Save with Pressure Cookers

The Basic Saving with a Pressure Cooker

Pressure cooking works by sealing the steam in a pot so that there is a rise in pressure to a safe, controlled extent which raises the boiling point of water and therefore the cooking temperature. The cooking is therefore much faster. Good Pressure Cookers generally cook food at 121°C (250°F) at a pressure of 1 kg per square cm or 15 lb per square inch (psi).

We know that pressure cookers are used and loved by millions of homemakers because they save considerable time and fuel. But do we know, how much is the basic saving that homemakers enjoy when using a good quality pressure cooker?

The Hawkins R&D Centre did some scientific cooking trials that were supervised and certified by the Institute of Hotel Management, Catering Technology & Applied Nutrition, Mumbai, to establish this on a scientific and methodical basis.

Some widely-cooked and representative Indian foods were selected for these trials. The fuel consumed and time taken was measured for two types of cooking – in an open pot, and in a 6.5 Litre Hawkins pressure cooker. The heat source used was the large burner of the domestic LPG gas stove that is commonly found in kitchen all across India. Thanks in part to the efforts undertaken by the Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana social welfare scheme launched in 2016, LPG is now the most widely available source of cooking fuel in homes across India, as per reports published by the Ministry of Petroleum, Government of India.

The certified results of these Trials are tabulated below.

Fuel Saving

Pressure Cooker vs. Open Pot:
Results of certified Trials

So we can see that about 52% fuel is saved just by switching from Open Pot cooking to Pressure Cooking!

How much Time is saved?

The time saving was also carefully noted and recorded during the same set of certified trials:

Time Saving

Pressure Cooker vs. Open Pot:
Results of certified Trials

Here too, we can that about 69% time is saved just by switching from Open Pot cooking to Pressure Cooking!

You can read more about the benefits of Pressure Cooking here .