Best Pressure Cookers for an Easy Clean Kitchen

How the Five Compare on the Numbers

A pressure cooker is the hardest thing in a kitchen to keep clean, because the part that gets dirtiest is the part you cannot put under a tap. So the useful question is not how many programs it has but what the inside is made of and what the maker says you may wash. Of these five, one publishes a dishwasher statement and four do not.

The surfaces are genuinely different. Midea publishes a stainless steel inner pot, Hawkins B60 publishes a stainless body and lid, Our Place publishes a ceramic nonstick interior made without PFAS, the Hawkins CB20 publishes a hard anodized aluminum body, and Imusa publishes polished aluminum. Capacities run from 2.1 quarts to 16 quarts across the same five.

Two of these listings publish no weight at all, and both are the countertop appliances, which is the pair a reader is most likely to have to lift onto a shelf. What none of the five publishes is anything about the gasket: not a material, not a life, not a washing instruction. On a pressure cooker the gasket is the part that holds the smell of everything you have ever cooked.

What the Inside Is Made Of

Stainless, twice over

Hawkins B60 makes the strongest cleaning claim in this group and backs it with the only construction figures here. It publishes a body and lid that are both stainless steel, describes them as staying bright and neither pitting nor corroding, and calls the pot easy to clean and extremely hygienic. It then publishes a base 6.22 inches across and 5.81 mm thick, which nothing else here does.

Midea publishes a stainless steel inner pot inside an electric appliance and is the only listing of the five to say plainly what may be washed in a machine: the inner pot and the lid are both dishwasher safe. For a cooking station where washing up is meant to be automated, that single sentence is worth more than the other four cleaning claims put together.

Aluminum, coated and bare

The Hawkins CB20 publishes a hard anodized aluminum body and states that it is resistant to corrosion and absorbs heat faster than untreated metal. Anodizing is a surface treatment rather than a coating, so there is nothing to flake, but the listing publishes no washing instruction of any kind, and hard anodized cookware is conventionally kept out of dishwashers.

Imusa publishes polished aluminum with no treatment named, cool touch side handles and a 16 quart capacity. It is also the only listing in this pool that publishes a chemical contents disclosure, naming aluminum along with chromium, copper, iron, manganese and zinc, and pointing to its own site for detail. Bare aluminum discolors with alkaline detergents, which is the practical cleaning consequence.

The Coated Option and What It Trades

Ceramic without PFAS

Our Place is the only coated pick and the only one whose cleaning claim is about release rather than resistance. It publishes a ceramic coated interior made without PFAS and says food releases effortlessly, which makes rice and braises easier to cook and easier to clean. It also publishes automatic hands free steam release and nine built in safety features.

What a coating trades is permanence. A stainless pot can be scrubbed with anything and will look the same in a decade; a ceramic surface cannot, and none of the five listings publishes a coating life, a utensil restriction or a detergent restriction. Our Place publishes no dishwasher statement either, so the easiest pot here to wipe is also the one with the least guidance on washing.

Counter space as a cleaning question

Both electric cookers publish dimensions and neither publishes a weight. Our Place publishes 12.4 by 13.3 by 15.2 inches and describes a sleek exterior with stay cool surfaces built to live on a counter. Midea publishes 11.6 by 11.1 by 11.6 inches, which is the smaller machine of the two despite holding 8 quarts against the 6 quarts of the other.

An appliance that lives on the counter has an outside to clean as well as an inside, and stay cool surfaces are the only claim either listing makes about that. The three stovetop cookers have no exterior to speak of and publish weights of 3.8, 3.97 and 8.95 pounds, so they go in a cupboard and come out clean or not at all.

Safety Valves, Regulators and Residue

How each one lets the steam out

Every pressure cooker vents, and the mechanism is where residue collects. Our Place publishes automatic hands free release. Midea publishes an overpressure automatic release as part of a named safety system. Imusa publishes a pressure regulator plus safety valves. The Hawkins CB20 publishes an improved pressure regulator. Hawkins B60 publishes a pressure locked safety lid.

Not one of the five explains how any of those parts is cleaned, whether it detaches, or how often it should be checked. On a stovetop cooker with a weight style regulator that matters a great deal, because a blocked vent is both a cooking failure and a safety issue. The listings treat the valve as a safety feature to advertise rather than a part to maintain.

The parts nobody mentions

Hawkins B60 is the only listing that mentions a handle fitting, describing a projection welded handle bracket, which is a seam and therefore a place food can sit. Imusa publishes cool touch handles with no fixing described. Our Place and Midea publish touchscreens and control panels, which cannot be immersed, and neither listing says so.

The gasket is the largest omission in the category. Every one of these five has one, the gasket is what carries odor between meals, and no listing names its material, states whether it is dishwasher safe, or gives a replacement interval. For a page about keeping a station clean, that is the most conspicuous gap in the published data.

Which One Fits Your Kitchen

The cook who wants a machine to do the washing. Midea publishes a stainless steel inner pot and is the only pick of the five to state that both the pot and the lid are dishwasher safe. It publishes 8 quarts in an 11.6 by 11.1 by 11.6 inch body, and no weight.

The cook who scrubs everything by hand anyway. Hawkins B60 publishes a stainless body and lid that it says will not pit or corrode, a base 6.22 inches across and 5.81 mm thick, and 3.97 pounds at 3.2 quarts. It is the most completely specified cooker here and the one with nothing to wear off.

The cook who wants food to slide out. Our Place publishes a ceramic nonstick interior made without PFAS, automatic steam release and a 6 quart capacity in a 12.4 by 13.3 by 15.2 inch body. It is the easiest to wipe and the least specific about how to wash it.

The cook with one or two portions to make. The Hawkins CB20 publishes 2.1 quarts, the smallest capacity here, in hard anodized aluminum with a curved body the listing says makes stirring easier. At 3.8 pounds it is the lightest of the three cookers that publish a weight.

The cook batching for a week. Imusa publishes 16 quarts of polished aluminum at 8.95 pounds with cool touch handles, and is the only listing here that discloses its metal contents. There is no coating and no cleaning guidance, so treat it as a hand wash pot.

What We Could Not Verify

All of the above is drawn from these makers’ published text. Here is what is not in it.

• No gasket material, life or washing instruction from any of the five.
• No dishwasher statement from four of the five, including both aluminum cookers.
• No coating life or utensil restriction for the one ceramic nonstick pot.
• No weight from either electric cooker, which are the two that have to be lifted onto a counter.
• No guidance on cleaning the vent or regulator on any of the five.
• No base thickness from four of the five, so heat spread cannot be compared.