Best Multi Cookers UK

The shape of kitchens is changing, both literally and figuratively. Increasing numbers of people are moving away from the traditional stand-alone cooker to flexible combinations of appliances such as mini ovens, plug-in hot plates and multi cookers. Even those who still want to hold on to their cooker are supplementing it with other cooking appliances of which mini ovens and multi cookers are two of the most popular, for essentially the same reason, they both offer a whole lot of functionality in a very compact (and economical) package.

Best Multi Cookers UK

Buying a multi cooker

If you’re in the market for a multi cooker and you’re sure you know what you want, then please head straight to our multi cooker reviews further down the page. If, however, you’d like a little help finding the best multi cooker for you, then read on to find some key points to look for.

Once You Got The Cooker You'll Need This!!

Read Our Ultimate Guide To The Best Multi Cooker Recipies HERE

A quick buyer’s guide to multi cookers

Here is a basic guide to multi cookers, which, we think, covers all the basic points to look for and/or think about when choosing one.

Cooking capacity

One of the most important points to remember is that the stated capacity is the maximum amount of food a multi-cooker can hold, not the amount of food which can be put in for it to cook. Basically, substances expand as they get hotter, this is particularly noticeable with water, which turns to steam, so you need to allow space for this to happen.

Aside from this, remember that food cooked in a multi-cooker can be frozen in just the same way as food cooked in a regular oven, so you might want to consider “sizing up” so as to be able to bulk cook.

Cooking formats

Multi cookers take their name from the fact that they can replace multiple other cooking appliances. At a very basic level, you should expect a multi cooker to replace a pressure cooker, a slow cooker and a rice cooker. Most high-quality multi cookers can, however, do much more than this. While extra functionality can make a multi cooker more useful, it also requires a multi cooker to be bigger and adds to the price, so it’s up to you to decide what matters most in your own, unique situation.

Preset programmes

Preset programmes make it a bit quicker to get your food cooking, you can literally just press a button and move on. If you want a bit of flexibility, some multi cookers allow you to adjust these presets slightly and many have the option to use manual control if you prefer.

Scheduling functions

Even though multi cookers are not (yet) “smart” appliances, they better ones often have delay timers and keep-warm functions both of which can be used to make your life easier, whether it’s by having a hot meal ready for when you get home from work or helping you to “batch cook” and freeze to save time and money.

Temperature and pressure ranges

For most forms of cooking, you choose temperature and this determines the cooking time. For pressure cooking, you choose pressure and this determines temperature and, hence, cooking time.

If you’re planning on using your multi cooker as a pressure cooker and want to be able to adjust the temperature and pressure manually, then you need to understand the relationship between temperature and pressure and what you can expect from your multi cooker.

Basically, increasing the level of pressure automatically increases the temperature and thus speeds up the cooking time, however this may compromise the flavour and texture of more delicate foods.

Ease of cleaning

As a minimum, the internal bowl should be easy to clean, it’s preferable if it’s non-stick and ideal if it’s also dishwasher-safe.

Safety

For the sake of simplicity we’ll put it this way. If you buy a multi cooker from a reputable, mainstream supplier in the UK, then you can assume it meets a reasonable safety standard. If you choose to head off the beaten track, e.g. buying internationally, then basically remember the old saying “let the buyer beware”, in this case, beware of your pressure cooker literally exploding. This is highly unlikely to cause anyone any injury (although admittedly it may result in burns or scalds) but can make a real mess in your kitchen.


Foods not to pressure cook

There are certain foods which can be cooked in a multi cooker but are best avoided when it’s specifically being used as a pressure cooker. Basically, you want to avoid anything which is liable to disintegrate and start clogging up the valves. Top contenders for this include rice, lentils and grains, pasta (especially thin forms of pasta, like spaghetti), small berries (such as cranberries), apple sauce, rhubarb and celery.

You can generally get away with using small quantities of these if you really want to pressure cook a recipe which calls for them, but if you want to cook them in large quantities then ideally you should use another form of cooking, or if you really must use the pressure cooker, cook for a short period, end the cooking, release the steam, check progress and clean up any obvious debris, then repeat until your food is ready.

Read Our Ultimate Guide To The Best Multi Cooker Recipies HERE

Avoiding burning your food

When using your multi cooker as a pressure cooker, please remember that pressure cooking is all about steam and steam requires water. If there is too little water then your food will burn, it really is that simple, as is the solution, which is to make sure you use plenty of water.

While you’re new to pressure cooking, it probably makes sense to be guided by recipes and, if in doubt, to add more water than you think you’ll need on the grounds that’s it’s generally easy enough to drain a dish and/or add something to thicken it.

Not to put too fine a point on the matter, if you find yourself regularly burning your food when you use your multi cooker as a pressure cooker, then please be aware that this is far more likely to be an issue with you not putting in enough water than with your multi cooker, so please trust us when we say, again, it’s better to use more water than you think you need, because it’s less hassle to drain away water (or thicken a sauce) than to have to waste burnt food.

Top Best Multi Cookers UK

Multi cooker reviews

Here is our pick of the best multi cookers on the UK market, based on performance, functionality, reliability, build-quality, safety and value for money.

CleverChef 14 in 1 Intelligent Digital Multi Cooker 5L

CleverChef 14 in 1 Intelligent Digital Multi Cooker 5L
  • 14 pre-set programmes, steam, stew, soup, roast, poach, bread rise, bake, fish, sauté/brown, rice, pasta, slow cook and yoghurt, plus fully customizable DIY function
  • Slow cooker function has high and low settings
  • Keep warm and 24-hour delay function
  • Inner pot is non-stick and dishwasher safe
  • Recipe book with 40 recipes

We have to admit that the look of this multi cooker does strike us as being a bit “space age”, so you may not want to leave it out on your counter if you have a traditional kitchen, (although we absolutely loved it). Initially, we weren’t so thrilled with the interface, which, at first glance, looked a bit busy, but that’s because it has lots of buttons for “one-touch” functionality (or close to it) so we changed our minds and became very impressed with its ease of use.

Sage by Heston Blumenthal the Fast Slow Cooker Pro 6L

Sage by Heston Blumenthal the Fast Slow Cooker Pro 6L
  • 12 smart menus (pressure cook, slow cook, steam, reduce, sauté and sear), three heat settings and eight pressure levels, which range from (10 kpa) to (80 kpa).
  • Allows slow cooking from 2-10 hours and automatically switches to keep warm at the end of cooking
  • LCD indicates building pressure, cooking and releasing steam
  • Dual sensors at the top and bottom optimize temperature and pressure control, the hands-free steam release self-adjusts to preserve maximum flavour and temperature.
  • Stainless steel construction with three-way safety system - safety locking lid, hands-free auto steam release and safety valve

This is a multi cooker by Heston Blumenthal so you probably know what to expect, namely high-tech looks, outstanding functionality, great build quality and a premium price tag. While some of the touches do look like pure Fat Duck theatre, like the fact that it has “smart menus”, where every other multi cooker has “presets”, whatever you make of Blumenthal’s personality, his “Sage” range gets respect from pros, critics and home users alike, so if only the absolute best multi cooker in the UK will do for you, here it is.

Tefal CY505E40 All-in-One Electric Pressure/Multi Cooker 6L

Tefal CY505E40 All-in-One Electric Pressure/Multi Cooker 6L
  • 25 one-touch programs pressure cook (low/medium/high), slow cook (up to 9 hours), steam, brown, simmer, reheat and bake plus specific modes for rice, porridge, baby food or stew/soup.
  • Full manual mode allows you to set cooking time and temperature
  • 24hr delayed-start option for on-time cooking, plus automatic keep warm function
  • Dishwasher-safe parts
  • Recipe book with 30 recipes
  • Comes with a steam basket, trivet, measuring cup and spatula (also dishwasher-safe)

Tefal has long been a major name in small kitchen appliances and they’ve created quite an extensive range of multi cookers, to the point where we could really have filled up our list with them. We have, however, restricted ourselves to two, of which, this is by far the bigger and more feature-packed. It’s a solid choice for regular family meals but its full-manual mode will satisfy more adventurous cooks.

Tefal RK302E15 Multicook 8-in-1 2.2L

Tefal RK302E15 Multicook 8-in-1 2.2L
  • 8 cooking options (pressure cook, slow cook, brown, simmer, gentle cook, steam, crust fry, reheat)
  • 6 pre-set recipes white rice, brown rice, quick rice, porridge, cereals/grains, dessert
  • For each default setting, you can increase or decrease the cooking time in intervals of a minute
  • Delayed start and automatic keep warm function
  • Non-stick and dishwasher-safe inner bowl
  • Comes with a steam basket, trivet, measuring cup and spoon (also dishwasher-safe)

This second option from Tefal is smaller and has a more limited feature set. Keen cooks should note that there is not quite the same degree of flexibility for manual control. It does, however, perform very well and has the sort of build quality you’d expect from Tefal. It’d be a great choice for smaller households or for using as a back up to a regular cooker.

Amazonbasics All purpose 23-in-1 Electric Pressure Cooker, 5.5 L

Amazonbasics All purpose 23-in-1 Electric Pressure Cooker, 5.5 L
  • 15 pre-set menu options: meat, poultry, vegetables, steam, sauté, slow cook, white rice, brown
  • rice, beans, broth, curry, soup, multigrain, congee, and chili
  • Easy-to-use control panel with LED display; includes manual mode, 24-hour delay start, a
  • pressure indicator, and automatic keep warm
  • Brushed stainless-steel housing; CE, UL, and ULC certified with 10 proven safety mechanisms

We never thought we’d see the day when we’d be reviewing a multi cooker made by Amazon but here it is and it really is a very good one. Amazon is renowned for their superb website design and they appear to have employed the same strategies to designing the “user interface” for this multi cooker, so it’s beautifully simple to use as well as offering very respectable performance.

Aobosi Electric Multi-Cooker, 6L

Aobosi Electric Multi-Cooker, 6L
  • 8 in 1 multi-cooker: pressure cooker, rice cooker, slow cooker, steamer, warmer, saute pan, stew, stock pot & yoghurt maker
  • 12 cooking menus preset: soup, meat/stew, beans/chilli, poultry, slow cook, saute, rice, multigrain, porridge, steam, yoghurt and bake
  • 6 special DIY manual settings: texture, delay time, manual, warm/cancel, +/- pressure cooking time and pressure. 6 pressure levels and 3 texture levels
  • 24-hour automatic keep-warm and delay time
  • 10 proven safety mechanisms
  • Free recipe book, extra sealing ring and steamer rack

The Aobosi looks like it has been created to please who want to cook large quantities of basic dishes such as porridge, rice, soup, stew and yoghurt and so it has a range of handy presets for exactly these options. If you feel like being more adventurous, then you have a high degree of manual control. The physical design may not appeal to everyone’s sense of style, but the build quality is robust and the interface is really is to use.

Crock-Pot Multi-Cooker, 5.6 L - Silver

Crock-Pot Multi-Cooker, 5.6 L - Silver
  • Digital display timer with easy-to-use controls
  • Five pre-programmed intelligent functions have multiple settings in each mode
  • Includes roasting rack and rice measure.
  • Inner bowl is dishwasher safe
  • Recipe book with 29 recipes

Crock-Pot may not be a huge name in the UK, but in the U.S. it’s so well known that people use the term to mean “multi cooker” in much the same way as people, in general, use the term hoover to mean vacuum cleaner.

The reason we mention the U.S. background is because some of the product photos shown for this item, even on UK-based websites, show temperatures in Fahrenheit. As far as we are aware, however, the ones made for sale in Europe (including the UK) are all configured in Celsius. You don’t even have the option to change between them.

We are aware that Crock Pot do seem to have had some issues with the non-stick coating coming off the inner bowl, although this only seems to have been reported by a limited number of customers and some of it may be due to people being a bit rough with it (non-stick surfaces do need to be treated gently)

The reason we’ve included it is because it has a very different appearance to all the other multi cookers we’ve seen, so if style is a priority for you, then you could be very happy with this multi cooker. Even if it’s not, this multi cooker still has a lot of good points, just be sure to buy it from a retailer with good customer service so you can return the item if you have an issue with it.

Gourmia Premium 8 In 1 Programmable Multi Function Cooker 5.5 Qt (6L)

Gourmia Premium 8 In 1 Programmable Multi Function Cooker 5.5 Qt (6L)
  • 8 in 1: slow cook, hot pot, stir fry, boil, deep fry, grill, fry and steam. manual settings of up to 10 hours and 465°F
  • Keep-warm function
  • Inner pot is non-stick and dishwasher safe
  • Power cord is magnetic and removable
  • Dishwasher-safe accessories include a fry basket, steam rack, roast rack
  • Free recipe book

The Gourmia multi cooker, by contrast, really is calibrated in Fahrenheit and that is exactly the reason we included it in our list (it met all our other criteria too). Basically we are aware that there are numerous older people in the UK who still prefer to work in Fahrenheit and if you’re one of them, or you’re buying a multi cooker for someone who is, then we think this is literally the only choice for you.

The choice of presets is broad enough to cover a decent range of functions without being so broad it gets confusing and if need be it’s easy enough to write out a quick chart converting Fahrenheit to Celsius if other people want to use this multi cooker occasionally.

James Martin by Wahl ZX916 Multi Cooker 4L

James Martin by Wahl ZX916 Multi Cooker 4L
  • 6 functions: steaming, sautéing, stewing, cooking brown and white rice and desserts
  • LED smart control with 24 hr delay timer, adjustable cooking timer and keep warm function
  • Non stick easy clean inner bowl and dishwasher safe parts.
  • Includes James Martin recipe booklet

We’re not entirely sure how much input James Martin has had in the creation of this multi cooker, but it’s a nice size for family cooking with a very simple interface and perfectly respectable performance. In other words, it has far more going for it than just a celebrity chef endorsement. We wouldn’t get too excited about the “James Martin” recipe booklet, but it’s as good a place as any to get you started.

Pressure King Pro Electric Pressure Cooker 3 Litre,

Pressure King Pro Electric Pressure Cooker 3 Litre,
  • 8-in-1 Multi Cooker, Stew/Soup, Rice, Pasta, Fish, Meat, Slow Cook, Keep Warm
  • UK recipe book: 30 recipes
  • Patented and proven safety devices, locking lid that only opens once pressure is released with audible alarm when the lid is not shut
  • Inner pot is non-stick and dishwasher-safe

The PKP multi cooker also comes in 5L and 6L versions, which are essentially the same except they have 12 and 14 preset programmes respectively and larger recipe books, presumably to make the most of their extra size and these additional presets.

We do like the appearance of the PKP and we appreciate the fact that the control panel is very responsive to the touch. We do have to say, however, that sometimes this can be a bit too much of a good thing, in the sense that it is very easy to activate the touch-sensitive buttons and either start or stop the multi cooker. In other words, be careful where you put it.

Speaking of which, the steam tray may look like it’s supposed to sit flush in the bowl, but it’s actually supposed to sit at the very bottom of the bowl, just above the minimum fill line. If you get this wrong, you may find the steam tray may tip from side to side, get it in the right place, however, and it will be absolutely fine.

The other point to note (if you’re into technical details) is that the manual, (or at least some copies of it), has some rather inaccurate information about the pressure and temperature settings. The short version is that it actually has a maximum temperature of around 119C and operates at a maximum gauge pressure of roughly 28psi(g), or 13psi above atmospheric pressure. If you only intend to use this multi cooker on presets then you can safely ignore this.

Conclusion - which is the best multi cooker in the UK?

We’ve already said that the Sage multi cooker is the best in the UK and in terms of features and functionality it is, at least in our opinion. We rather suspect, however, that many people will be happy to have a multi cooker which is rather simpler to use and also rather more affordable.

The Crock Pot is, in our opinion, the most stylish option and the Gourmia will please those who still prefer to use Fahrenheit. In all honesty, we’d be hard pushed to identify any of the others as the stand out “best” multi cooker as they all have their unique features, so we think any of them could be a contender for the title. We’d, therefore, say that the best multi cooker on our list is the one which suits you best.

Once You Got The Cooker You'll Need This!!

Read Our Ultimate Guide To The Best Multi Cooker Recipies HERE