Skip The Oven And Make Faster Baked Potatoes With This Kitchen Appliance

For something seemingly so simple, there's plenty of debate around how to make the perfect baked potato. While some insist oven roasting will always produce the tastiest results, others believe it's best to nix the appliance altogether in favor of a cooking method that gives you beautifully tender, steamy baked potatoes in almost half the time. Enter, the Instant Pot. While baking potatoes in an oven typically takes up to an hour at 400 degrees Fahrenheit, an Instant Pot can have them ready in about 35 minutes or less, depending on the size of your spuds. 

The reason an Instant Pot can do this is because it combines steam and heat inside a relatively small container to create a pressurized environment that raises the boiling point of water. The combination of pressure and superheated steam allows your potatoes to cook through quickly and evenly. As an added bonus, the steam inside the Instant Pot also helps keep your potatoes from drying out, ensuring the interior will be creamy, fluffy, and unbelievably delicious.

Baked potatoes are also a pretty good food to try preparing if you're new to using an Instant Pot, since it involves little more than adding cold water to the pot, placing your potatoes inside, and activating the "pressure cook" function. Since Instant Pots are easier and safer to use than the pressure cookers of yesteryear, the only real safety precaution you need to take is piercing the potatoes all over with a fork before cooking them to ensure they don't explode. Besides that, your Instant Pot can regulate itself.

Whether you're making baked potatoes to smother in chili, cowboy-style, or using your Instant Pot as a shortcut to delicious potato salad, cooking spuds in this innovative kitchen gadget isn't just faster, it's more practical. The Instant Pot leaves your oven free to make proteins and roasted vegetables to go with your potatoes, and emits quite a bit less heat than a conventional oven. It's also easier to plan your meals to ensure everything is done at the same time since Instant Pots have automatic timers.

The only thing to keep in mind, timing-wise, is that you'll need to allow the Instant Pot to depressurize after your potatoes are baked. Though this can take about 15 minutes in addition to cooking time, it's still quite a bit faster than using the conventional oven. Since the actual cooking process inside the Instant Pot only takes about 20 minutes for large potatoes and about 15 minutes for smaller ones, that means your baked potatoes are still ready to serve in about 30 to 35 minutes.

However, regardless of how many potatoes you're making or whether they're large or small, you must be patient and use the natural depressurization method for your Instant Pot, not the quick-release valve. The quick-release valve is only for delicate foods like seafood and soft, non-starchy vegetables that won't be damaged by sudden drops in pressure. Once the appliance is depressurized, lift the lid up toward you like a shield, so the steam flows away from your face, and get ready to dig in.