Pressure, Slow or Rice Cooker? 5 Weeknight Dinner Appliances Compared

The pressure cooker everyone else has, with the recipes and accessories to match. The 6 quart size is rated for about six servings, enough for four with lunch left over. It pressure cooks, slow cooks, sautés, steams, makes rice and yogurt, with 13 preset programs. The inner pot is 18/8 stainless with a tri-ply base, so you can brown meat in it before pressure cooking. The steam release is a switch rather than a valve you nudge. It is roughly 12 by 13 inches and 12.5 inches tall, so check under-cabinet clearance. Like every electric pressure cooker, the sealing ring in the lid holds onto smells and needs regular cleaning.

For the parent who fills a pot before work and wants nothing to think about until dinner. A 7 quart manual slow cooker: a dial with low, high and warm, no display. The size fits a large roast or a double batch of chili for the freezer, and the maker rates it for eight or more servings. The stoneware insert lifts out and goes in the dishwasher, the oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit, or the microwave. The trade-off of manual control is that it will not switch itself to warm at a set time, so a ten-hour day on high overcooks chicken. It is also nearly 17 inches deep, a lot of counter in a small kitchen.

If the thing that goes wrong on weeknights is the rice, this fixes it in little counter space. A 2 quart digital cooker that takes 4 cups of uncooked rice and delivers up to 8 cups cooked, with programs for white rice, brown rice, a quick flash setting and steam. A tray above the rice steams vegetables or dumplings at the same time, and it switches to keep-warm when the cycle ends. The footprint is about 9 by 9 inches. It is not for a big family on a rice-heavy diet; 8 cooked cups is dinner for four. And the measuring cup is not a standard cup, so keep it with the machine.

Same 6 quart capacity and nearly the same footprint as the proven pick above, with choices that favor cleanup and first-time users. The inner pot has a ceramic nonstick coating, so rice and oatmeal do not weld to the bottom, and the lid is dishwasher safe. Venting is designed to be less alarming: the seal and vent control sits away from the steam outlet, and the outlet angles backward. The lid locks by lining up two orange dots and twisting, easy to teach a teenager. The trade-off is the coating: it will not take the hard sear a stainless pot does and will eventually wear, and the accessory ecosystem is smaller.

The usual gripe with slow cookers is that browning the meat means dirtying a skillet first. This one has heating elements in the base, so you sear in the pot, then switch to slow cook, braise or sous vide. The pot is 8.5 quarts, enough for a crowd or a week of freezer meals, and it is oven safe to 500 degrees Fahrenheit for a crisp finish. There is a proof setting for bread dough too. It is not a pressure cooker, so dinner still takes hours, and it is the pricier of the two slow cookers. At 18 inches deep it is the biggest thing on this list and may have to live in a cabinet.