How to Use Your Instant Pot as a Slow Cooker
Updated Jun 18, 2024
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It is not as straightforward as you would think to use your Instant Pot as a Slow Cooker. However, with these tips, you CAN use your Instant Pot for slow cooking.
Many people purchased an Instant Pot to make their lives easier and to cut down on appliances. While the Instant Pot does a wonderful job making Instant Pot Rice, replacing the need for a rice cooker, and is superb at making yogurt, replacing the need for a yogurt incubator, an Instant Pot DOES NOT make a great replacement for a Crockpot.
While the slow cook function on a pressure cooker is not a useless Instant Pot Setting, like Porridge or Beans, it requires modifications.
Important to Remember When Using an Instant Pot as a Slow Cooker
- You must still have thin liquid in the inner pot. For the Instant Pot to reach and maintain a consistent temperature, it is crucial to have at least 1 cup of thin liquid in the inner pot. The slow cooker function will not work without the addition of thin liquid (water, broth, juice, etc).
- Layer correctly. Just like pressure cooking, be sure the thin liquid is on the bottom of the inner pot. If you have a thick sauce, such as BBQ sauce or tomato sauce, your pressure cooker will struggle to reach and maintain temperature.
- You have to modify the setting and time. The heat settings of low, normal, and high do not equally equate to the keep warm, low, and high settings on a slow cooker. Use my guide for converting recipes below.
- It shouldn't take more than 15-20 minutes to heat up. If after 20 minutes your Instant Pot is still heating, rather than counting down the cooking time, it is likely struggling to reach temperature. To override this, you can take the lid off your pressure cooker, press saute, and saute for 2-4 minutes. Hit cancel, and then reset the cooking time using the slow cook function.
- No pressure will be reached. When using the slow cook function on your pressure cooker, pressure will not be reached. Therefore, you don't need to worry about locking your lid or vent knob into place and you can remove the lid to check on your dish as desired. If you would like, you can use a glass lid, which will allow some of the liquid to evaporate, as a traditional slow cooker lid does.
Instant Pot Slow Cook Temperatures Explained
The Slow Cook Function on the Instant Pot can be adjusted to Low, Normal, or High Temperature.
- Low on the Instant Pot Slow Cooker Function is like the keep warm on a traditional slow cooker. The low setting reaches about 170 degrees F.
- Normal on the Instant Pot Slow Cooker Function is equivalent to low heat on a traditional slow cooker. Normal reaches 200 degrees F.
- High on the Instant Pot Function does not get as high as high heat on a slow cooker, but by adding 15 minutes per hour of slow cooking, you can experience similar results. High reaches about 210 degrees F, which is 10-20 degrees less than a slow cooker on high.
How to Use the Slow Cook Setting on the Instant Pot
Below this explanation, you will find a printable chart you can keep on hand to help you quickly remember how to slow cook your favorite slow cooker recipes using the Instant Pot.
- To turn on the slow cook function, hit the slow cook button on your pressure cooker.
- Hit adjust/pressure or toggle your knob to select between low, normal and high temperature.
- Use the knob or +/- buttons to adjust the cooking time, which should be able to be set in 30 minute increments. Remember to add 15 minutes of cooking time per hour if cooking on High.
- Once the cooking time is set, the Instant Pot will heat and once fully heated, the cooking time will begin.
- After the cooking time elapses, most models will default to keep warm (be sure it is selected by hitting the keep warm button if not lit up.)
Click on Picture to access the DOWNLOAD and print.
Should I Get Rid of My Slow Cooker?
NO! If you have space for both a traditional slow cooker and an Instant Pot, I would highly recommend keeping both, as both serve their purpose. A slow cooker will produce more consistent results for crockpot recipes and you don't need to worry about adding thin liquid.
However, if you only have space for one appliance, I would still recommend purchasing the Instant Pot and with this guide, you CAN slow cook using your Instant Pot.
Slow Cooker Recipes to Instant Pot Recipes
While this post was designed to teach you how to use your pressure cooker as a slow cooker, the whole purpose of the Instant Pot is to SPEED up cooking.
Here are some of my favorite Slow Cooker Recipes that I have used as inspiration to create Instant Pot versions.
- Slow Cooker Pork Carnitas to Instant Pot Pork Tacos
- Slow Cooker Steak Fajitas to Instant Pot Steak Fajitas
- Slow Cooker Baked Ziti to Instant Pot Creamy Pasta
- Slow Cooker Pulled Pork to Instant Pot Pulled Pork
If you still have questions, please leave them in the comments and I will do my best to answer!
Hi there,
I'm having a problem with the timer on the slow cooker function.
I set the slow cook to high but the timer goes to a maximum of twenty minutes only.
How do I set in hours please?
Hi Nick, it may be that you set it to 20 hours. For the instant pot 20:00 means 20 hours, while 20 means 20 minutes. Does that help? If not, I can further trouble shoot with you.
Can i use the slow cooker function with a glass lid orvdo i need to use the standard pressure cooking lid?
Either lid works great!
THANK YOU! (Emphatically not in a yelling way) does not even come close to how thankful I am to have found this page and info! Mind you it was after 5 Google searches but I knew it MUST be on the web somewhere. It's almost one a.m. and I already cooked tonight's ( o I mean last night's 😁) dinner and 2 other cook and freeze meals in my Duo 8 qt. by the time I got to this point. I knew I could use my Instant pot as a slow cooker but I needed tried and true advice not just me guessing or assuming it would work. I would have a mutiny on my hands if I told my family we were having my famous chili for dinner tomorrow and it came out anything less than perfect! Setting it now and hoping for the best, but feeling way more confident because of you. Definitely will be exploring your page more😊
Hi Erin! I am so glad you found my site as well! I am sorry it took so long to discover this information though! I am happy to help with any instant pot questions. Feel free to email me personally if you don't find what you are looking for on my site anytime. kristen@amindfullmom.com Take Care--and enjoy that chili 🙂
Hi, I dont know whether my one-year old Instant Pot is broken or not. I think the slow cook function has stopped working. When I pressed it, the flame sign i would be on and off and one time I did not notice it and after several hours in slow cook mode, to my surprise, my food was only in luke warm temp and saw the KEEP WARM function was lighted and the meat was still uncooked.
I am sad especially when I realized it happened after maybe, the warrant period ran out so I could not claim it for a replacement? I owned a DUO PLUS model and that was the first time I used that function. So far, I only used the Pressure Cook and Saute modes.
Please help.
Hi Maria! Okay, so when you pressure slow cook, you can adjust the heat level and then set the time using the +/- buttons. The keep warm function is set to come on AFTER the set slow cook time. It may be that you had the level set at low or normal and you needed to have it on high and cook longer. I hope that helps.
When using the instant pot as a slow cooker, do I still close the pressure valve?
No need to Gina 🙂
Hi Kristen, thank you for this post. So let me make sure I understood correctly. I placed a 7.99lb beef underblade pot roast in my instantpot on slow cook at 7am this morning. Which normally my wife would do in slow cooker but personally didn't want to go digging it out cause we have used the instantpot for a while now. She is a nurse and I work all day as well so I put it on normal setting for 11 hours which it will then go to warm after approximately for an hour til I get home. this would have been the same amount of time it would have been cooking in the slow cooker. Since I followed your guide there was no need to add 15 min per hour to cook time and should be tender and ready to go for me and my family correct? Not sure how quickly you answer these comments but hopefully I set it correctly. I also made sure it was venting and not closed.
Hi Tre! I hope I am catching you in time (I try to answer as promptly as I can). If you are using on normal setting on the Instant Pot and would normal cook on low in the slow cooker, that sounds perfect! I hope you enjoy!
What does it mean when the instructions state to "open" the pressure release valve? You can take it off , put it on, or turn it to one of the two settings, but "open" and "close" don't make sense to me.
Sorry for any confusion. Open means to point to the venting position and close means to be sure it is in the sealed position.