Did You Know You Could Make Popcorn in the Instant Pot?

Science fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke once wrote that “any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic,” and I’m becoming increasingly convinced that he was talking about the Instant Pot. Every day someone seems to find something new the Instant Pot can do. If you told me the Instant Pot could do my taxes, I would probably believe you.

It’s a pressure cooker, a rice cooker, and a slow cooker, and it can make yogurt and wine (yes, wine) and reheat meat from frozen so quickly even the USDA thinks it’s OK.

Now it’s come out that you can, in fact, make popcorn in the Instant Pot. How exciting is that?

According to Today Food, you can make popcorn in the Instant Pot with just some uncooked popcorn kernels, coconut oil, and butter and salt. You can use the sauté feature to bring the coconut oil to a simmer, add the popcorn and make sure all the kernels are coated, put a lid on top (not the Instant Pot lid, though, because Today says that will turn off the sauté function), and wait for the sound of popping to slow down. Then turn off the Instant Pot and wait for the popping to stop, and poof! You have a nice Instant Pot full of popcorn.

This actually sounds great for me. I like popcorn, especially with black pepper and grated Parmesan, but I cannot stand the smell of microwave popcorn because it reminds me of my first office job. (Every afternoon, someone would put butter-flavored popcorn in the break room microwave, and everything in a 100-foot radius — including me and my clothes — would smell like microwave popcorn for the rest of the day.)

Popping the popcorn in the Instant Pot would just smell like coconut oil, which is pleasant, and cleanup would be a breeze. So making snacks to go with Netflix documentaries just got even easier.

Have you ever made popcorn in the Instant Pot?