Turns out the best Instant Pot isn’t made by Instant Pot — it’s the Fagor Lux Multi-Cooker. The Instant Pot is basically an electric pressure cooker, with additional heat/pressure settings that enable it to cook like a slow cooker, a rice maker, steamer, sauté pan and yogurt maker. It’s a vast improvement over the slow cooker, because any recipe that works in a slow cooker works just as well in a pressure cooker, in a fraction of the time — beans in 35 minutes instead of 6 hours! And the metal cooking vessel allows you to brown or sauté select ingredients first – which you can’t do in a ceramic slow cooker. But reviews of the Instant Pot frequently mention the poor results from its rice making function. Having used the Rolls Royce of rice cookers – the Zojirushi Induction cooker — for many years, this was a deal breaker for me. Then I read the Good Housekeeping Review, which noted that the Fagor Multi-Cooker outcooks the Instant Pot for rice and oatmeal. Sold. While it doesn’t match the rice perfection of the Zojirushi, it’s good enough, replacing it and my slow cooker — and enabling me to free up space on my counter for a new blender.