Pressure cookers used to instill fear in home cooks for their tendency to blow, shooting tomato sauce or all kinds of other ingredients onto the ceiling. But over the years the technology has improved, and with it the promise of actually cooking dinner faster and easier and without the insane clean up. (How do you get tomato sauce off the ceiling, anyway?)
The reason pressure cookers have sometimes been worth the trouble is because they're able to cook big meals in a fraction of the time it'd take in the oven (think great big roasts in just 30 minutes). And for those of us living busy lives -- ahem, everyone -- that's a true gift. Watch this video to see how it works.
But thanks to the appliance's not-so-trusty history, many home cooks still opt to stay away. We totally understand, which is we're pleased there are now microwave pressure cookers. Not only is the microwave pressure cooker smaller than the original appliance, making it easier to store and clean, but it also does its work behind the door of the microwave, providing a little bit of distance between you and the high heat and pressure employed to cook your dinner.
If you're new to the idea of a pressure cooker, here's a great list of meals you can make in one in a fraction of the time it would otherwise take. To see one microwave pressure cooker option at work, watch the video above by Tupperware. (Nordic Ware and CooksEssentials also make popular microwave pressure cookers.)
With the high temps of summer ahead, this just might be the answer to keeping the kitchen cool, making dinner fast and easy, and taking the stress out of your evenings. This, or the grill.
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