. "meat stew", "poultry", "egg", "cake" or "yogurt" etc as found on other Instant Pot cookers). This is perfect for the vegan kitchen. It does not explicitly show non-vegan cooking programmes on the control panel. Therefore, out of all Instant Pot multicookers available, the Duo Crisp AF is the one to go for if you run a vegan household.Without presets for specific types of foods you need to know the programme you want to cook your meal or side with (how to cook it), for how long and at what temperature.Instant Pot provides downloadable cooking (time) tables on their website, and there are plenty of Instant Pot specific cookbooks available, too, also for the vegan kitchen. Not to mention the Instant Pot recipe app.You still can make (vegan) yoghurt or sterilise yoghurt glasses without the explicit buttons to "sterilize" or make "yogurt" found on other multicookers. You just need to figure out the programmes to use ;)Easy to use. Easy to clean. It replaces pans and the oven. Since it arrived, I'm using it almost every day as a part of my kitchen environment to prepare specific foods, e. g. various types of beans, or one-pot-spaghetti and the like. The air fry and broil programmes have worked well so far with french fries, tofu nuggets and tofu fingers.There's certainly a whole lot more to explore, and currently I'm looking forward to try all the (vegan) recipes the Instant Pot app provides.The question is: do you need to or want to use a multicooker? If you find it would suit you, I certainly would recommend the Duo Crisp AF 8 to vegans and vegetarians and all those who want air frying included with their multicooker.The Duo Crisp AF 8 certainly fits everyone with limited space in the kitchen or on a budget, since it delivers 11 in 1 cooking methods, including air frying.The 8l pot isn't huge. It's big, though for me as a single household it's still suitable. I wouldn't choose a smaller one. Besides, using the air fryer you'll prefer the larger one.This is cooking made simple and fun.

My oven died and my landlord moves at a glacial pace getting these kind of things fixed, so anticipating a while without a way to cook I looked at the Duo Crisp and thought, why not?!This thing is amazing.So much so that even with a new oven I’m still using this for almost everything. Why? Because it does a better job and it’s easier to clean.Also being able to pressure cook and air-fry in the same bowl is a game changer. Want fall apart tender pork belly with golden crispy crackling? This thing will do it better than anything you’ve seen. Want to do it all without making your house stink, or a crime scene out of your regular oven? The instant pot is a little flavour factory.Want to make kale chips or home made crispy seaweed? This is your go-to device.You can even make cakes in it! Literally anything you can think of this will cook, usually better than a regular oven or fryer.Annoyances:C9 error: air dry lid seems to be a little particular about how you put it on, and needs a nudge to align the contacts sometimesUnbalanced fan: certainly not a dealbreaker, but the fan in the kid is a little unbalanced on my one and can be a little louder than expected at low speeds such as dehydrate.Burns: don’t be like me, if you reach in to the pot you’re gonna burn your arms. Use tongs.In summary, a great upgrade from a regular instant pot. I had the 6l before and was concerned that this may be too big but it absolutely isn’t. It still fits in the same spaces the old one used to, even with the air fry lid, and it’s nice to have the extra room to cook with.

This version of the Instant Pot range / electric pressure cooker format, with the air fryer lid, is by far the best, to the extent I’d say if you’re in the market for an electric pressure cooker, really don’t bother with a cheaper version, that would be false economy, just go for a month without eating prime fillet steak every day like you usually do to save up the extra cash for this one.I’d always been dubious about air fryers, because I didn’t see what they did that halogen ovens didn’t do — but I didn’t want roasted chips, I wanted deep fried chips. But I decided to take a punt and discovered that chips done in this air fryer really do taste like deep fried chips rather than the abominations that are oven chips. Add a few sausages in whilst you’re doing your chips and you get a depth of flavour you’ve never had before.But also the air fryer lid does a pretty good job at roasting a slab of meat with some roast potatoes, if you use the roast setting. Always fancied making crisps at home? Yep, with practice it does those pretty well, too.As well as the usual pressure cooker and slow cooker settings you’ve got a sous vide bath as well, which works as well as any dedicated sous vide bath, and better than a circulator / heater because you don’t have to mess around with ping pong balls.But also what sets this Instant Pot apart from other electric pressure cookers is the product design — the controls are more intuitive, and do what you as a cook want them to do. And the designers have solved problems that they’ve clearly experienced themselves using other products — burnt fingers knocking the pressure weight off? This has a separate button to release it. Nowhere to put the dripping wet lid down in the kitchen when you take it off? On this there are a couple of lugs and holes either side of the lid and the pot to just slot it into.I can be properly miserable on Amazon reviews when I don’t think something is any good, but I’m proper pleased with this one.