Can you pressure can in the Instant Pot (incl. Max)?

Last reviewed July 2026.

The authorities say no — on the record. This is the page most people arrive needing: NCHFP is on record that 'we do not support the use of the USDA canning processes in the electric, multi-cooker appliances', explicitly including appliances with canning buttons — USDA's process times assume a stovetop canner's heat-up, venting and cool-down behavior, none of which have been validated in multi-cookers, and 'the time it takes the canner to come up to pressure, the process time, and the cool-down time all matter'. USU Extension: electric programmable pressure cookers 'of any brand… should NOT be used for low-acid canning'. Boiling-water-bath processing of high-acid foods in an Instant Pot is a separate question; the on-record guidance above concerns pressure canning of low-acid foods, where the stakes are botulism.

The facts on file

Sources — read them yourself

• NCHFP — Canning in electric multi-cookers (the on-record position)
• USU Extension — Why electric pressure cookers are not pressure canners

How to read this

The line that matters in home canning equipment is who stands behind the claim. USDA process schedules were developed on stovetop pressure canners — NCHFP describes the equipment class and has stated plainly that those processes were not developed for electric multi-cookers. A manufacturer's own thermal validation can be genuine engineering and still not be an authority's recommendation — see what "meets USDA guidelines" does and doesn't mean. And a boiling-water canner is the right tool for high-acid foods and the wrong one for everything else.

What does have a USDA-process basis

This is the part worth being blunt about: no electric pressure canner currently has a USDA-process basis. Not one — it is not that this particular model missed out. The published processes were written and tested on stovetop canners, so if you want to pressure can low-acid food against a tested process, that is the equipment class you need.

These are the canners the published USDA processes were actually written and tested for. That is not our opinion about build quality — it is whether a tested process exists for the thing you are holding.

Prices are indicative and drift; the verdict does not. Capacity and gauge come from the manufacturer's own specification.

See every canner we track, verdict by verdict →

Canning Score indexes what NCHFP, USDA and university extension programs have on record about canning equipment, with attribution — we publish no process times and no safety advice. Verdicts describe the state of the authority record for an appliance class, not a guarantee about any jar. For tested recipes and process schedules, use NCHFP (nchfp.uga.edu), the USDA Complete Guide, or your state extension office — or the Seal canning guides, which work food-by-food from the same sources. If an authority publishes new guidance, the page changes — the authority always wins.

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