20/09/2017

How I fell in love… with an Instant Pot pressure cooker

A number of recipes on my blog use an Instant Pot pressure cooker, so I thought I’d better let you know here what they’re all about. I think it’s an excellent product with lots of uses, so it’s well worth having one if you’re an avid cook.

Forget what you thought you knew about pressure cookers

If you don’t know what an Instant Pot is – where have you been? They’ve become so popular that there’s Facebook communities talking about them and sharing recipes. Whole books have been written about them.

At first, I didn’t like the idea of having a pressure cooker in the kitchen. Never having used one before, I thought the old-style ones looked a bit frightening. Didn’t all that steam and shaking mean it was only a matter of time before the thing exploded? But modern electric cookers are nothing like that. They go about their business quite sedately and safely.

Multi-Purpose

The beauty of the Instant Pot is that you can also use it as a slow cooker – and much more besides, including making yogurt. I have the Duo 7-in-1 Instant Pot (paid link) but there are many different versions now.

Those with more experience than I of both pressure cooking and slow cooking seem to agree that pressure cooking in the Instant Pot is just as good as slow cooking. Some would say the resulting flavour is even better. So what’s the point in using the extra fuel or unnecessary time needed with slow-cooking? These days, I always use my Instant Pot for meat stews, curries etc. that would otherwise require long and slow cooking.

Should you be out all day and want to return to a hot meal ready to eat, then the Instant Pot is good for that too as it will keep the food warm for up to 10 hours after it’s finished cooking.

I make stews with just 35 minutes of cooking time, full of flavour that taste like they’ve been simmering away for hours. Soaked beans and pulses are cooked in just 20-30 minutes instead of 90 minutes or more. I’ve cooked meltingly tender lamb shoulder and pulled pork in 90 minutes instead of hours and hours. My rice cooking has improved enormously as both brown and white now turn out perfectly without me having to watch over it to make sure it doesn’t boil over or go dry.

Frees up time for more cooking!

I’m not really one for gadgets and prefer ‘proper’ cooking. But I feel the Instant Pot fits in with that, allowing me more time to concentrate on creating more interesting dishes and meals as well as using ingredients that I might otherwise be put off using due to the cooking time.

Recipes using the Instant Pot (last update: February 2023)

As recipes using the Instant Pot are added to the blog, I’ll update this post with links so they’re all in one handy place. You can also click on ‘Instant Pot’ from my Recipes pull-down menu.

Of course, if you don’t have a pressure cooker, don’t worry. Most of these recipes will include instructions for conventional cooking too.