Best Steamer Basket for Instant Pot (6 Picks by Pot Size)

Most Instant Pot vegetables come out soggy for one reason: they were sitting in water, not above it. That is a hardware problem, not a recipe problem.

Steaming needs a gap. Water below, food above, and enough room in between for steam to move all the way around the load.

The catch is that a basket sized for a 6-quart pot will not drop into a 3-quart one, and the listings rarely make that obvious. So below: how steaming actually works inside a pressure cooker, the size chart nobody prints, and six baskets worth buying.

Top Picks by Job

• Best overall: Salbree Steamer Basket, 6-QuartJump to review ↓
• Best value across all three pot sizes: Hatrigo Steamer Basket, 6-QuartJump to review ↓
• Best fine mesh for small food: Instant Pot Official Mesh Steamer Basket SetJump to review ↓
• Best for two foods at once: AOZITA 2-Tier Stackable Steamer BasketJump to review ↓
• Best for full pot-in-pot meals: Ecozoi 3-Tier Stackable Insert PansJump to review ↓
• Best space-saving pick: Avokado Collapsible Silicone Steamer Basket, 6-QuartJump to review ↓

How Steaming Works Inside a Pressure Cooker

An Instant Pot does not cook with hot air. It cooks with water vapour under pressure, and understanding that explains every design choice in a good basket.

You add a cup or so of water. The pot heats it to boiling, steam fills the sealed chamber, pressure rises, and because pressure and boiling point move together, the steam ends up hotter than 212°F. That hotter steam condenses on the surface of your food and dumps a large amount of energy into it very quickly. That is why broccoli takes zero minutes at pressure and potatoes take twelve.

Three consequences follow, and they are what separate a good basket from a bad one.

Steam has to reach every surface. Condensation happens where steam touches food. Anywhere steam cannot reach cooks slower. So a basket needs open sides and an open bottom, and the food needs gaps between pieces. Packing a basket to the rim is the fastest way to get crunchy centres and mushy edges in the same batch.

Food must stay above the water line. This is the one that ruins most people’s vegetables. Water at the bottom of the pot is boiling hard. Anything sitting in it is being boiled, and boiled vegetables leach flavour and water-soluble vitamins into the liquid. The whole point of a raised basket is to keep the food in the vapour phase.

The gap underneath is the circulation path. Steam rises from the water, but it also needs somewhere to move sideways and come up through the bottom of the load. If a basket sits flat on the pot floor, you get a dead zone underneath: the bottom layer of food touches hot metal and sits in condensate, while the top layer steams properly. The difference is visible on a batch of green beans.

Trivet height, and why it is not just a stand

The wire trivet that came with your Instant Pot does two jobs. It holds the load clear of the water, and it sets the height of that circulation gap.

Most Instant Pot trivets are roughly an inch and a half to two inches tall. That is deliberate. It clears the one to one and a half cups of water most recipes call for, with room left over so a hard boil does not splash up into the food.

Baskets solve this in one of two ways. Some have built-in feet, which set the gap themselves and mean you can skip the trivet entirely. Others are flat-bottomed and are designed to sit on the trivet. Neither approach is better, but you need to know which one you have bought, because a flat-bottomed basket placed straight on the pot floor will boil the bottom of your food.

The quick rule: if the basket has no feet, put it on the trivet. If it has feet and you still want more clearance for a long cook, use both.

For more on what the machine itself is doing, our explainer on what an Instant Pot is and the comparison in Instant Pot vs pressure cooker cover the basics, and how many watts an Instant Pot uses is worth a look if you are watching energy costs.

The 3-Quart, 6-Quart and 8-Quart Fit Problem

This is where most steamer basket purchases go wrong, and it is easy to avoid once you see the numbers.

Instant Pot size	Inner pot, widest diameter	Inner pot depth	Basket to buy
3-quart Mini	About 7 in	About 4.75 in	3-quart basket only
6-quart	About 8.6 in	About 6 in	6-quart basket
8-quart	About 9.3 in	About 6.8 in	8-quart, or a 6-quart with room to spare

A typical 6-quart basket, like the Salbree, measures about 8.1 inches across and 5.2 inches tall. Drop that into a 6-quart pot with 8.6 inches of clearance and it fits with a finger’s width to spare. Try it in a 3-quart Mini with a 7-inch opening and it simply will not go in.

Three things to check before you order:

1. Buy for your pot, not for the brand. Salbree, Hatrigo and Avokado all sell separate 3-quart, 6-quart and 8-quart versions. Salbree’s mini is here and its 8-quart is here; Hatrigo’s are 3-quart and 8-quart.
2. Going smaller works, going bigger does not. A 6-quart basket sits happily in an 8-quart pot, you just lose some capacity. The reverse is impossible.
3. Remember the lid. The basket plus its handle has to clear the sealing ring so the lid can close. Tall handles on a shallow pot are a common annoyance, which is why several of the picks below use a folding or removable handle.

Because the inner pot tapers slightly towards the base, a basket that is a close fit at the rim may sit higher than you expect. That is usually fine, but it eats into headroom.

Comparison Table

Basket	Material	Sizes	Feet	Extras
Salbree 6-qt	304 stainless	3, 6, 8 qt	Yes	Silicone handle rated to 20 lb
Hatrigo 6-qt	Stainless	3, 6, 8 qt	Yes	Silicone handle, divider versions
Instant Pot Official Mesh	Stainless mesh	Set of 2, 6 and 8 qt	Yes	Nests and stacks, doubles as strainer
AOZITA 2-Tier	18/8 stainless mesh	6 and 8 qt	Yes	Two stacking tiers, silicone handle
Ecozoi 3-Tier	304 stainless	6 and 8 qt	Stacks	3 pans, steam lid and sealing lid
Avokado Silicone	Food-grade silicone	3, 6, 8 qt	Yes	Collapsible, folds flat

How We Chose

Manufacturer and retailer specs for dimensions and materials, matched against published Instant Pot inner-pot measurements so the fit claims are real. After that: recurring themes in verified owner reviews, and whether each basket solves a problem the included trivet does not. None of these were tested in our kitchen.

1. Salbree Steamer Basket, 6-Quart: Best Overall

This is the basket that gets the fundamentals right. It has real feet, so it sets its own circulation gap without needing the trivet. It has solid reinforcement around the rim and sides, so it does not flex and tip when you load it. And it has one substantial handle instead of two small ones.

That single handle matters more than it sounds. Lifting a loaded basket out of a hot, steamy pot with two hands and tongs is fiddly and is how people burn their wrists. One rigid handle rated to 20 pounds means you lift it straight out with one hand while the other holds the lid.

At 8.1 inches wide it drops into a 6-quart inner pot with clearance, and the 5.2-inch height gives real capacity. The 304 stainless is the food-grade grade you want for something that lives in steam, and it goes in the dishwasher.

One deliberate design choice worth knowing: Salbree leaves the feet bare rather than capping them in silicone, on the reasoning that silicone caps trap moisture and residue. It means the metal feet touch the inner pot directly, so lower it in rather than dropping it.

Who should buy it: Anyone who wants one basket to handle vegetables, eggs, potatoes and fish and does not want to think about it again. If you are still building out your accessories, the small kitchen gadgets worth buying when you cook for one list covers what else earns drawer space.

2. Hatrigo Steamer Basket, 6-Quart: Best Value Across All Three Pot Sizes

Hatrigo’s range is the reason it is here. The same basket design comes in three sizes, which means the 3-quart Mini owner is not stuck improvising with a colander, and the 8-quart owner gets a basket that actually uses the pot.

The design itself is conventional in a good way: perforated stainless sides, feet to hold the load clear of the water, and a folding silicone handle. Like the Salbree, it sets its own clearance, so the trivet becomes optional.

The version worth a second look is the divided one. A three-piece divided basket splits the space into sections, so you can steam potatoes on one side and green beans on the other without the flavours mixing. For anyone batch-cooking components rather than whole meals, that is a real time saver, and it lines up with the approach in easy meal prep ideas for one person in a small kitchen.

Who should buy it: Owners of a 3-quart Mini or an 8-quart, where finding a correctly sized basket is the actual difficulty. If you are still deciding between machines, Instant Pot vs Ninja Foodi covers the differences, and this basket works in either.

3. Instant Pot Official Mesh Steamer Basket Set: Best Fine Mesh for Small Food

Perforated baskets have holes. Mesh baskets have a grid. That difference decides whether peas, cut green beans, small dumplings or quinoa stay where you put them or end up in the water at the bottom.

This official set gives you two mesh baskets in different sizes that nest inside each other for storage, which is the detail that makes it work in a small kitchen. The small one is right for a single portion of vegetables; the large one handles a family batch. Both have raised feet and lift handles.

The dual-purpose angle is real too. A fine mesh basket is a perfectly good colander, so it earns its shelf space twice over, and it comes straight out of the dishwasher.

Owner reviews of the large basket are strongly positive, and the recurring praise is specific: people single out the raised feet keeping food out of the water and the handle making it easy to lift a hot load out. The one complaint that comes up more than once is minor, that water tends to sit under the top rim and needs a shake out before you put it away. You can read the customer reviews here and judge for yourself.

Who should buy it: Anyone steaming small or loose foods, and anyone who wants one accessory that also replaces a colander. That double duty matters if you are following the space logic in how to organize a small kitchen with no pantry.

4. AOZITA 2-Tier Stackable Steamer Basket: Best for Two Foods at Once

Once you understand that steam fills the whole sealed chamber, stacking makes obvious sense. The steam reaching the top of the pot is at the same pressure as the steam at the bottom, so a second tier cooks too. You are using vertical space that was doing nothing.

That turns a single Instant Pot run into a two-component meal: fish below, broccoli above, or potatoes below and green beans above. For a small kitchen with one or two burners, that is a lot of dinner from one appliance and one wash-up.

18/8 stainless is the same family as 304, so it holds up in steam. The mesh construction means small items stay put on both tiers, and it works as an egg basket, which is one of the things an Instant Pot does better than a pot on the stove.

There is one real limitation worth planning around. The upper tier runs slightly cooler than the lower one, because the lower tier is closer to the water and intercepts steam first. Put the denser, slower food on the bottom and the quick-cooking food on top, and give the upper tier an extra minute if you are cooking two similar things.

Who should buy it: Anyone cooking complete meals in one pot rather than just a side of vegetables. If that is how you cook, our guide to best cookware sizes for cooking for one and the checklist in how to stock a small kitchen for solo cooking both fit the same approach.

5. Ecozoi 3-Tier Stackable Insert Pans: Best for Full Pot-in-Pot Meals

These are solid pans, not open baskets, which makes them a different tool. Pot-in-pot cooking means the food sits in its own sealed or covered container while the steam around it does the heating. That lets you cook rice, a casserole, a custard or a curry inside the pot without it touching the water at all.

With three tiers you can run a complete meal: rice in the bottom, a vegetable dish in the middle, a protein on top. Each pan holds about six cups, so 18 cups of food in total.

The two lids are the smart part. The perforated steamer lid lets vapour into a tier when you want to steam; the solid sealing lid keeps a tier closed, so you can cook something delicate or take a whole pan straight to the fridge as a leftovers container. That saves you decanting into another dish, which is the kind of small win that adds up in a kitchen without much storage. The same logic runs through our guide to the best airtight food storage containers.

Who should buy it: Batch cooks and anyone who wants the Instant Pot to make a whole dinner unattended. If you already cook rice this way, the technique notes in how to cook rice in a rice cooker and our roundup of the best rice cooker for brown rice translate directly to pot-in-pot rice.

6. Avokado Collapsible Silicone Steamer Basket: Best Space-Saving Pick

Silicone steams exactly as well as steel, because the steam does the cooking and the basket just holds the food in the right place. What silicone changes is everything around the cooking.

It folds. A collapsed silicone basket is a flat disc that slides into a drawer or sits inside the pot itself under the lid, which is a meaningful difference when your storage is one cabinet. It is also soft, so it will not scratch the inner pot, and it is silent when you move it around, which anyone who has clattered a steel basket into a pot at 6am will appreciate.

It comes in all three pot sizes, so the sizing issue is covered, and the flexible walls make it easy to squeeze into a slightly awkward pot and then let it spring back into shape.

The honest limitation is rigidity. A loaded silicone basket flexes, so lifting a heavy load out of a hot pot is less controlled than with a stiff steel one. Use tongs on the sides rather than trusting the flex.

Who should buy it: Anyone whose real constraint is cabinet space rather than cooking capacity. It fits the same thinking as the fixes in small kitchen cabinet organization ideas and vertical storage ideas for small kitchens.

Steaming Times Worth Knowing

Pressure steaming is fast, and the difference between right and overcooked is often a single minute. These are pressure-cook times at high pressure with a quick release, using one cup of water in a 6-quart pot.

Food	Time at pressure	Release
Broccoli or cauliflower florets	0 minutes	Quick
Green beans	1 to 2 minutes	Quick
Carrots, sliced	2 to 3 minutes	Quick
Eggs, in shell	5 minutes	5 minutes natural, then quick
Baby potatoes, whole	8 to 10 minutes	Quick
Fish fillets	3 to 4 minutes	Quick

Yes, zero minutes is a real setting. The pot reaches pressure, the timer immediately ends, and the time spent coming up to pressure is enough to cook delicate vegetables. Anything longer turns broccoli grey.

Quick release matters just as much as the timer. During a natural release the pot is still hot and food keeps cooking, which is fine for potatoes and ruinous for green beans.

Getting the Most Out of a Steamer Basket

• Do not pack it. Steam has to move between the pieces. A loosely filled basket cooks evenly; a packed one cooks in layers. Cut pieces to a similar size, which is easier with a mandoline or a vegetable chopper.
• Use the minimum liquid, not more. Extra water does not make more steam once the pot is at pressure; it just raises the water level towards your food and lengthens the time to pressure.
• Salt after, not before. Steam does not carry salt to the food the way boiling water does, so seasoning in the water is wasted.
• Lift with the handle, not tongs on the rim. A basket tipped by tongs dumps its contents into the water, which is the one mistake that undoes the whole point.
• Make a foil sling for handle-less inserts. Fold a long strip of foil into a band, sit the pan on it, and use the ends as lifting straps for stacked pans.

Steamed food also keeps well, which is why this is such a useful weeknight technique. Our notes on how long chicken lasts in the fridge and how long potatoes last are worth a look if you are steaming ahead for the week, and how much a chicken breast weighs helps with portioning a basket load.

Cleaning and Storing Your Basket

Stainless baskets are easy. Rinse straight after use while the residue is soft, then dishwasher or hot soapy water. If something has baked on, soak it rather than attacking it with a scouring pad, the same principle as in how to clean stainless steel pans.

Mesh needs a little more attention, since starch and protein lodge in the grid. A soft brush under running water does it. The approach in cleaning an air fryer basket works here too.

Silicone goes in the dishwasher, but if it picks up a smell, leave it in the sun for a few hours or soak it in a baking soda solution.

For storage, the basket that gets used is the one that is easy to reach. Nesting sets and collapsible baskets can live inside the inner pot itself. Everything else does better standing on edge than stacked flat, which is the same principle behind how to store pots and pans in a small kitchen and the decluttering approach in countertop organization ideas for a small kitchen.

Which Steamer Basket Should You Buy?

• You want one basket that does everything: Salbree 6-Quart. Feet, a strong handle and an exact size match.
• You own a 3-quart Mini or an 8-quart: Hatrigo, because the sizes actually exist.
• You steam peas, dumplings or anything small: Instant Pot Official Mesh Set.
• You want a protein and a vegetable in one run: AOZITA 2-Tier.
• You want the pot to cook a whole meal: Ecozoi 3-Tier Insert Pans.
• Cabinet space is the real problem: Avokado Silicone.

If you are unsure, start with a single stainless basket in your pot’s size and learn what it does. Stacking sets and insert pans are worth adding once you know whether you actually cook multi-component meals, and they are a lot of hardware to store if you do not. Our roundup of the coolest kitchen appliances for the money has more on what really earns its space.

Related Guides

• What Is an Instant Pot?
• Instant Pot vs Pressure Cooker
• How to Use a Bamboo Steamer
• How to Use a Double Boiler
• Best Stockpot With a Lid
• Best Small Kitchen Appliances for Cooking for One
• What Is Stainless Steel Cookware?
• Best Metal Spatula Set

Frequently Asked Questions

Do I need a steamer basket if my Instant Pot came with a trivet?

For anything larger than a few potatoes, yes. The trivet is a bare wire rack with nothing to hold food, so small pieces fall through into the water and boil. A basket keeps broccoli florets, green beans, dumplings and eggs above the water line as a single contained load you can lift out in one motion.

Will a 6-quart steamer basket fit a 3-quart Instant Pot?

No. The 3-quart inner pot measures roughly 7 inches across and 4.75 inches deep, while a typical 6-quart basket is about 8.1 inches wide and 5.2 inches tall. It will not drop in. Both Salbree and Hatrigo sell separate 3-quart, 6-quart and 8-quart versions, so buy the one that matches your cooker.

How much water goes under a steamer basket in an Instant Pot?

Most recipes use one cup for a 6-quart and one and a half cups for an 8-quart, which is enough to generate steam and reach pressure without touching the basket. What matters is that the water sits below the basket feet. If food is sitting in water, it is boiling, not steaming, and it will end up waterlogged.

Why does the height of the feet or trivet matter?

The gap under the basket is where steam has to circulate. If the basket sits flat on the bottom, water contacts the food directly and steam cannot get underneath, so the bottom layer cooks differently from the top. Feet or a trivet create that gap and let steam wrap the whole load evenly.

Can you stack two steamer baskets in an Instant Pot?

Yes, and it is one of the best reasons to own a stackable set. Two tiers let you cook vegetables above fish, or rice below chicken, in a single run. Add a little time, because the upper tier is slightly cooler than the lower one, and leave gaps between the food so the steam can move through.

Are silicone steamer baskets as good as stainless steel?

They cook just as well, since steam does the work either way. Silicone is quieter, will not scratch the inner pot, and folds flat for storage, which matters in a small kitchen. Stainless steel is more rigid, easier to lift when loaded, and doubles as a colander. Silicone can also hold onto strong smells over time.