Tefal Turbo Cuisine Multi Pressure Cooker review: One-pot perfection

While pressure cookers can be an incredibly efficient, versatile and hassle-free tool for making whole meals, they can also be somewhat off-putting to general consumers. Often laden with hard-to-gauge settings,  slow-acting pressure release systems and all the  aesthetic charms of an IED, it’s not hard to see why pressure cookers haven’t taken off to quite the same extent as air fryers or other types of rapid cookers.

By addressing these concerns, the Tefal Turbo Cuisine Multi Pressure Cooker does a lot to stand out from its slightly more unsightly siblings. It boasts a clean, handsome design, straightforward controls and settings, robust app support and cooking guidance, as well as a great range of separate cooking functions. The Turbo Cuisine includes modes for cooking rice, searing meat, proving dough and more, making for a great, usable option for enthusiasts and beginners alike.

Tefal Turbo Cuisine Multi Pressure Cooker review: What do you get for the money?

The Tefal Turbo Cuisine retails for £150, however it is nearly always available for around £80 on most sites, which is significantly less than some of its similarly multi-talented peers. It’s not much pricier than many of the more stripped-back pressure cookers we’ve looked at, either.

The Turbo Cuisine has a sleek, black plastic exterior, with its rounded shape and carry handles giving it an appearance similar to that of a large stock pot. The cooker measures 34 x 31 x 29cm (WDH), weighs 4.7kg, and has an internal capacity of 4.8l – though we found it can only be filled to a maximum of 3.2l. On the top of the Turbo Cuisine you’ll find the safety release button, which is used to eject excess steam once it has finished cooking, while on the front, you’ll see the display and controls. The Turbo Cuisine has a bright, easy-to-read LED screen, a number of light-up, touch control buttons and a large, physical control dial that you use to set the program, temperature and time. As well as adjustable temperature and time settings, the Turbo Cuisine also has a delayed start option, allowing you to fill it up and leave it to begin cooking anywhere between 10 minutes and 12 hours later. Along with the removable rounded cooking bowl, the Turbo Cuisine also comes with a measuring scoop, a plastic ladle and a plastic spatula.

Like most modern pressure cookers, the Tefal Turbo Cuisine is multi-functional, offering users 10 cooking modes: manual pressure cook, steam, rice, bake, slow cook/sous-vide, yoghurt maker/bread riser, stew, soup, sautée and porridge. And while the manual only offers barebones cooking advice, the Tefal app is replete with cooking guides and recipes tailored specifically to whichever cooking appliance you own.

If you’re looking for something a little bit more budget-friendly than the Turbo Cuisine, the Drew & Cole Pressure King (£46) is an option worth considering. It offers users eight functions, including modes for rice, steaming, sautéeing, and pasta, and while it may not be as slick as more expensive cookers, it gets the job done. But speaking of slick, if you want to examine options on the pricier end of the spectrum, our two favourite options are the Ninja Foodi 11-in-1 (£220) and the Sage Fast Slow Pro (£200). The Ninja Foodi has two interchangeable lids, giving it the ability to function as an air fryer as well as a pressure cooker, while the Sage Fast Slow Pro boasts a gorgeous design and a range of settings that are simple enough for beginners to master, yet in-depth enough for advanced users to really enjoy.

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Tefal Turbo Cuisine Multi Pressure Cooker review: What’s good about it?

Briefly mentioned above, the first positives to note about the Turbo Cuisine are its physical design and general ease of use. The multi cooker’s minimalist, matte-black exterior is subdued and handsome, unlike many other pressure cookers, which often have the look of an overzealous, homemade, science project. The Turbo Cuisine’s pot-shaped body and carry handles make it easy to move around – this suited me nicely as, thanks to my limited countertop space, I had to keep it in a cupboard, only taking it out when it was time to cook. I also found the lid easy to remove and replace, coming off with a simple turn and returning with an unambiguous click – a welcome and reassuring sound for anyone concerned with their pressure cooker safety.

The physical dial on the outside of the Turbo Cuisine works well for cycling through the various functions and adjusting their time or temperature settings, while the bright orange LED screen is easy to read and does a good job of letting you know what stage of proceedings the multi cooker is at – showing HEAT as the cooker preheats, a timer once it has started cooking and HOT once things have wrapped up and it enters its ‘keep warm’ mode. Once you’ve reached this final stage, my favourite physical feature of the Turbo Cuisine comes into play: the steam release button. This large, grey button on the cooker’s lid allows you to quickly release pressure and steam from the Turbo Cuisine without having to wait ages for it to decompress, as you do with many other pressure cookers. The cherry on top is the neat array of accessories that come with the cooker, including a steaming basket, measuring cup, plastic spatula and plastic ladle.

As well as being cleverly put together and simple to use, the Turbo Cuisine also performs well. Across its settings, the Turbo Cuisine usually took a fairly average 10-15 minutes to preheat, but it could cook things like cod in as little as five minutes, and chorizo stew beef casserole in just 30 minutes. Testing out the cooker’s specific functions, I was impressed with what it had to offer. The rice mode delivered two hearty servings of perfectly cooked jasmine rice in just three minutes. The sauté setting, though it can’t compete with a cast-iron pan for cooking a steak or anything like that, proved perfectly effective for browning onions, cubed chorizo and other bits and pieces for various dishes. The steaming mode produced two nicely flaky salmon fillets after just four minutes. And the slow cook setting, given seven hours to work its magic, brought some chopped pork to a brilliant state of flavourful tenderness. All in all, the Turbo Cuisine justifies its claims of multi-functionality, capable of matching the performance of my oven and hob for various dishes, as well as providing utility outside of those standard cooking tasks.

Whether using these presets or the cooker’s manual mode, these dishes and sides might sound like a doddle if you’re a pressure cooking whiz. However, newbies to pressure cooking can often find it hard to gauge things like time and temperature, and the whole process can get a bit confusing and nerve-wracking. Though the user manual provides some general guidance, the Tefal app is the real star of the show when it comes to delivering you from confusion or malaise. As well as featuring some general cooking advice for a huge range of items – including asparagus, broccoli, sweetcorn, eggs, prawns and potatoes – the app also has multiple cookbooks’ worth of step-by-step recipes on board. For example, after the recipe had walked me through steaming the aforementioned salmon, it instructed me to remove the fish and steaming basket and use the soup setting to cook wok-ready egg noodles and vegetables in the remaining broth and marinade, delivering a full healthy dinner in just over half an hour.

The final neat feature worth noting is the delayed start function – this handy setting allows you to load up your Turbo Cuisine and set it to start cooking up to twelve hours later. Something that could prove very useful to the busiest among us – particularly when combined with the cooker’s keep warm function – as it can ensure you have a full, hot meal ready and waiting for you as soon as you walk in the door.

Tefal Turbo Cuisine Multi Pressure Cooker review: What could be better?

Being largely happy with the Turbo Cuisine, I don’t have many remarks to add here; however, one improvement I would like to see is the inclusion of some sort of smart-cooking time-adjustment feature, based on ingredients, weight, volume and so on. Since older Tefal models, like the Multi-Cook Advanced 45-in-1, boasted such automatic adjustment abilities, it’s a shame to see them absent from such a shiny new offering as the Turbo Cuisine.

Tefal Turbo Cuisine Multi Pressure Cooker review: Should you buy it?

Bringing together a sleek, appealing design, user-friendly controls and good performance from its versatile range of cooking modes, the Tefal Turbo Cuisine is an excellent option for anyone looking for a robust, mid-range pressure cooker. Well suited to beginners and pressure-cooking fanatics alike, the Turbo Cuisine can easily produce perfectly cooked rice, flaky steamed salmon, breakfast porridge and whole stews with ease. Plus, with cooking advice and step-by-step recipes provided by the Tefal app, you’ll have a steady hand guiding you along the way.

The Tefal Turbo Cuisine provides a competitively-priced alternative to slightly slicker or more fully-featured options like the Ninja Foodi 11-in-1 or the Sage Fast Slow Pro, even though it remains pricier than some of the more stripped-back pressure cookers and multi-cookers available.