Instant Pot Pro Plus (2026) review: a refined multi-cooker in a category that has run out of ideas

Five months testing the latest flagship from a struggling brand. The hardware is solid; the software still feels like 2018.

There is a question worth asking before reviewing a new Instant Pot in 2026: does anyone need a new multi-cooker? The category has plateaued. The 2017 Instant Pot Duo, the model that made the brand a household name, did roughly the same things at roughly the same level of competence as the unit I’ve been testing for the last twenty-one weeks. Pressure cooking, slow cooking, rice, yogurt, sous-vide — all of this was solved hardware around 2019. The improvements since then have been refinements rather than capability changes.

That is the context for evaluating the Instant Pot Pro Plus, the 2026 flagship from a brand that emerged from Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2024 and has spent the years since trying to stabilise rather than innovate. The unit is good. It is also not particularly different from the unit I would have reviewed in 2020. Whether that’s a problem depends on what the buyer is replacing.

How we tested

I have used Instant Pots since 2017 and currently keep a 2019 Duo Plus and the Pro Plus side by side on the counter. The Pro Plus arrived November 18, 2025 and ran as the household’s primary multi-cooker for twenty-one weeks. We logged 90+ cooking sessions across pressure cook, slow cook, rice, sous-vide, yogurt, sauté, steam, and the optional air-fryer lid.

I deliberately set up A/B comparisons against the 2019 Duo Plus on identical recipes — beef stew, rice, yogurt, hard-boiled eggs, beans-from-dry, sous-vide steak — and tasted blind with two other testers. I also tracked sous-vide temperature accuracy with a calibrated digital thermometer over four-hour holds at three setpoints (130°F, 145°F, 165°F).

What works

The sous-vide implementation is the cleanest improvement in this generation. Earlier Instant Pots could “do” sous-vide in the sense that they could hold a target temperature, but the accuracy was poor — typically ±2°F drift over multi-hour cooks. The Pro Plus held within ±0.4°F of setpoint across all three of our test temperatures over four-hour holds. That is genuinely competitive with a dedicated immersion circulator (an Anova or Joule), and for a casual sous-vide user it is enough that a separate appliance is unnecessary.

The display upgrade is small but appreciated. The screen is brighter, viewable at the counter angle most users will look at it from, and the menu hierarchy has been simplified. The 2019 generation buried sous-vide under a “More” menu; the new generation puts the most-used programs on the home screen.

The Wi-Fi finally works without requiring an Instant Brands account. Earlier connected Instant Pots required an app sign-up to use connectivity, and the app was widely criticized. The new generation supports Matter (the smart-home standard) and works without any account. We connected it to our test smart-home hub in under two minutes and used remote start a handful of times across the testing period. It worked.

Build quality is incrementally better. The inner pot has a thicker base — Instant Brands lists it as 5-ply versus 3-ply on the previous generation — and we noticed less scorching during long pressure-cook sessions. The pressure-release valve has been redesigned to vent more quietly, and we measured 84 dB during natural release versus 91 dB on the 2019 model. That is a real difference for a kitchen appliance that lives on the counter.

The 6-quart capacity remains the right size for most households. We made enough food in a single batch for four servings consistently across the testing period, with room for a 3-pound roast or a full pot of risotto.

Weaknesses

The biggest weakness is what the unit doesn’t do, which is be meaningfully better than a 2020 Pro. The cooking results — the actual food that comes out — are functionally identical to what a working five-year-old Pro would produce. We compared the same beef stew recipe head-to-head; three blind tasters could not reliably tell which was which. Same for rice, yogurt, hard-boiled eggs, dried beans, and a roast.

This is not a flaw of the Pro Plus specifically. It is a flaw of the multi-cooker category, which has plateaued. The hardware was good enough by 2019. There is no Moore’s Law here, no place for cooking results to improve. What’s left is incremental hardware refinement and software polish, both of which the Pro Plus delivers but neither of which justifies an upgrade from a working older unit.

The air-fryer lid attachment, sold separately at $79, remains a clumsy add-on that produces inferior results to a dedicated basket air fryer. The lid is heavy, has to be swapped with the pressure lid, and the cooking area is smaller than even an entry-level basket air fryer. After two weeks of testing the lid we stopped using it. A separate Cosori or Ninja basket air fryer at $90-110 produces better results with less hassle.

The 12 cooking programs are still largely overlapping presets dressed up as distinct features. “Soup,” “stew,” “meat,” and “chili” all use roughly the same pressure-cook profile with minor time variations. New users may find the labels helpful; experienced users will set their own time and pressure manually.

The financial instability of Instant Brands is a real concern. The company emerged from Chapter 11 in 2024 with a smaller product line and reduced staff. Parts and warranty support are functioning as of April 2026, but it is reasonable to ask whether they will be in 2030. For a $200 appliance with a 1-year warranty this is less critical than for a $2,000 one, but it weighs against the brand’s previous near-universality.

Verdict

The Instant Pot Pro Plus is a refined version of a mature product in a stagnant category. We recommend it specifically for buyers replacing an older Instant Pot — a 2017-2019 model that is failing or has died. For that buyer, the Pro Plus is a refined, slightly improved version of a familiar workflow, and it is the obvious replacement.

We do not recommend it for first-time multi-cooker buyers without specific reservations. A first-time buyer should consider the Ninja Foodi (better integrated air-fryer at slightly more money), the Cosori multi-cooker (cheaper, fewer features, comparable cooking), or — if they’re a more confident cook — a stovetop pressure cooker (Kuhn Rikon, Fissler), which reaches higher pressure and cooks faster than any electric unit.

The 7.5 rating reflects a competent product in a tired category. The Pro Plus is good. It is not exciting. In 2026 that may be the most honest review one can write of any multi-cooker.

Review unit purchased at retail. Instant Brands did not provide compensation, review samples, or pre-publication review of this article. Our Ethics & Independence policy explains how we test.