6 best pressure cookers for 2025

After a long day in the office or ticking off your to-do list, spending ages in the kitchen preparing a meal isn’t always appealing. Luckily, for quick and easy dinners, you don’t need to settle for beans on toast (although no judgement here!). All you need is a pressure cooker.

The very best pressure cookers will cut cooking time significantly and use less energy while they’re at it. There’s no need to fear them either – these efficient appliances all have clever mechanisms to release steam and depressurise if needed.

Pressure cookers are versatile machines that make tasty meals in minutes rather than hours – from pot roasting chicken to creating hearty stews. But if you're still wondering whether it's worth investing, the GHI is here to help.

What are the best pressure cookers?

We’ve put a range of pressure cookers to the test to find the best buys on the market. Take a quick look at our ranking below or scroll on for our full reviews of the best pressure cookers to buy in 2025.

How does a pressure cooker work?

There are two main types of pressure cooker: electric and stovetop. The former is a standalone appliance that you fill, programme and leave, while the latter looks like a saucepan and is used on the hob.

Both work in fundamentally the same way; your ingredients are completely sealed in, using a combination of a rubber ring around the top of the pot and a weighted lid. This stops steam escaping, so it builds to create more pressure. This then increases the boiling point of water to about 120C, which means the food inside absorbs more water and cooks quicker. As an extra bonus, pressure cooking also helps to lock in nutrients, develop flavour and make food more tender.

Once your dish is cooked, you simply turn off the heat and wait for the pressure to fall or use the release methods stated by the model’s manufacturer. You may need a few meals to fully get the hang of it, especially with the quicker timings. But once mastered, pressure cookers are easy to use and will save you heaps of time.

Are pressure cookers worth having?

If you’re often short on time and want to make fresh, nutritious meals, the bottom line is yes. But speeding up cooking isn’t the only benefit of having a pressure cooker. They also use less water and tend to be more energy efficient compared to cooking in a normal saucepan, according to studies by the University of Florida.

The benefits don’t stop there, either. You can also buy cheaper cuts of meat in the supermarket, as the cooker tenderises the meat over a shorter cooking time.

The convenience of a pressure cooker can help cut down on food waste, too. Simply chuck leftovers and scraps into the pot to make a good stock, or use it to speed up meal-prep for the week.

What can you cook in a pressure cooker?

The short answer is that you can make almost anything cooked with liquids: soup, stew, vegetables, pulses, rice, pasta, risotto, curry, rice pudding – the list is long! You can even make cheesecake and crème brûlée, pot roast a chicken, boil an egg or braise meat. Our favourite though has to be the GH cookery team's pulled pork - simply delicious.

Pressure cookers won’t make anything golden or crispy though, so make sure you fry onions and seal meat before adding them.

How we test

At the GHI, we try out a range of recipes in each pressure cooker we test, including beef and Guinness stew, minestrone soup and rice pudding. We also steam broccoli.

We make each dish several times and take its internal temperature to check it’s thoroughly cooked. We also take the external temperature of the pot and handles and assess each cooker’s safety features (such as pressure-release valves) to make sure they are safe to use.

Here are our best buys for 2025.