Breville Fast Slow Pro Review

Performance Comparison

The Breville performed well across the boards, particularly when cooking meat.

User Friendliness

Breville knows how to design an intuitive interface, and the fact that navigating through the Fast Slow Pro's seemingly endless number of settings feels easy and streamlined is a testament to that fact.

The Fast Slow Pro uses three separate knobs to select its settings, the first to select one of the cooking presets, the second to adjust temperature, and the third to adjust the time. Then you can just press start, and you're off and running. The large LCD also makes it abundantly clear which settings you've selected. We found this much easier than other machines that make you use arrow buttons to scroll through every option before locking in the one you want. The lid also opens on a hinge, so you don't have to hold it or lay it on the counter while serving and stirring. The lid is on the right side of the machine, so it does kind of get in the way for right-handed users.

You really can't beat the streamlined interfaced presented by the Breville's set of dials.

Credit: Jenna Ammerman

The crème de la crème of the Fast Slow Pro's user experience is its pressure release button. This lets you press a button on the front of the machine, a good 10 inches away from the pressure valve, to release all the pent-up steam. We found this far preferable to all of the other models, which require you to flip the valve yourself with your hand right next to the resulting tower of steam. While we never felt unsafe doing this (you'd have to really try actually get your hand in the way of the steam), the button felt much more convenient and a bit less stressful.

The Breville is the only model we've found that doesn't require you to touch the steam valve in order to release pressure.

Credit: Jenna Ammerman

Cooking Performance

Here again, the Fast Slow Pro was on top, earning a high score.

Where the Fast Slow Pro really set itself apart was in meat preparation. It tended to lock in just a bit more moisture and tenderness than other models, especially when it came to making ribs. It also was the most effective model we found for searing meat. However, even this machine can't duplicate the searing power of a good flame, so if you want a really good sear, we would suggest doing so on the stovetop and then using the pressure cooker to lock in all that juicy flavor. The Fast Slow Pro also made the best rice in our testing, again keeping things a bit more moist and tender. However, the gap in rice quality between the Fast Slow Pro and the rest was smaller than that in meat quality.

The Fast Slow Pro also offers more pressure settings than any other model. Most let you set the pressure to low, normal, or high, while this machine offers 10 distinct settings. We didn't find this to really make a difference in cooking quality, but if you like to tinker with your recipes, it is a nice added feature. Here again, it offers a small but noticeable improvement over the competition for a much bigger price tag. The other models we tested were still able to make a great meat and good rice, so you'll have to consider if those small improvements are worth the extra cost.

Ease of Cleaning

This was the one metric where the Fast Slow Pro didn't come out on top.

We did have some complaints when it came to the messes it could make, but they were relatively minor. First off, its lid tends to spill out a lot of condensation when you open it. Most of this makes its way back into the pot, but some did tend to get on the side of the machine and the counter. This wasn't a huge annoyance, but other models have condensation cups that pretty much eliminate the issue. You also must unscrew the lid to remove and clean it, which can make the stray condensation issue a bit worse. Again, not a huge deal, but most models just have their lids lift right off, which felt a bit more convenient.

The Breville is fairly easy to clean but is not quite a top performer in this category.

Credit: Jenna Ammerman

The Fast Slow Pro's nonstick pot generally shed food well enough that hand cleaning it was fairly painless. However, we didn't like the fact that we couldn't use things like steel wool if we managed to burn some onions onto it. Also, we didn't feel comfortable putting the pot in the dishwasher, so hand cleaning was the only option. The manual is a bit confusing; it says the pot is dishwasher safe but that you shouldn't put it in the dishwasher.

Cooking Features

The Fast Slow Pro has more cooking presets than any of the models we tested. In fact, it leaves most of them completely in the dust.

On top of the general meat and grain functions, the Fast Slow Pro adds saute, sear, yogurt, and sterilize functions. It also offers 10 different pressure settings, much more than any other cooker.

A Full List of the Breville Fast Slow Pro's Cooking Functions

Vegetables, Rice, Risotto, Soup, Stock, Beans, Poultry, Meat, Bone-In Meat, Chili/Stew, Dessert, Custom, Pressure Cook, Slow Cook, Steam, Sear, Saute, Reduce

Value

The Fast Slow Pro's only real competition in the pressure cooker market is the Instant Pot Duo PLUS. Depending on your food preferences, the Breville is 5-10% better than the Instant Pot but costs more than twice as much. That extra cost is really only worth it if you're picky about your meat or brown rice or if you really don't want to put your hand next to the steam vent when releasing the pressure. However, if you don't fall into one of those categories, the Instant Pot is a much better value.

Conclusion