On this page, you will find out how many watts an instant pot draws.
It’s amazing the variety of dishes you can whip up in an instant pot. You can use these electric pressure cookers to produce melt-in-the-mouth meat, delicious vegetable medleys, or even make yogurt. Plus they’re much safer than a traditional pressure cooker. You can simply plug it in, add your ingredients, and choose your setting. One thing you might not realize is the amount of power they can consume. It may look similar to a low-powered slow cooker, but they draw a lot more energy…
Below we will discuss and test instant pot wattage, explain how to work it out for yourself, and calculate the total electricity required.
How Many Watts is an Instant Pot?
The average instant pot uses between 1000 to 1500 watts.
The exact number depends on the size and model of your instant pot. For example, a large 8 quart unit can draw 1500W or more while a mini 3 quat machine uses 1000W and sometimes less.
The reason for this is simple, the bigger the appliance the more power it consumes. This is because it uses larger heating elements and components as it needs to work hard to cook the amount of food.
You should also be aware that your instant pot won’t always consume this maximum power. Often you will use less than this once upto to cooking temperature or on a less demanding setting.
How to Find Out Your Instant Pot Wattage
There’s 3 ways you can work out the wattage of an instant pot.
- Check Product Specification
The quickest way is to look at the instant pot’s specification. The watts (W) is usually written on a sticker on the base of the appliance. If not, you can check the user manual or the manufacturer’s website for technical details.
- Use a Wattmeter
A wattmeter is brilliant for getting a live wattage reading and tracking total energy usage of any appliance. You can simply plug it into your instant pot to get instant information. This will give you a tailored power reading and energy consumption for your cooking style.
I used one to test an instant pot which gave a live reading of 1005W when running on high power.
- Wattage Formula or Calculator
If you know the amperage and voltage of your instant pot you can use this to find the running watts. Simply use the formula Amps x Volts = Watts. Or you can head over to the ‘Watt Calculator’ to work this out.
Instant Pot Wattage Examples
Let’s take a look at specific examples of how many watts an instant pot draws. Below is a collection of modern instant pots with their listed power ratings.
| Instant Pot Model | Power Rating (Watts) |
| Instant Pot Duo Crisp XL 8Qt | 1500 |
| Instant Pot Duo 8QT | 1200 |
| Instant Pot Duo Plus 6QT | 1000 |
| Instant Pot Duo Plus 6 QT | 1200 |
| Instant Pot Ultra 80 Ultra 8 Qt | 1200 |
As you can see, the power ratings vary between different instant pots. So you should take the time to check your own appliance.
How Much Electricity Does an Instant Pot Use?
You can use instant pot wattage to work out how much electricity it uses. Plus this can be useful in understanding how much it costs to run your instant pot.
A watt (W) is a measurement of power at a single point in time. A watt-hour is the total amount of electricity used in an hour. For example, an instant pot drawing 1200W would use 1200Wh when running for an hour.
Happily, electricity bills are recorded in kilowatt-hours (kWh). A kilowatt is simply 1000 watts. So a 1200W instant pot running for 1 hour uses 1.2kWh.
In reality, you might use an instant pot for 2 hours a week. This means an instant pot on high power uses about 2400Wh or 2.4kWh electricity a week. That’s about 10kWh a month and 120kWh a year.
That’s a rough electricity cost of $0.36 a week or $18.72 a year to cook for 2 hours a week on high power. This amount varies if you use your appliance more or less than this. It’s likely you will use a lot less electricity than this as you won’t always be running at top cooking power.
Using an Instant Pot Off-Grid
If you’re planning to use your instant pot in an off-grid situation like a power outage, RV, or remote cabin, the information above is important. You can use the numbers to set up the right power equipment and know how long it will run.
You can either use a power inverter, portable power station, or generator to produce AC electricity.
To make sure everything runs smoothly you should check two things on this equipment – wattage capacity and total energy capacity.
Your power source, like an inverter, should have a wattage capacity of at least 20% more than your instant pot. This ensures it will be able to deliver enough power as they are never 100% efficient. To pressure cook your food, you will need at least 2000W of power capacity. This will give you enough capacity to switch on and run your appliance on high without overworking it when in use for long periods.
Secondly, you need to ensure your energy source, like a battery, has enough energy to run the instant pot for the required amount of time. It will use a maximum 600Wh electricity for 30 mins usage. This is the equivalent to 50Ah on a 12V battery.
How Many Watts Does an Instant Pot Use Summary
I hope you now understand how many watts an instant pot uses.
Pressure cooking your food with this electric appliance has many benefits. It’s much easier and safer to use, plus it has many more functions than a traditional pressure cooker. You can add your ingredients and set your cooking time at the touch of a button. The only thing you might like to keep track of is the total power consumption. This can be quite high when running on full power but can cook food very quickly making the total energy usage quite efficient.
