Ultimate Guide On Cleaning Your Instant Pot!
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Instant Pot, one of the best products of all time. I seriously love my Instant Pot. We got it as a gift for our wedding and it has served us very well!
We make all kinds of things with it. Greek Yogurt, rice, soup, chicken, mac & cheese, blueberry jam, Cornish hen, beef, couscous, the possibilities are endless! I haven’t even used all the features yet, like the porridge, bean/chili, meat stew buttons.
One amazing feature about the Instant Pot is that it won’t let your food burn. I once put in Chicken in the Instant Pot thinking that a little splash of oil would suffice, but then after a few beeps the Instant Pot will read “burn” and stop cooking/coming to pressure. This tells you that you need to add more water/liquid to what you are cooking.
The Instant Pot inner pot can naturally develop stains at the bottom depending on the setting used (saute can cause stains) or the nature of the food being cooked. Cooking things like rice, bacon, yogurt and so on can do this.
Remember what your Instant Pot looked like when you first took it out of the box? Shiny and spiffy! I am going to show you some ways to get your Instant Pot shining again.
Hand Wash or Throw In the Dishwasher?
I do both! According to InstantPot.com, “All parts of the Instant Pot® with the exception of the cooker base are dishwasher safe.” This means the stainless steel inner pot, the lid (top-rack only), the sealing ring, the plastic utensils, condensation collector, small plastic measuring cup, and the steam rack.
After I use our Instant Pot, if it is a hard stuck on mess, as soon as the food is out of the Instant Pot, I’ll put the inner pot in the sink and rinse it a bit before putting it in the dishwasher. If it is a light mess, like if I cooked soup, I know not a lot of scrubbing will be involved, so I wash by hand. The dishwasher will get the inner pot perfectly clean, as long as there are no scald marks.
Favorite Tools for Cleaning the Instant Pot?
Get ready....It’s Steel Wool Soap Pads by Clorox! These little pads work incredibly well for cleaning stuck-on messes and for shining up your pot when it becomes dull. They have a pretty blue soap in them, and once activated with water, you don’t need to use anything else to clean your Instant Pot. For extra stubborn messes, use a Lodge food scraper, to lift the residue off without scratching the pot.
Now even though the Instant Pot won’t allow your food to burn, that doesn’t mean the bottom of the pot can’t have burnt food that sticks to the bottom. I made Greek yogurt and I admit I wasn’t paying attention. I turn around and I saw my milk bubbling at the top, I caught it just in time before ir bubbled over. I let the milk get too hot and it burnt the bottom.
Here is a before and picture from when milk burnt the bottom of our Instant Pot while I was making Greek Yogurt:
How to Clean Sealing Ring
The sealing ring can easily go on the top rack of the dishwasher. Clear rings can start to discolor, so a great way to keep them bright is to soak them in the sink in hot water with some bleach. I bought a pack of sealing rings to use for different recipes. For example, I use the teal ring exclusively for making greek yogurt.
How to Keep the Instant Pot Odor Free
In the little plastic cup that comes with the Instant Pot, I fill it with baking soda and it absorbs the odors from the last meal I made. I don’t want unwanted odors from seeping into my next meal, so this is a great way to keep the inner pot fresh.
Keeping Exterior Instant Pot Clean
Cleaning the outer pot is very easy because it doesn’t really get too much food residue on it. How I clean the exterior is by taking a small dish towel (from my DIY Clorox wipes) and gently wiping the outside. This also works on the crevices that tend to collect food debris
Want More Instant Pot Accessories?
Here are my must have IP accessories:
I LOVE my Instant Pot! What are your favorite things to make in an Instant Pot?
