Pressure Cooker vs Slow Cooker – Pros & Cons

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pressure cooker

Buying a pressure cooker or a slow cooker is a great idea if you want to properly equip your kitchen. There are a large variety of options when it comes to kitchen appliances, but these stand out because they help enhance your cooking experience, while making it fun and more interesting. 

Be it a pressure cooker or a slow cooker, your shopping experience can always be affordable if you log on to bestbargains.lk. However, choosing between the two appliances can prove to be very difficult. Which is why we are here to help.

What is a pressure cooker and which are its pros and cons?

A pressure cooker is an appliance whose main focus is to help you speed up the cooking process. Generally, this type of product relies on using less liquid for the boiling and steaming experience, and the added pressure helps shorten the cooking time quite a bit. 

You are keeping the nutrients and vitamins too, which is nice. Moreover, without a pressure cooker it’s hard to get the canned veggies or fruits heated in a way that you can prevent botulism. 

The way a pressure cooker works is that you add liquid with your ingredients, then the liquid converts to steam. That steam increases the water boiling point and the high temperature boosts cooking speed. 

The meat and food in general become tender, and you can easily cook everything quicker. You also have rich, deep textures too, which is extremely helpful.

There are all kinds of foods you can prepare in the pressure cooker, ranging from hard boiled eggs to roasted chicken, ribs, pot roast, turkey breast, fluffy rice, stews and so on. Most pressure cookers offer great customization, so you can easily pick exactly how to prepare everything.

Pros

  • Most pressure cookers can speed up the cooking process quite a bit, you don’t have to wait hours and hours to prepare your food
  • Some pressure cookers have remote control, Wi-Fi features that allow you to change settings remotely if you want.
  • These can also be multi-cookers, which means you can have a vast range of additional cooking methods and features
  • Pressure cooking retains the minerals and vitamins, which is not always the case with other cooking methods.
  • It doesn’t heat up your kitchen like a slow cooker.

Cons

  • Cleaning a pressure cooker can be very hard to do.
  • Opening the pressure cooker requires care, otherwise you can easily get burned
  • Some of the flavors and textures can be lost
  • They are quite expensive

Slow cookers

As the name suggests, slow cookers are quite different when compared to a pressure cooker. Instead of going the fast route, it relies on low heat in order to simmer your meal over multiple hours. 

If you’re busy and you want to ensure that your food is well-cooked, you just add your ingredients into the slow cooker and then focus on your task. You can choose how many hours the slow cooker will run for, which means you can easily come back to it without a problem. 

The slow cooker is great for cooking ground beef, chicken breast, roasts and so on. Stews and soups are also a very good pick, among many other recipes. It’s even possible to prepare various types of bread, and the results are always tasty. 

Pros

  • You just have to add the ingredients in your slow cooker and you are good to go, it will take care of the rest
  • It can retain those nuanced, rich flavors that would be hard to retain due to pressure cooking
  • It takes its time to deliver the best possible flavor and quality, which is very handy
  • It’s not an appliance that consumes a lot of electricity
  • A slow cooker is less expensive when compared to a pressure cooker

Cons

  • Slow cookers are known for their very long cooking times, sometimes up to a day. That means you shouldn’t get a slow cooker if you want your food prepared fast, since it’s not for you.
  • You need to be very well organized to use a slow cooker at its true potential
  • Most slow cookers are bulky and larger when compared to other appliances
  • It’s now possible to brown your food
  • There are less options when compared to a pressure cooker for example

Meat 

If you want to maintain the texture of your meat, a slow cooker is usually better. Granted, the pressure cooker still offers you tender meat, but slow cooking does maintain a rich flavor and the texture you like. You can still use low meat cuts with both and still obtain great results though. 

Taste 

The taste is better when it comes to a slow cooker, but in general you will be ok with both. Needless to say, more cooking time accounts to a better taste in general, so it’s definitely a thing to consider if you want to buy any of the two.

Vegetables

Cooking veggies in a pressure cooker can remove some of the nutrients. That’s why a slow cooker is usually the better option if you want to cook vegetables in general. 

Speed 

Needless to say, slow cookers are very slow and can take hours or a day to cook your meals. With a pressure cooker you can prepare most meals within an hour, maybe 90 minutes at most. That adds a lot more efficiency and value to the entire cooking experience.

Nutrition Value

The nutritional value is lower from a pressure cooker because it speeds up the process and you lose any nutrients that are sensitive to heat. 

Omega 3 fatty acids, glucosinolates, beta carotene are all bringing in great nutritional value, and they are kept by the slow cooker, yet pressure cookers can reduce the overall amount.

Conclusion

It’s very important to ensure that you pick an appliance based on your lifestyle. If you’re busy and want to prepare your food fast, then a pressure cooker is ideal, although you may lose some nutrients in the process. 

If you are ok with cooking your meals slowly, then a slow cooker can retain many nutrients, but it’s at the cost of many hours of waiting time. 

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