I don't actually have an Instant Pot. I have an Electric Pressure Cooker. Just so we are clear here, I am not promoting any single brand name. I am using the Instant Pot name because it is universally recognized and a symbol for all their competition as well as their own product. (Well done, Instant Pot, it isn't easy to become the Bandaid of Cookers.)

I got an Electric Pressure Pot, against my better judgment. Just kept feeling that maybe I could use it to pressure cook some meats that weren't so friendly when cooked in the crock pot. I just DO NOT want appliances cluttering my counter that I don't have a genuine NEED for, so this was a major thing for me to even persuade myself that I SHOULD get it. But I did have digestive problems, and I did need to increase protein digestion, so I just dove in and gave it a shot.

That worked actually. But it isn't how I use my Instant Pressure Cooker AT ALL.

Over a few years I discovered ways to use it that have made my life a little easier. So much so that if my Electric Pressure Pot goes out, I have to get another, it just makes my life more manageable. I use it 2-5 times a week, for really boring and uninteresting things.

1. Potatoes. Right there, first on the list! Either PEELED, or UNPEELED, just dump a 5 lb bag of potatoes into the pot, put in a cup of water, and run it on LOW PRESSURE for about 7-8 Minutes. The LOWEST and SHORTEST RICE cycle will do them just great. Now, This is ORDINARY 6-8 oz potatoes. BIG ones have to be cut in half. And you need the PRESSURE DOWN time as part of the Cook Time. No need to cut up those potatoes and then watch the pot while they cook. Just bung them in whole or in VERY large chunks, and turn on the pot and walk away until they are done. It is a little quicker, but it is also EASIER. When they are done, put those potatoes into a gallon zip bag in the fridge, and use them all week for baked potatoes, fried potatoes, potato salad, potato soup, mashies, whatever.
2. Rice. Not just rice, but rice MEALS. You can put the meat and veggies right in with the rice, and cook it all together.  Toss in the spices right at the first, and the whole thing is done except for the butter. Add the butter after the rice cooks or it takes longer for the rice to get done.
3. Chili. Of Course. I cook the beans on one long hot bean cycle. Then I throw in raw hamburger, still in the bricks, along with the spices. I run it on another bean cycle. Then I chop up the cooked hamburger, add the tomatoes and run it on another bean cycle to meld the flavors. Sounds like overkill, but I have irritable bowel problems, and doing it this way means I NEVER get indigestion from the beans. Overcooking them until some of them break apart ensures that the beans digest really well. And the chili is amazing. I serve it up for dinner, and then use my large Pressure Canner to can the leftovers. CAUTION!!! If you make THICK chili, it may burn on the last cycle. You don't have to have soupy chili, but it does need to have enough liquid to boil without burning, and to steam up so the pot pressures quickly.
4. Soup. Of Course. Fast and easy, just throw everything for the soup into the pot, including the hamburger in the brick or other meat raw. Run a long hot soup cycle, and then break up the hamburger, and serve it up. If you need to thicken a stew, add the flour roux after it pressures down and immediately after you open the pot. Then you use the Saute setting to bring it back to a boil.
5. Mongolian Beef and Swiss Steak. My Swiss Steak isn't stewed tomatoes on bad steak. It is FAR better than that! But either one, you run the meat on a long hot meat cycle, then put in the sauce ingredients and the longer cooking vegetables and run it again on a shorter medium hot meat cycle. Then you add the onions and peppers and Saute them until they are tender. and add the thickening and cook it until it is done. (Of course there are onions and peppers in both Swiss Steak and Mongolian Beef. It is one of the things that makes them delicious.) The first cycle cooks the meat, the second cycle TENDERIZES the meat (and it REALLY does, because you are cooking the meat with acids that really do the magic), and the Saute setting lets you get the onions and peppers just right and the thickening just so.
6. Quick Cooking Meat. You can do meats from frozen, or thawed, and they DO work a little better thawed, but in a pinch you just run it with frozen meat, just a bit longer, or with a second cycle to finish. Those Smithfield Pork Loins... MMMMMmmmm. Hamburger cooks from raw on a rice cycle, and from frozen on a long rice cycle, and then you break it up and use it in whatever. NO WATER NEEDED FOR MOST RAW MEATS they have enough moisture to produce a broth for pressuring up. But a few do need a half a cup of water or so.
7. Meatloaf. You have to put WATER in the bottom of the pot - 1-2 cups. Then put the meatloaf into a SMALLER METAL CONTAINER (I used a straight sided metal mixing bowl). I put JAR RINGS on the bottom of the pot to elevate the metal bowl. Then cook it on a medium meat cycle. You can't just put meatloaf into the pot, it will NOT pressure up (not enough moisture to make the steam required), and it WILL BURN.
8. Emergency Cooking. When we moved into a new home recently, the gas stove had a leak, and had to be disconnected. We decided to remove the gas hookup and wire in electric instead, and that took several weeks. In the mean time we used an air fryer oven (it is just a convection toaster oven, after all) to replace the oven, and we used our Electric Pressure Pot for stovetop cooking. It was somewhat limiting since we had just the one pot, but we managed to get by until we had our new electric range functional. Between the Pressure settings and the Saute Function, I got by.
9. Making Syrup. I use it for Chocolate Syrup (uses a low and short rice cycle), and I use it for some other syrups, and it can be used to make candied ginger (it is made in a syrup, and the syrup and candying process happen simultaneously). My husband has chocolate milk for breakfast every morning, so this is a big deal for him. Hershey's syrup has too much aspartame in it (doesn't say so on the label but the symptoms are sure there!), and so does Quik (same labeling issue), so what is a fellow to do for chocolate milk? We make it from scratch in big batches in the cooker, and he's happy. I love that I can put all the ingredients in, stir them together, and then run the cycle. I don't have to stir this big pot of syrup working the whole time to keep it from boiling over. The Pressure Pot does it marvelously, and while the cleanup of the lid is no laughing matter, it is easier for me to clean that lid than it is for me to stir that pot.
10. Making Medicinal Extractions. Ok, so this isn't something most people need, but I do. I don't have to stand over the stove stirring a pot of mysterious ingredients to make a medicinal extraction. Just put it all into the pot and set it and walk away until it beeps done.

Things we NEVER do in an Instant Pressure Cooker:

1. Pressure Canning. NEVER NEVER!! You just can't control the timing and temperature like you need to in order to can with this machine. I've done the testing, comparing with stovetop canning, trying to get the cycle right, and you just can't calculate it accurately. Stovetop canning cooks pork meat completely through to soft tender in a 10 minute at pressure for altitude cycle. The Instant Pot, as close as I could calculate, still had RAW PINK meat inside the middle of the meat. Even if I experimented more to try to work it out, it would be unreliable and prone to problems with every variable (and there are many).
2. Lasagna. Or any other solid casserole. Not enough moisture to come up to pressure, so the pot just heats and heats and never locks and the cycle never even STARTS... Your food just BURNS on the bottom. Of course you can do it like I do a meatloaf, in a smaller metal container, with water under it, but then it is wet on top and never browns. Just use your OVEN here, people, it is much better at getting a good result.
3. Breads. Just ignore those fanatics who think you have to do everything in it. Bread turns out soggy and if you do it in the pot directly it WILL BURN! You have to do it in a secondary container with water beneath the container, and that means your bread STEAMS instead of BAKING. Just don't bother, bread should be treated better than that!
4. Crock Potting. Ok, so YOU might do this! I just never do! I have a crock pot, and I use that! Partly because I don't want the Electric Pot tied up on a long cooking job when I might need it for something else in the mean time. Some days are just like that. It is worth stating that I use crock pots LESS now than I did before I had the Electric Pressure Cooker. But I still use them for making Applesauce, Apple Butter, and sometimes Salves, or other oddball medicinals, or sometimes when we just need a lot of slow cooked soup - I still have TWO crockpots.

Things That Can Go Wrong

We have definitely had some issues with the pots. So these are the things that regularly go wrong.

1. Cycle never pressures up, and food burns. Not enough liquid to create the steam to pressure up the pot. See Meatloaf and Lasagna above. You can DEFINITELY avoid this one! This is SILENT and you don't know what is going on until you notice it is taking WAY too long, or you smell burned food. If you smell burned food it is thoroughly annihilated.
2. Stuff oozes out of the Red lock button. That means there is something sticky in there that didn't get cleaned out. I use the tip of a knife to lift the Red button up so it stops the leaking, and then clean it really good once the cycle is done. If you make syrups with the cooker, this can be a problem if you don't clean the lid and button assembly well, because sticky stuff gets in there and hardens when it cools, so the button won't lift when it needs to, and the boiling food in the pot just bubbles out around the button instead. YOU WILL HEAR THIS - You'll hear a sizzling or bubbling noise.
3. Big Horrific Mess on the counter from leakage. Usually means your GASKET is misaligned, and this ALWAYS becomes a repeat problem with some kinds of Gasket retention structures. The gasket is held into the lid by little clamps, or a wire frame, or some other means (I've only seen the two methods). Over time ,the heating and cooling can warp the metal of the frame, or you may put the gasket back into the clamps unevenly. You can look at the metal frame and make sure the wires run straight instead of bending at the welds, and straighten it. Or you can get the thing evenly distributed between the clamps. Either way, straighten it out and the thing works again. This is generally silent, but you usually SMELL the food that is leaking out. We don't typically smell a lot of food smell from the cooker.
4. Unit Seems Dead. Unplug, wait a few minutes, then plug back in. This works with several brands, at least a time or two. In the end, it may just be dead though.
5. Unit steams and steams but does not lock and pressure up. Check the pressure weight to make sure it is not jammed. Sometimes food or goo gets under it and it can't lift like it should to stop the steam. CAUTION!!! THIS is one of the things we worry about if we start the cooker and then leave the house where we can't hear it. If this happens, you HEAR it steaming and steaming.
6. Food burns on the bottom of the pot. It is either TOO THICK to cook well in the pot, or there is something that burns easily that is on the bottom. Tomatoes can do this in chili, so we wait to add the tomatoes in a later cycle. You don't get a warning with this. You don't know until you stir it up from the bottom of the pot and mix the burnt stuff all through.