Aluminium vs Stainless Steel vs Anodized Pressure Cooker. Which one is better?

Pressure cookers are the most popular kitchen utensils. You can choose from Aluminium, Stainless Steel, or Anodized pressure cooker. So, make an informed decision to buy your next pressure cooker.

I recommend an Anodized pressure cooker. A stainless steel pressure cooker is good but it is expensive and heavy. Aluminum is commonly used but an old and eroded aluminum pressure cooker will have a negative health effect.

A pressure cooker is one of the most commonly used utensils in an Indian home.

Pressure Cooker Types

There are three basic types of pressure cookers.

1. Aluminium pressure cooker.
2. Stainless-steel pressure cooker
3. Anodized pressure cooker

These are commonly available types in the market. Each of this one is different from the other in some ways. So, let us see which one has what qualities. Then you can find out which one is better.

We will compare these pressure cookers in these 6 parameters.

1. Heat Conductivity: It will decide how fast the food is cooked and how much fuel it will consume.
2. Health effect: We always tend to overlook it. But it is one of the most important factors.
3. Durability: it is very important. Because, More durable the utensil, fewer utensils we will need to buy.
4. Maintenance Factor: The maintenance factor includes how easily we can use the material. How easily we can clean it.
5. Non-stick coating: It is also important to see if this property will be available in your pressure cooker.
6. Price.

But before we reach any conclusion, we will talk about each of the three pressure cookers. In case you are in a hurry you can read our quick comparison table and reach your conclusion.

In this table you can see the Price difference among three types of pressure cooker. I have also added the latest futuristic technology, since it is flooding the markets.

Now that you have seen the price difference, you would like to compare the products on other parameters.

So, here is a table so that you can make your decision quickly.

Parameters	Aluminium Pressure Cooker	Stainless-Steel Pressure Cooker	Anodized Pressure Cooker
Cooking time	Less	More	Less
Cooking fuel	Less	More	Less
Weight	Light	Heavy	Light
Cleaning	Easy	OK	Easy
Maintaining	OK	Good	Ok
Durability	Ok	Best	Better
Non-stick coating	Not present	Not present	Present
Negative Health Effect	Yes	Nil	Nil
Price.	Low	High	Medium

Now let us look into each type of pressure cooker separately.

Aluminium Pressure Cooker

Aluminium is one of the most abundant heavy materials on the planet earth. It is also one of the commonest types of metal used to manufacture cooking utensils.

If you want to know more about the aluminium metal you can read on Wiki.

Aluminium is a great conductor of heat. This will allow the pressure cooker to heat up quickly and cook your food faster.

This means less fuel for cooking and also faster cooking.

Let us quickly see the pros and cons of cooking in an aluminium pressure cooker.

Pros

1. Comparatively, it is cheaper than the other versions.
2. Lightweight and easy to use and work with.
3. Faster cooking.
4. Less cooking fuel required.

Cons

1. It is less durable in comparison to others.
2. Since a good conductor of heat. It can get overheated quickly.
3. Stains quickly.
4. Eroded and damaged vessels are not good for your health.

These are the pros and cons of the aluminium pressure cooker. Let us look at other options.

Ceramic Coated Pressure Cooker

You must have seen colorful pressure cookers. These pressure cookers are available in Tomato Red mustard Yellow and Apple Green colors.

I have two of them, mustard yellow and tomato red. They look really good. The outside of these pressure cookers is ceramic coated. But the inside of these pressure cookers is made from aluminium.

So, I will consider them as better looking aluminium pressure cookers.

So, Aluminium pressure cookers are cheaper, lightweight, easy to maintain and more importantly cooks faster. But it is not durable and it stains faster. But most important is that old and eroded aluminium pressure cooker is not good for your health.

That is why I will recommend you to go for any other variant than an aluminium pressure cooker.

If you want to know why Aluminium utensils are not good for your health. You can read our article.

Also Read:

 Now let us move to the next best option.

Stainless Steel Pressure Cooker.

The shiny pressure cookers are the ones made from stainless steel.

These will be heavier so it might not be that easy to lift once full. Also, the stainless steel is not a good conductor of heat so it will not quickly heat up. Resulting in more time and fuel required for cooking.

They are also expensive compared to aluminium ones.

But they are durable and do not pose any threat to your health.

Let us take a quick look in pros and cons of a stainless steel pressure cooker.

Pros

1. Extremely Durable.
2. Lasts longer.
3. Stain less.
4. Easy to clean.
5. It will remain shiny even after heavy use.
6. It will not affect your healthy adversely.

Cons

1. Will consume more cooking fuel.
2. Will require more time to cook.
3. Heavier pressure cooker.
4. Not easy to use.

These are some of the pros and cons of the pressure cooker.

Between Aluminium and Stainless Steel pressure cooker. I recommend you to go for stainless steel pressure cooker than Aluminium pressure cookers.

But there is a new option in the market and that is Anodized materials. Let us take look at them.

Anodized Pressure Cooker.

These are the newest models of the pressure cooker. Which became popular very recently in the market.

Have you seen the colourful pressure cookers in the market?

Most of them are anodized materials. Not all. It is very important. So do look at the labels.

Let us understand what is anodization.

Anodization

It is an electro-chemical process for producing decorative and protective films on articles made from aluminium and its alloys.

This layer will protect the aluminium and also will give a non-sticky coating to the inside of the pressure cooker.

If you are interested to know about anodizaton. You can read this PDF.

Anodization vs Non-stick

Now you might be thinking that which one will be better, Non-stick or anodized.

Both of them are made of aluminium base. The usual non-stick materials have a Teflon coating. This Teflon is not good for your health.

But there are no such problems with an anodized material. As of now, there are no medical studies conducted to show that Anodization is bad for health.

So, in short, High Anodized pressure cooker will have most of the good properties of an aluminium pressure cooker and stainless steel pressure cooker.

Now let us take a look at Pros and Cons of a high Anodized pressure cooker.

Pros

1. Lightweight.
2. Easy to use.
3. Colourful. So you will have multiple options.
4. Easy to maintain.
5. Easy to clean.
6. Durable.
7. Cooks faster.
8. Consumes less fuel.
9. Looks good.
10. Does not affect your health adversely.

Cons

1. Expensive than Aluminium but cheaper than stainless steel.

These are the pros and cons of an Anodized pressure cooker.

So let us see

Which Pressure cooker you should take?

Tough the winner is obvious. But sometimes the situations are different. So let us see what are the possible scenarios you can face.

Aluminium vs Stainless Steel pressure cooker

If these are the two options, you have, then

• Go for a stainless steel pressure cooker. But it will be expensive.
• If you want to take aluminum, then discard it once it is damaged, eroded, or stained. Remember health is wealth.

Stainless-Steel vs Anodized pressure cooker.

 Go for the Anodized pressure cooker.

Anodized vs Aluminium Pressure cooker

 Go for the Anodized pressure cooker.

Also Read :

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Conclusion:

A Pressure cooker is one of the most common utensils. You will be using it most of the time to cook your food.

So know all the aspects and make an informed decision, to buy the best pressure cooker.

I am sure the information in this article, will help you to reach a conclusion.