The standard Instant Pot is largely non-toxic. Its inner cooking pot is made of food-grade 304 stainless steel, the lid components that touch food are stainless steel and silicone, and the manufacturer confirms the product is free of BPA, PFAS, PTFE, and PFOA. That said, there are a few nuances worth understanding, especially around metal leaching and the optional ceramic-coated inner pot.
What the Inner Pot Is Made Of
The standard Instant Pot inner pot uses 304-grade stainless steel, also labeled 18/8, meaning it contains roughly 18% chromium and 8–12% nickel. This is the same grade used across the food and beverage industry and is considered safe for cooking by regulatory standards. The pot has rolled edges and no coatings, so nothing peels or degrades over time.
Instant Pot also sells a ceramic-coated inner pot as an alternative. Ceramic coatings are generally considered non-toxic and free of the chemicals found in traditional non-stick cookware. However, like all ceramic-coated surfaces, the coating will degrade with use. Once it starts chipping, flaking, or losing its non-stick performance, it’s time to replace it. The coating itself is typically a silica-based polymer applied over aluminum, and tiny amounts wear off with each use even before visible damage appears.
Nickel and Chromium Leaching
The one area where “non-toxic” gets more complicated is metal leaching. All 304 stainless steel releases small amounts of nickel and chromium into food, particularly when cooking acidic ingredients. A study published in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry found that tomato sauce cooked in 304 stainless steel for six hours saw nickel concentrations increase up to 26-fold compared to a control. After repeated use, leaching stabilized: by the tenth cooking cycle, a single serving of tomato sauce picked up roughly 88 micrograms of nickel and 86 micrograms of chromium.
For most people, these trace amounts fall well within safe daily intake levels and aren’t a health concern. But if you have a diagnosed nickel allergy or sensitivity, this matters. Pressure cooking concentrates heat and contact time, so acidic recipes (tomato-based stews, citrus marinades, vinegar-heavy dishes) will pull more metal into your food than, say, cooking rice or steaming vegetables. If nickel sensitivity is a concern for you, limiting long acidic cooks in stainless steel or switching to the ceramic-coated insert for those recipes is a practical workaround.
The Lid, Sealing Ring, and Plastic Parts
The parts of the lid that contact food are stainless steel and silicone. The sealing ring is made of food-grade silicone and is BPA-free. Silicone is chemically inert at cooking temperatures and doesn’t leach harmful compounds into food, though it will absorb odors over time (curry and chili are notorious). That’s a smell issue, not a safety one.
The outer housing and control panel are plastic, but they don’t come into contact with food. Instant Pot does carry a California Proposition 65 warning, which can look alarming. The company has clarified that this warning exists because of trace phthalates in the power cord and trace lead in the internal electronics. Neither of these components touches food or releases anything into the cooking environment. Prop 65 warnings are triggered at extremely low thresholds and appear on a wide range of household products, so the label alone doesn’t indicate a meaningful exposure risk.
No Harmful Off-Gassing
Unlike traditional non-stick cookware coated with PTFE (the material in Teflon), the Instant Pot doesn’t produce toxic fumes when heated. This is relevant if you have pet birds, which are highly sensitive to airborne chemicals from overheated non-stick coatings. Instant Pot’s customer support has explicitly stated the product does not produce harmful off-gassing and is safe for households with birds and other pets.
How It Compares to Other Cookware
In the landscape of kitchen appliances, the Instant Pot sits on the safer end. Stainless steel is one of the most recommended materials for non-toxic cooking because it doesn’t require chemical coatings and holds up for years without degradation. It doesn’t carry the PFAS concerns associated with many non-stick surfaces, and its cooking chamber is sealed, which actually reduces the formation of certain harmful compounds that open-flame or high-heat cooking methods can produce.
The main trade-off is the nickel question, which applies to all stainless steel cookware, not just the Instant Pot. If you want to minimize even that small exposure, cook non-acidic foods in the stainless steel insert and reserve the ceramic-coated pot for tomato sauces and other acidic recipes. A well-maintained Instant Pot with an intact sealing ring and undamaged inner pot is about as low-risk as electric cooking gets.