What Can You Cook In An Instant Pot Pressure Cooker

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Baking An Instant Pot Cake Without A Pan + Other Options

How to Use Instant Pot as a Pressure Cooker
  • I do not recommend making this Instant Pot Cake without a pan , as the batter will burn.
  • If youd like to make an Instant Pot chocolate bundt cake, you can try using a 6-cup bundt pan that will fit inside the Instant Pot like this one.
  • Ive also heard rumors of baking Instant Pot cakes inside of heatproof bowls but have not played around with this myself yet.

OK, now that I have convinced you to pick up the proper pan, lets get to the batter, shall we?

Natural Vs Manual Pressure Release

When the cook time is up on your Instant Pot, there’s still one more step — releasing the pressure.;

There are two ways the pressure can be released. With natural pressure release, the valve on the lid stays in Sealing position and the pressure dissipates naturally over time. This can take anywhere from 20 minutes to more than an hour, depending on what you were cooking. Low-liquid meals take much less time than high-liquid meals, like soup or chili.;

The other option is manual pressure release . Here, you’ll carefully move the valve into Venting position and watch as steam shoots out of it, releasing the pressure. This method is much faster, but very high-liquid meals, like soup, can still take about 15 minutes to release pressure manually.

So which one should you use? Consider that with natural pressure release, the Instant Pot is still full of pressure, so the food will continue cooking while the Instant Pot is in Sealing mode. Manual pressure release is useful — and necessary — when you’ve built in enough cooking time and cooking needs to be stopped as fast as possible.

If the goal is to cook a meal quickly, set enough time on the Instant Pot to cook your food and release the pressure manually when the time is up.;

What Is The Best Meal To Cook In A Pressure Cooker

The best part about a pressure cooker is that you can cook most meals in less than half of the time! Some great ideas include brown rice, a whole chicken, along with some vegetables like potatoes and artichokes. If youre looking for something great for feeding a crowd, then go for butter chicken, Mississippi pot roast, or warm up with a bowl of chili or chicken noodle soup. Keep reading on to find suggestions for every craving.;

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How To Use The Instant Pot Slow Cook Setting

Instant Pot

Ready to whip up a delicious slow-cooked meal in your Instant Pot? The process is similar to using a traditional slow cooker, with a few minor adjustments.

1. Load the ingredients into the inner pot, then place it inside the Instant Pot housing.

2. Close the lid and put the steam release handle in the venting position.

3. Plug in your Instant Pot, and press the Slow Cook button.

4. Use the + and keys to set your desired cook time, anywhere from 30 minutes to 20 hours.

5. Choose your desired cooking mode using the Adjust button. The Instant Pot offers three slow cook settingsLess, Normal, and Morethat roughly correspond to Low, Medium, and High settings on a standard slow cooker.

6. The Instant Pot will begin cooking 10 seconds after you press the final button, and it will automatically switch to its Keep Warm setting when the timer runs out. It will stay on Keep Warm for up to 10 hours.

Thats all it takes! Just like with a regular slow cooker, your Instant Pot will maintain a low, steady temperature to cook your food over the course of several hours, so you can go about your daily business while your meal cooks itself.

Cook A Whole Squash In An Electric Pressure Cooker

You can cook FROZEN meat in an electric pressure cooker ...

The electric pressure cooker can steam a whole two-pound squash in about 15 minutes. Remember that most electric pressure cookers need time to come up to pressure and release pressure post-cooking, so this technique takes about 35 minutes from start to finish depending on your cooker.

Add one cup of water to the cooker and then set its steamer basket or a metal trivet inside the pot as well. Pierce the squash all over with a paring knife, making about a dozen 1/2-inch vents for the steam to penetrate the squashs skin. Then add the squash to the electric pressure cooker, set for 15 minutes on high pressure, and cook away. When your 15 minutes is up, release the pressure and remove the squash. Give the squash at least 10 minutes to cool before halving and shredding.

Get Longer Spaghetti Squash Strands

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Liver And Onions In Pressure Cooker

  • Liver comes out unbelievably tender.
  • Dish takes less time to cook overall.

How to combine the two

  • Make pressure cooker liver and onions
  • Put into a baking dish
  • Set oven to broil and cook for 3-5 minutes until outsides are browned

Or once done put liver and onions into a pan on the stovetop to caramelize the onions and brown the outsides of your liver

Either way you make this with bacon and onions youll want to put your liver into a bowl of milk beforehand.

You can cook liver and onions without flour and omit that step in the instructions below, that is up to you.

Everyone has their preferences. Make the style you like and just use my timing and the amount of liquid youll need for your pressure cooker to cook properly.

  • The recipe I share with you below is from a relative who has never made this in a pressure cooker, but I just adapted it to this so she could try this method as well.

Searing the outsides is step 1

Then once its done youre free to enjoy

If youd like a deeper color / crispy recipe for liver on the outside at this point

  • Put under your broiler
  • Brown on the stovetop

Use the air fryer function on your Ninja Foodi for 3-5 min. or until brown

Meat Poultry And Stews

Generally, if your slow cooker meat, soup, or stew recipe calls for 8 hours on the low setting or about 4 hours on the high setting, it should be fully cooked in about 25 to 30 minutes in the Instant Pot. For chicken or turkey, use the 15-minute poultry button.;

While volume doesn’t matter, density does. Roasts and large, thick pieces of meat will take longer, and a baking dish filled to a 3-inch depth will take longer to cook than a baking dish filled to a 2-inch depth. Cut large roasts into smaller pieces for faster cooking.

Frozen meat can be cooked in the pressure cooker as well, but you will need to add about 10 minutes to the total cooking time. If the meat doesn’t look done after the pressure is released, put the lid back on and cook it at high pressure for another 5 to 10 minutes.

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Do You Need The Instant Pot Glass Lid

Amazon

Finally, theres the issue of the Instant Pots lid. Slow cooker lids dont create a seal on the pot, allowing steam and moisture to escape throughout the extended cooking process. The Instant Pot lid, on the other hand, is designed to create a tight seal for pressure cooking.

While you can slow cook meals in your Instant Pot with the lid vented, the brand recommends using its tempered glass lid for best results. This inexpensive lid more closely resembles that of a traditional slow cooker, helping you replicate recipes more closely. However, before you purchase a glass lid for your Instant Pot, you may want to check if any glass lids you already own fit onto the appliance. The lid should rest on the inner pot, not the outer shell.

When you follow these steps, youll be able to make your favorite slow-cooked recipes in your Instant Pot and, if you want, reclaim cupboard space by kicking your old slow cooker to the curb.

Instant Pot Tempered Glass Lid, $11.99 from Amazon

Consider this official glass lid if you’re using the Instant Pot as a slow cooker.

Visit our Slow Cooker Week headquarters for everything else you need to know .

Instant Pot Sunday Sauce

Instant Pot How To Cook Steak In A Pressure Cooker

Your Sundays are now free! No more standing over the stove babysitting Sunday supper. This sauce is fully loaded with pork, beef, sausage and meatballs, and is sure to become a family tradition that won’t leave you short on time to relax and enjoy Sunday Funday.

Get the Recipe: Instant Pot Sunday Sauce

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Choose Similar Ingredients To Another Pot

One of the easiest ways to adjust a pot-in-pot recipe is to choose a recipe that uses similar ingredients and base your cook time off of that. For example, if you want to make a Snickers Cheesecake, I recommend starting with my Peanut Butter Cup Cheesecake recipe and adapting it to your candy of choice.

Which Is The Best Multi

We’ve reviewed pressure cookers beforeâboth stovetop models that are strictly pressure cookers, and multi-cookers, which are primarily pressure cookers that can also perform some other tasks. You can read our full review of pressure cookers and multi-cookers to learn more, but the quick answer is that our top pick is the Breville Fast Slow Pro, while our favorite budget pick is the Instant Pot DUO.

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The Easiest Pressure Cooker Rump Roast Recipe

I absolutely LOVE using my Instant Pot to cook foods that normally take HOURS to make like this beef rump roast recipe. If you were to cook this rump roast in a crockpot or slow cooker, it would take HOURS!

I know some people absolutely love their crockpot, but since getting my Instant Pot, my crockpot has been gathering dusk in my kitchen cabinet.

I know this may seem that it has a few extra steps, but it more than makes up for it with the short cooking time.

What Can You Cook In An Instant Pot

Yep, You Can Cook These 11 Vegetables in Your Instant Pot ...

With a pressure cooker or Instant Pot, youll be able to create a wide range of dishes and without long cooking times either. Everything from stews and soups to chicken wings and barbecue ribs can be cooked in a pressure cooker.;

Instant Pots are designed to combine the work of multiple cooking appliances into one machine, so youll be able to prepare entire meals without using your oven or cooktop. You can make homemade fries, slow cook meat, create tasty desserts, and perfect fluffy rice.;

If you want to get the most out of any multi-cooker, however, its important to consider its capacity and whether thats going to be big enough for the size of your household.;

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Who Invented The Pressure Cooker

Denis Papin was a French-born British physicist who is credited with inventing both the first cylinder and piston steam engine and the pressure cooker. His invention was simple enough: a “closed vessel with a tightly fitting lid that confines the steam until a high pressure is generated, raising the boiling point of the water considerably.” A safety valve stopped leaks and prevented explosions.

An early iteration of the commercial pressure cooker was showcased at the 1939 New York World’s Fair, while the first home-use unit was made available six years later, in 1945. Pressure cookers work by keeping extremely hot water and vapor in an enclosed space, maintaining the internal temperature of the vessel, thus speeding up the cooking time for food that typically takes a long time to prepare.

How Do I Know What Cook Time To Use When I Convert A Recipe

The next step is determining cook time. Ideally, you can find a similar recipe online or in a cookbook and use the cook time used in that recipe. Then change the ingredients to use the ingredients from the recipe youre adapting.

If you cant find a similar recipe, then use a reliable chart to find the cook time for the main ingredient in your recipe. I often use the charts in Pressure Cooker Perfection from Americas Test Kitchen, Vegan Under Pressure by Jill Nussinow, and Hip Pressure Cooking by Laura Pazzaglia. Hip Pressure Cooking;also has helpful cook time charts online.

As a starting point when adapting a recipe, I reduce the cook time of meat recipes cooked in the oven or on the stove by two thirds. For pasta I reduce the cook time by one half.

What if the ingredients have different cook times?

If youre cooking a dish;with meat, the size and shape of the meat matters more than the volume of the meat. A big 3 lb. whole roast will take much longer to cook than 3 lbs. of the same roast cut into bite size pieces.

Can you cut the meat so the cook time matches the cook time for other ingredients? For example, small bite size pieces of chicken breast have the same cook time as white rice. So cutting the chicken into bite size pieces lets you cook the chicken and rice at the same time.

If they dont have similar cook times consider cooking the longest ingredient first,;then adding the vegetables, such as potatoes and carrots and cook for a few minutes longer.

Also Check: How To Use Instant Pot As Crock Pot

How To Make Steak In Instant Pot

Like i already said, making steak in instant pot pressure cooker is easy, simple and quick. You can also make sides like potatoes and gravy in the instant pot at the same time. Below is how to make steak in pressure cooker and how to make gravy at the same time.

1) Mix garlic and butter then set aside.

2) Pat steak dry with kitchen towel, rub with salt, oregano and black pepper.

3) Set instant pot to saute function then add half of the butter/garlic mix in the inner pot of the instant pot.

4) Add in steak and sear the side for 2 minutes without moving it then turn and sear the other side for another 2 minutes before transferring to a plate.

If you want steak rare, sear for 3 minutes on each side, leave to rest before serving. For medium, and welldone move to step 5.

5) Add 1 cup beef broth in the inner pot of the instant pot, add chopped onions and garlic. Scrape inner pot to deglaze.

6) Place trivet in the inner pot of the instant pot and put seared steak on trivet.

7) Cover instant pot with it’s lid and put vent in sealing position. Set instant pot to pressure cook high for 4 minutes and do a 5 minutes natural release.

8) Once instant pot is depresurised, open and take out steak.

9) Immediately add the remaining garlic/butter mix on top. Leave to rest for 5 minutes then enjoy with sides of choice.

Best Pressure Cooker Brands

HOW TO COOK DRIED BEANS IN AN INSTANT POT OR ELECTRIC PRESSURE COOKER
  • Instant Pot: Its one of the most popular pressure cooker brands. Its seven appliances in 1, allowing you to cook healthy, convenient, and tasty meals every time. Youll love that it has the functions of a pressure cooker, warmer, slow cooker, rice cooker, steamer, saute and yogurt maker. Ideal for those looking to cook their meals 70 % faster, especially during those busy weeknights.;
  • Ninja Foodie Pressure Cooker: If youre looking for a pressure cooker that makes crispy food then this is for you! The Ninja Foodie Pressure cooker allows you to cook quickly while crisping your meals to golden finish every time. Can cook up to 70% faster versus traditional cooking methods.
  • Presto Pressure Cooker: The ideal choice for healthy and flavorful meals that cook fast and easy. The Presto Pressure Cooker works 3 times faster than ordinary methods. Made from stainless steel with a unique tri-clad base for fast heating. Plus, its dishwasher safe!
  • Cuisinart Electric Pressure Cooker: Easy to make entire meals, side dishes or appetizers in this 6-Quart Pressure Cooker!;With this pressure cooker, you can brown, simmer or sauté food and keep it warm when youre done! ;

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How To Cook Meat In An Instant Pot: Everything You Need To Know

From ground beef to a whole chicken, heres everything you need to know on how to cook meat in an Instant Pot.

Cooking in an Instant Pot provides fast and consistent results for such a huge variety of recipes and cooking styles that youll wonder how you lived without it before. It uses pressure cooking under different settings and temperatures to achieve amazing results and fast cooking times.

But that doesnt mean that everything is always easy breezy with the Instant Pot. Lots of beginners make mistakes, especially where meat and poultry are concerned

So, to make sure you get it right the first time, heres your guide on how to cook meat in an Instant Pot.

From ground beef to ribs to chicken, heres everything you need to know when it comes to cooking meat and poultry in your pressure cooker.

Pressure Cook Pork Shoulder

Add 1 tbsp regular soy sauce and ½ tsp table salt in Instant Pot, then give it a quick mix.

Then, place the pork shoulder into the cooking liquid.

*Pro Tip: If there is any meat juice, add that back in too!

With Venting Knob in Venting Position, close the lid, then turn Venting Knob to Sealing Position.

  • Pressure Cooking Method: Pressure Cook at High Pressure for 60 minutes, then 15 minutes Natural Release

*Note: If you think 1 hour is too long, you can cut the pork shoulder into 2 inches cubes and reduce the cooking time to Pressure Cook at High Pressure for 40 minutes + 15 minutes natural release.

After 15 minutes, release the remaining pressure by turning the Venting Knob to Venting position.

Remove the lid carefully.

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