I just tested the new mini Instant Pot — it’s ‘ideal for small spaces,’ with a catch

The Instant Pot Rio Mini is the newest model on the block. Instant Pot has managed to shave off a pretty impressive three inches (both height and width) compared to the Rio — our best Instant Pot overall — while retaining an enviable seven cooking modes. And just look at it. The Rio Mini is gorgeous. It comes in pastel pink, white, and black, which is a welcome improvement on previous boring-black Instant Pots.

Although it suffers from an overly long preheat time, this isn’t a Rio Mini-specific issue. It’s a general Instant Pot issue. While the new Instant Pot Pro cuts the preheat time down by around a third, this is still one of the biggest catches when it comes to these Canadian multi-cookers.

So, is the Instant Pot Rio Mini worth its relatively low price tag? To find out, keep reading my Instant Pot Rio Mini review.

Instant Pot Rio Mini review: Cheat sheet

• What is it? An Instant Pot for small households
• Who is it for? Ideally, single-person or couple households — large families, check out the Rio Wide instead
• What does it cost? $89 / £79
• What do we like? Very easy to use, great for small households
• What don’t we like? Some essential features have been cut: no WhisperQuiet, no handles on the inner pot, and the preheat time is still abysmal

Instant Pot Rio Mini review: Specs

Instant Pot Rio Mini review: Price & availability

Frustratingly, as with many of Instant Pot’s instant pots, the Rio Mini has a different name depending on where you are in the world.

If you’re in the U.S., you’ll call it the “Instant Pot Rio Mini” (hence why I am referring to it by this moniker now), but if you’re in the U.K., it’s simplified to just “Instant Pot Mini.” Do not get confused by the similarly titled “Instant Pot Duo Mini” (also $89). This is not the same.

Got it? Right, let’s get into pricing. In the U.S., you can buy the Instant Pot Rio Mini for $89 at Amazon. It’s available in three lovely pastel Instagrammable shades: sea salt (which I tested), rosewater, and black.

On the other side of the pond, the Instant Pot Mini is £79 at Amazon. Strangely, the white version I tested doesn’t seem to be available at the moment — you’re looking at just the black colorway. If black is fine for you, then this won’t be an issue.

As far as Instant Pots go, this is a very reasonable price.

If you recognize the name Instant Pot Rio, it’s probably because of the $99-$129 (depending on size) Rio Wide. This model is effectively a bigger version of the Mini (who would’ve guessed?), so I’d recommend the Wide if you have a large family.

I use the £249 Instant Pot Pro at home, which, in my opinion, is grossly overpriced. You can also get the £149 Instant Pot Plus, or the $149 Instant Pot Duo Plus with WhisperQuiet, which is basically a non-smart version of the Plus/Pro collection.

Instant Pot Rio Mini review: Design & controls

Although it’s called the “Mini,” the Instant Pot Rio Mini isn’t actually as mini as you’d expect it to be.

Compared to the Instant Pot Pro, it’s 2.7 inches shorter and 1.5 inches narrower, but only 0.2 of an inch shallower. Although you’d be able to fit it on a kitchen countertop just fine, you might want to find a space to store it away if you’ve got a particularly small living area.

True, when compared to the Rio Wide, the Rio Mini is considerably smaller (3 inches narrower, 3 inches shallower), but I still don’t think this is small enough to be called “mini”. The Rio Mini should be, say, 9 inches tall rather than 10 inches, 11 inches wide rather than almost 14. I think Instant Pot could’ve gone further with this.

I’ll admit that the Rio Mini looks fantastic, though. Despite being a little larger than what I consider “mini”, the pink and white colorways are striking and very social-media-friendly. I tested the white, and you’d be surprised by how clean it stayed.

As with other Instant Pots, the Rio Mini comes with a steaming grate; you use this while steaming eggs, veggies, and the like.

Unlike other Instant Pots, the Rio Mini’s inner pot doesn’t have handles, so I hope your oven mitts are up to the challenge. This is a very weird omission, as all of Instant Pot’s other 2025 releases (that we tested here at Tom’s Guide) came with pot handles.

I’ll end on an issue I’ve had with previous Instant Pots: the lack of information on the icons. Now, this is only an issue if you get the U.K. version of the Mini. In the U.S., this isn’t a problem as the Rio Mini has text icons rather than graphic icons. Why? Whyyyyy? Whyyyyyyy?

Why must I be forced to memorize hieroglyphs whilst U.S.-based users get to simply press buttons that tell them exactly what they do? I really don’t get this, especially as U.K. models like the Duo Plus and Pro Plus have text icons rather than graphics. It just makes no sense. Sigh.

Instant Pot Rio Mini review: Cooking performance

Before we get into the cooking performance, I’m going to just give a quick rundown of the differences between the U.K. and U.S. models.

The U.S. model has a “rice” cooking program, whereas in the U.K., this has been replaced by “egg.” I guess British people just love guzzling eggs. Like Gaston, or the lizard in that old Disney movie.

As a result, the model I tested unfortunately doesn’t have a rice cooking program, but I’ve mastered how to make rice in an Instant Pot for those curious.

Unlike more premium Instant Pots, the Rio Mini doesn’t have a WhisperQuiet steam release. It’s quite loud. During steam release (which you manually activate with a tab on top of the lid), my DecibelX app peaked at 120dB, but this quickly went down to around 40dB within thirty seconds. So, for thirty seconds, you might want to cover your ears.

Pressure cook

As an Instant Pot is, first and foremost, a pressure cooker, it only makes sense that this is the first mode I discuss.

To test the pressure cook setting, I cooked two cups of dried chickpeas. I skipped the soak and poured the chickpeas directly into the Instant Pot, then covered with water to the ½ fill line. I set it to pressure cook on high for forty minutes.

After 54 minutes — so 14 minutes pre-heat — I had perfectly soft, fluffy chickpeas that had popped out of their skins. These chickpeas would be perfect for smooth, silky hummus or just adding to soups and curries.

The steam release took 56 seconds and was quite spluttery, so I wouldn’t recommend releasing this onto particularly fancy wallpaper. I had to wipe down my walls and counter after release. I’ve never had to do this with my other Instant Pots before, and, no, I didn’t fill it too much. So be warned, I guess.

Here’s a photo of my chickpeas.

As you can see, there are no burned beans, and the skins are all coming off naturally. If you ask me, cooking chickpeas in an Instant Pot is the only way to do it.

Slow cook

To test the slow cook mode, I made a lovely butternut squash and coconut soup. First, I sautéed the onions in the inner pot, then once they were browned, I added butternut squash, coconut milk, and vegetable stock. I then set the Instant Pot to cook on high for three hours and 30 minutes. As I had just sautéed, I didn’t need to wait for it to preheat.

This soup was utterly divine. The butternut squash was soft enough to mash with a spoon — as I didn’t have access to an immersion blender in the office — and the coconut milk was thick and flavorful. This definitely brought out the delicate aromas of the ingredients, and I wholeheartedly recommend cooking soup in your Instant Pot. Making soup in an Instant Pot feels like homecoming. This is what it was made for.

Yogurt

I’m going to level with you: I never use the yogurt setting on my Instant Pot. It takes so long and, even though the Instant Pot genuinely does 90% of the work for you, it’s laborious. As a result, I’d much rather just buy yogurt from the store.

All that being said, if you’re a yogurt fiend, then the Instant Pot genuinely would be a great investment for you. The multi-cooker boils the milk and then — ta-da! — keeps it warm for the 12 hours required to turn from milk to yogurt. As far as yogurt-making goes, this is the easiest way to do it.

Boiling took 19 minutes to reach 83°C. After, I cooled the milk to 46°C. Then, I added yogurt starter and switched on ‘keep warm’ mode for 10 hours.

Altogether, this yogurt took 11 hours to make, preheat, and cool down times included. See, laborious and, dare I say, tedious, but if you’re a regular yogurt maker, this is to be expected.

Sauté

I was really surprised by the Instant Pot Rio Mini’s sauté feature. My Instant Pot Pro allows me to adjust the sauté temperature instantly, before it’s technically finished preheating, so I was a bit confused by the Mini Rio.

Let me explain. The Mini Rio took an astonishing seventeen minutes to preheat. You can’t change the temperature while preheating — well, you can, but it’ll bounce back to the default ‘High’ within three seconds — so you’re stuck with your Instant Pot preheating to a whopping 370°F before you’re allowed to turn it down. By that point, wouldn’t the pan just be scorching itself?

Anyway, as I always do with my Instant Pot Pro, I put in my onions before the device had technically finished preheating, and just deglazed with water when the fond became overly stuck. This is the only way around this.

As I’ve said throughout this review, the preheat time is my biggest annoyance with Instant Pots as a whole, and I can’t wait for this to be fixed in later models. A girl can dream.

Even so, the sauté feature is really great for cooking soups, stews, casseroles, curries, and sauces. I love being able to sauté my onions and garlic (+spices/tomato paste/meat, etc.) before adding liquid ingredients and pressure cooking.

I just wish Instant Pot would fix the ridiculous preheat times.

Egg

The ‘egg’ mode cooks for five minutes by default. However, with the preheat time, this ended up being 13 minutes and five seconds. As a result, my eggs were very, very hard by the time these 13 minutes were up. It would’ve been quicker to cook them on the stovetop.

As you can see, the eggs are very hard. I like my eggs with jammy yolks, but this texture is likely impossible on the Instant Pot Rio Mini due to the overly long preheat time. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again, but come on, Instant Pot. This has been your biggest downside for years. Sort out the preheat time!

Steam

Even though my eggs were overly cooked, I achieved much better results when steaming potatoes. I put in around 20 mini potatoes and cooked for the default time — 10 minutes. As predicted, this ended up being 21 minutes and 49 seconds with the preheat time included. You know what I’m going to say, so I won’t say it again.

Anyway, these potatoes were so delicious. They were genuinely perfect. Soft, flavorful, fluffy, with a nice snap of the skin. I have nothing bad to say about these potatoes. 10/10, would make again.

Instant Pot Rio Mini review: Storage & maintenance

One of the best things about Instant Pots is how easy they are to maintain. All you have to do is ensure you clean the pot, lid, and seal well — all dishwasher safe. Obviously, you’ll want to clean the steam release valve when required, too.

Taking care of my Instant Pot is a breeze. Although the Rio Mini isn’t as small as I’d expect a “mini” multi-cooker to be, it’s still small enough to slot on one kitchen countertop or live in the back of your pantry, too. I keep my Instant Pot on top of my fridge, and I think it enjoys its life up there.

Instant Pots also come with a 1-year warranty, which is pretty standard for Breville, Ninja, and other kitchen brands.

Should you buy the Instant Pot Rio Mini?

I think it’s pretty obvious that the Instant Pot Rio Mini isn’t my personal favorite Instant Pot on the market. With painfully long preheat time — seventeen minutes — the pricier Instant Pot Pro outranks thanks to its seven-minute preheat time and ten-second steam release time.

However, that’s not to say the Instant Pot Rio Mini isn’t without merit. It pressure cooks, slow cooks, and steam cooks just as well as other models. You’ll save a decent amount of moolah, too, as it’s just $89 / £79.

If you’re happy to put up with a longer-than-average preheat time and you’ve got a tight kitchen space, I’d heartily recommend the Instant Pot Rio Mini. If you want the best multi-cooker on the market, though, you should go for the Instant Pot Pro Plus or Pro instead.