- Everyone knows Instant Pot and everyone loves Instant Pot. The brand deserves all the love it gets, but there’s another option out there that has really been gaining attention lately.
- The CHEF iQ Smart Cooker is an awesome multi-function electric cooker that combines everything people love about Instant Pots with smart new features that you won’t find on anything from Instant Brands.
- Head over to Amazon and you’ll find a rare discount on the Smart Cooker, so it’s the perfect time to see what all the fuss is about.
Remember how life-changing it was when you got your first Instant Pot and began using it in place of a traditional pressure cooker? It was so eye-opening for me… and I was able to experience that feeling all over again last year when I was sent a new CHEF iQ Smart Cooker to test. Now that I’ve been using it for a while and I’ve experienced firsthand how much better the cooking experience is when you add in novel features and app connectivity.
In fact, I don’t see myself ever going back to my Instant Pot.
At first glance, the CHEF iQ Smart Cooker appears to be yet another Instant Pot knockoff that will never measure up to the original. Once you turn it on for the first time, however, you can tell right away that the Smart Cooker is something else entirely.
Yes, it looks like an Instant Pot. And yes, it offers plenty of different cooking modes like an Instant Pot. But this fantastic kitchen tool is actually so much more — it’s the next logical step in the evolution of electric multi-cookers. It’s about so much more than just cooking a meal after you’ve prepped the ingredients and dumped them into the inner pot.
This brilliant device connects to the CHEF iQ app and walks you through each step of the process when you’re preparing the meal, from start to finish. These guided recipes are wonderfully easy to follow, just like your favorite YouTube chef tutorials. But these are interactive — the CHEF iQ Smart Cooker will even weigh liquid and dry ingredients as you add each one to the pot, ensuring that you get the perfect result each and every time.
You’ll find more than 300 cooking presets in the Smart Cooker and more than 1,000 in the app. It also comes with everything you need to use each and every one. This brilliant device blew me away the very first time I used it, and I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to go back to my Instant Pot.
The CHEF iQ Smart Cooker retails for $200 and it’s worth every penny, but a big discount on Amazon slashes the price to $149.99. We can’t find a better price anywhere online right now.
Here’s a blurb from the product page that covers all the basics:
At CHEF iQ, we’re bringing innovation, technology, and science into the kitchen to revolutionize the home cooking experience. The Smart Cooker includes a built-in scale, automatic pressure release, 300+ built-in cooking presets, and more. The CHEF iQ ecosystem seamlessly combines the hardware of the Smart Cooker and the software of the CHEF iQ App to provide you with a premium culinary experience you simply cannot get anywhere else. Plus, it’s the only kitchen appliance that keeps getting smarter just sitting on your countertop with wireless firmware updates. Explore hundreds of exclusive Guided Cooking recipes in the app, then follow along with the step-by-step video instructions and send precise cooking parameters to your Smart Cooker at the push of a button. With Guided Cooking, you can create elevated meals right from your phone. Create custom cooking presets, tailored exactly to your liking and saved directly on your Smart Cooker for one-touch cooking. With four integrated smart sensors in the Smart Cooker, you can learn to cook by weight – no measuring cups or spoons are ever needed. Use your Smart Cooker as a standalone kitchen scale while the CHEF iQ displays the precise weight of your ingredients in real-time. For added safety, we designed an innovative 3-method auto pressure release system built into the Smart Cooker so steam can release on its own when cooking is complete, making it safer than the competitor, while ensuring food comes out flawlessly cooked every time. The high-tech full color digital LCD display and capacitive touch control respond to a light touch for added ease of use. The Smart Cooker operates at a powerful 120V and 1000 Watts for more efficient cooking and is equipped with ETL safety certified for United States and Canadian distribution, FCC certification, FDA approval, and BPA-free accessories. The use of the CHEF iQ App and Smart Cooker outside of the US & Canada is not recommended or encouraged.