The Instant Pot hits its stride this time of year. If your ideal fall or winter dinner involves some tender, fall-off-the-bone meat but you haven’t quite perfected the art of starting dinner 3 or 4 hours in advance, then you definitely want an Instant Pot. It’s a hybrid slow cooker and pressure cooker — those are its two most popular functions — but it also does a number of other things including cooking perfect rice, steaming vegetables and making yogurt, eggs, steel oats and more. Most Instant Pots also have a sear function so you don’t even have to bust out a skillet to get a crusty edge before you let the pressure cooker or slow cooker function work their magic.
With the holidays approaching, the Instant Pot is great for making quick main courses such as short ribs or pot roast. You can also make side dishes like creamed spinach or mac and cheese, and there are recipes for hearty soups, stews, chilis, warm dips and a whole lot more. You’ll get a lot of bang for your buck, especially if you pounce on one of these Instant Pots deals from the many kitchen and cookware sales we’ll see this season.
Read more: Best Instant Pots of 2020: Duo, Ultra, Lux and more models compared
And that, of course, is the challenge. Instant Pots come in more variations than laptops, it seems, and pricing is often all over the map. The good news is that the holiday season is the best time to buy, whether you’re getting a real Instant Pot or one of the many (still capable) knockoff brands.
The main rule: $50 to $70 is the sweet spot for a 6-quart Instant Pot. Most Instant Pots come in 3-, 6- and 8-quart sizes, with the 6-quart models being the mainstay for most families. The best deal this season on that size remains the Instant Pot Viva at Walmart for $49. Otherwise, we’re seeing some models with more features (like a crisping lid that turns the Instant Pot into an air fryer) in the $60 to $70 range.
If there are any better Instant Pot sales between now and the end of the year, we’ll be sure to root them out, so check back here for the best deals on Instant Pot for the 2020 holiday season.
Target
This Instant Pot with air fryer crisp lid attachment gives you the most bang for your buck and saves you space in the kitchen if also considering an air fryer oven. Normally the lid — which turns your Instant Pot multicooker into an air fryer for making crispy wings, fries, mozzarella sticks and veggie sticks with little or no oil — costs $80 all by itself. This limited Black Friday deal includes the popular 6-quart Instant Pot Duo with a crisping air fryer lid, all for under $80. This is a no-brainer excuse to break the “no 6-quarts over $60” rule and a good deal in general.
Read more: Instant Pot’s new Air Fry Lid adds another dimension to the popular pressure cooker
Instant Pot
The Viva appears to be an offshoot of the popular Duo model with the addition of sous vide and cake-making (!) options, according to Instantpotology. This Instant Pot does just about everything you’d want or need a multicooker to do and under $50 is about as low as you’ll see it go. It features 15 cook settings including soup, meat/stew, chili, cake, egg, slow cook, pressure cook, saute, rice, multigrain, steam, sterilize, porridge, warm and yogurt. Six quarts is the most popular size: It’s large enough to cook for groups but not so huge that you’ll find it difficult to store. It also has OverHeat Protection, a safety lock to ensure safe pressure cooking
The only minor drawback of the Viva is that it’s limited to 4 hours of cooking time. For context, most slow-cooked meals won’t take you more than 4 hours including pot roasts, pulled chicken and pork shoulder. In fact, if you cook anything for longer than that, it’s likely to turn mushy, so this isn’t something that would deter me from buying.
This Instant Pot Viva also qualifies for Walmart’s free shipping and should be to you by next week at the latest. Note that this deal appears limited to the black model, though it appears more silver-y in the photos.
Instant Pot
This is the update on Instant Pots’ all-time best-seller, the Instant Pot Duo. It may not have all the bells, whistles and cooking presets that the brand has added to premium models, but it will absolutely do everything you expect an Instant Pot to do. It has seven main functions including slow cooker, pressure cooker, saute, warm, rice cooker, steamer and yogurt maker. Perhaps most importantly, it has the necessary safety functions to ensure there are no unexpected kitchen fireworks.
The 8-quart is a great size if you’ve got a bigger crew to cook for or find yourself hosting large groups and watch parties on the regular. This is about a low as we’ll see an 8-quart Instant Pot go, price-wise.
Instant Pot
Last year, we would’ve said “don’t ever pay more than 60 for a 6-quart,” which is why that $49 at Walmart is still such a sweet deal, but if you want some luxury features like enhanced power for 70% faster cooking and a nifty progress indicator to track each recipe with precision, then the Dup Evo Plus is a worthy upgrade. All told there are about 20 enhancements from the previous model, including intuitive cooking programs for specific recipes and a precision dial for getting temps and timings exactly right. It’s arguably the most advanced Instant Pot and $70 is by far the lowest price we’ve seen since launching earlier this year. (The previous low on Amazon was $95).
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