While pressure cookers have been around for a long time, Instant Pots are a recent kitchen appliance trend. They can be a little bit intimidating, but once you get the hang of it, you can whip up some pretty amazing food in no time.
The following recipes are great ways to use your Instant Pot pressure cooker to pull off some great weeknight meals.
1) Creamy Chicken And Rice
This is chicken thighs and rice cooked in broth with cream cheese or milk added at the end. Option to add more broth if the rice tightens up.
If you’re comfortable using your Instant Pot to brown the chicken, go ahead and season it first and then brown the chicken thighs before you add your rice and your broth. This will give you a much better flavor.
For the creamy element, you could add cream cheese or feta cheese or goat cheese, but I wouldn’t add milk. I would add heavy cream instead.
2) Spaghetti And Meat Sauce
This is meat sauce and spaghetti noodles cooked all at once in the Instant Pot. I would be sure to put the sauce on the bottom so that the spaghetti noodles don’t get stuck when the heating element heats up.
Breaking the noodles in half is a great idea to make them fit, or you could easily sub out some other type of pasta like a fusilli or even macaroni. Wait to mix everything together until it’s cooked at the end.
3) Shredded Taco Chicken
This is chicken breasts or chicken thighs with taco seasoning and salsa cooked in the pot and then shredded. Thighs are great for this because they can really handle a lot of cooking without drying out, and because they have a lot of fat, they have a lot of great flavor as well.
I would definitely add salsa to this or some sort of liquid, maybe chicken stock with a splash of taco seasoning in it. You don’t want it to dry out too much. Shred all of the chicken once it’s fully cooked. It’ll be much easier.
4) Beef And Bean Chili
This is ground beef and beans, onions and spices, and a liquid. I would typically use beef stock and a combination of canned tomatoes for the liquid.
I like to mash up my canned beans a little bit once I’ve drained them and then add them to the chili. This will help to thicken it up if you’ve got it a little too watery. Keep the hot sauce and the hot peppers out of it and just serve them on the side so kids can eat this one.
5) Butter Chicken
This is an Indian tomato garam masala sauce with plenty of butter and typically chicken thighs, finished with either heavy cream or coconut milk. You would want to serve this one with either naan bread or rice on the side.
Heat up your Instant Pot with the lid off, add a little bit of oil, and then add your garam masala spice blend and toast it a little bit before you add your chicken thighs to brown them. Then add your tomato sauce and plenty of butter and then just a splash of cream or coconut milk. You want the butter to be the star.
6) Mac And Cheese
This is an Instant Pot take on the classic: evaporated milk and shredded cheese, pasta with either broth or water, and an option for peas and broccoli for a healthy choice.
Evaporated milk is great for a cheese sauce, and if you’re using a shredded cheddar, try to stay on the milder side. Sharper cheddar tends to separate and not melt very well. I would also throw in a couple slices of American cheese because they can really hold a sauce together well under any heating condition.
If you’re going to add broccoli, cut it up pretty small so it cooks evenly and you don’t get big chunks of raw stem.
7) BBQ Pulled Pork
This is raw pork shoulder that’s been cut up into pieces and pressure cooked with broth and seasoning. You want to shred it once it’s cooked and then add your barbecue sauce at the end. Pulled pork is great. It can take on lots and lots of flavor, so you can kind of tweak it however you want. You can make it spicy, you can put a little beer in it, you could do a really nice spice rub.
I like to score the fat cap on the top of the pork. This is a big thick piece of fat on the top. Cut into it left and right and up and down with a knife most of the way through. This will help the fat break down during the cooking process.
When it’s all cooked and you’re ready to shred the pork, take the pork out. You’ll have plenty of liquid left over. Set this aside but don’t get rid of it. This could be a really great addition to a homemade barbecue sauce.
8) Beef Stew
This is a beef stew with cubed beef, typically carrots, onions, potatoes, beef stock, herbs, things like that. I like to get a good sear on the beef for beef stew, so get your Instant Pot nice and hot with the lid off. Toss your beef cubes in a little bit of flour and salt and pepper and then sear them hard on each side. Be careful not to put too many in the pan at once, because if it’s too crowded they’ll steam and they won’t brown.
When you’re using the pressure cooker, do big chunks of your vegetables because they’re going to break down a little bit more than they would just boiling away for a couple hours. Definitely serve this with some crusty bread for soaking up the beef stew, or even bread and butter.
9) Honey Garlic Chicken
This is a chicken dish typically served with rice that has a sauce made with soy sauce, garlic, honey, and either ketchup or vinegar. Option to add a cornstarch slurry if you want a thicker sauce, or even a cucumber salad on the side for a fresher element.
Mix all your ingredients for your sauce ahead of time in a bowl on the side so you can really dial it in before you dump it in with the chicken. I would toss my chicken, probably chicken thighs in this case, with a little bit of sesame oil and soy sauce and then brown them first in the pot before adding the rice and the sauce and the lid.
10) Chicken Tortilla Soup
This is a chicken soup, typically shredded, with broth and beans, tomatoes, and spices, served with tortilla strips, cheese, cilantro, avocado, or even hot sauce. I like to use chicken thighs for this one and season them with chili powder and the other typical chili spices that you would have. Brown them in the Instant Pot first and then add in the tomatoes and the beans and the broth and let it cook.
I like to serve this with just tortilla chips instead of messing with the strips. It’s just easier, and you can just crumble them up and dump them in. Add all your favorite toppings to this one like cilantro, salsa, hot sauce, shredded cheese, you name it.
11) Lentil Sloppy Joes
These are your typical sloppy joe flavor profile, but instead of meat it’s cooked lentils. Mix up your sloppy joe sauce first and then cook your lentils. Once your lentils are nice and soft and have that ground beef-like texture, add your sauce. Then you can really get it as close to the beef consistency as possible.
I like to toast the buns before I serve them so they don’t soak up too much of the sauce and it’s still easy to eat. I would use red lentils instead of green just so they look a little bit more like beef.
12) Chicken Noodle Soup
This is onion, carrot, celery, broth, and chicken. Your typical chicken noodle soup, but in this case you’re going to put the noodles in after it’s all done so they don’t get too mushy, because egg noodles tend to be kind of soft.
Leave your chicken breast whole and brown it lightly in the pan, then add all your other veggies and your broth and cook it, and then just shred the chicken up afterwards. If you don’t have or don’t want noodles, you could always throw a cup of rice in towards the end of the cooking process. I like to serve these with saltine crackers with a little bit of butter on top.
13) Red Beans And Rice
This is your typical Louisiana dish with smoked sausage, onion, celery, bell pepper, and beans that usually takes all day to cook, served with rice.
Typically when making a soup you would use a mirepoix, which is onions, carrots, and celery, but in this case you’re going to use something called the holy trinity, where you sub out the carrots for green bell pepper. This is a classic New Orleans, Cajun, Creole application for cooking.
You’re going to cook your beans and your holy trinity veg and your sausage in the pressure cooker while you make the rice on the side, and once the beans are nice and soft and everything’s nice and flavorful, you’re done. I like to serve it with Crystal Louisiana hot sauce and crackers or bread.
14) Teriyaki Chicken Bowls
This is chicken cooked in a brown sugar, soy, honey, garlic, and ginger sauce, your typical sort of Asian sauce, served with rice. You can use thighs or a combination of thighs and breasts for this. Just give them a light little bit of seasoning or marinating, then cook them first and then add your sauce so the soy doesn’t burn if you cook it for too long.
I would serve this with chili crunch or sriracha, soy sauce on the side, and maybe green onions or toasted sesame seeds. Mix your brown sugar and your soy sauce together first so the soy can dissolve the brown sugar all the way before you add everything else. Otherwise it might not completely break down and be kind of gritty.
15) Italian Meatballs
These are any ground meat, beef, pork, or turkey, made into meatballs and cooked under pressure sitting in marinara. You could have them with pasta, on a sub, or on a salad. Just make the pasta on the side.
The trick with good meatballs is to not overwork your ground meat too much and to not dry it out too much. You want a nice balance of egg yolk and breadcrumbs to bind everything together without too much breadcrumb.
I like to brown them first on the bottom of the Instant Pot and then add the marinara and then pressure cook them. You don’t have to cook them all the way through, just get a little bit of color on the outside, because that will really improve the flavor overall.
16) Chicken Tikka Masala
This is a classic Indian dish that’s typically chicken thighs or chicken breast with a warm, creamy tomato curry yogurt sauce. Throw a little oil in the bottom of your hot Instant Pot and warm up your spices first. This will bring up a lot of flavor in them. Then add your chicken, cook it, get a nice brown on there, and then add your tomato puree. That’ll pull all the little crumbly burned bits off of the bottom of the pan and really add a nice step to flavor.
You can add coconut cream, coconut milk, or heavy cream to this. If you’re going to do yogurt, you want to temper it, which means you’re going to take a little bit of the hot liquid and add it to a bunch of yogurt to bring the temperature of the yogurt up slowly, and then add it in. If you add it in cold, it’ll just split and get curdled and weird.
If you’re cooking for the whole family, it’s probably best to keep the spice on the side for this one. Serve with plenty of naan bread.
17) Stuffed Pepper Bowl
These are your typical kind of stuffed peppers with beef or turkey, rice, and tomato in a bowl, not like your typical bake-in-the-oven stuffed peppers. For this one you’re going to cut your bell peppers up and mix them in with the beef or turkey and the rice and the tomatoes in the pressure cooker, and then just eat it out of the bowl afterwards.
I would brown the meat first and then dice up the bell peppers and cook them in the fat rendered from the meat. Then I’d add the rice and the tomato and, honestly, probably a little bit of stock to cook the rice in before I put the lid on. If you’re going to do cheese on this, just add it to the bowl instead of trying to throw it in the pressure cooker, because it might make a big mess.
18) Chicken And Dumplings
This is a chicken stew with kind of biscuit dough balls in it. You’re going to wait to add those until the end, though, so they don’t overcook. I kind of like to make chicken and dumplings like a thicker version of chicken noodle soup.
So for this one I would cook whole chicken breasts, brown them a little bit, and then add carrots and onions and celery and some stock and cook it, and then once it’s cooked, shred the chicken. Be careful not to overwork your biscuit dough or your batter dumplings, otherwise they’re going to get really dense and chewy.
19) Turkey Taco Soup
This is a taco made with ground turkey, just in soup form. I like to brown the meat first, then add the taco seasoning, warm the spices up a little bit, and then add water or broth. Then all your beans and tomatoes go in at the end.
Serve this like you would any taco bar: hot sauce, sour cream, cilantro, tortilla chips, shredded cheese. If your family doesn’t love ground turkey, you could always do half ground turkey and half ground beef.
20) Pot Roast
This is beef, broth, onions, and aromatics cooked together. It typically takes all day until it’s fork tender and soft, but in this instance the pressure cooker will break down all the meat much faster. I feel like I get pretty similar results if I use a rump roast or a pot roast or a chuck roast for this. As long as you’re cutting your beef to about the same size pieces, it should cook evenly and become nice and shreddable and soft.
Go big on your onions and carrots and potatoes, big pieces, so that when the beef is finally cooked the veggies aren’t completely mushy. I like to throw a little bit of red wine and maybe a bay leaf or two in here. Just make sure to take the bay leaves out at the end.
If your beef liquid at the end isn’t quite thick enough to be a gravy, you can make a slurry of cornstarch and cold water, add that to it, and then cook it in a little sauté pan until it’s nice and bubbly.
21) Sausage Peppers And Onions
This is Italian sausage with peppers and onions, served maybe on a hoagie or with rice. You want to leave the sausages whole for this one. If you can get a good sear on them, throw them in the bottom of the Instant Pot and get some browning on them, then pull them out and cook your onions and peppers a little bit.
Add the sausage back in, maybe even with a little bit of beer or beef stock, and cook them with the lid on for a few minutes until the sausage is 165 degrees. I like these with spicy mustard and pickled hot peppers if you have them. Toast your buns a little bit if you can so the sausage and the peppers and onions don’t soften them too much and make them hard to eat.
22) Chicken Shawarma Bowls
This is paprika, garlic, lemon, sumac, things like that, with sliced-up chicken, usually served with rice and a chopped salad with lettuce, cucumber, and tomato in it. For this one you’ll probably want to do the rice on the side. When I make Lebanese rice, once the rice is cooked and I’m fluffing it, I’ll add a lot of butter and salt and then slivered almonds.
For your chicken, either chicken thighs or chicken breasts, cut them up into small pieces, season them heavily with your spices, and then sauté them first in the pot before adding more lemon and oil and throwing the lid on to cook the rest of the way.
I would probably make some kind of yogurt sauce to go on the side with lemon and dill or cucumber, or even a tahini sauce where you take tahini and a little bit of oil and blend it.
23) Split Pea Soup
This is your typical pea soup made with some sort of ham, usually a ham hock, or diced ham if you don’t have access to a ham hock. You’re going to cook the peas in a little bit of broth, so save a little for afterwards if you need to loosen it up after it’s pressure cooked.
I love a ham hock. If you can get it, there’s just so much more flavor. You can kind of sauté that in the bottom of the Instant Pot first and get some good browning on it and lots of extra flavor before you add your peas and your liquid. A lot of the ham will kind of fall off in the cooking process. If you’re using diced ham, just do the same thing. Give it a quick little fry in the bottom first before you add the rest of the ingredients.
You want this soup to be nice and creamy. If you’re having trouble with the peas breaking down enough at the end, you could always stick an immersion blender in the pot and give it a good mix a couple times, and that’ll really help.
24) Chicken Enchilada Casserole
This is chicken and rice cooked together in the Instant Pot, with enchilada sauce and cheese added at the end. Cook your chicken first and give it a nice little brown with whatever seasoning you want to put on there, typically a chili powder, onion powder kind of situation. Then add the rice, then add some broth until the rice is covered, and at the end when the rice is done, shred up the chicken and add your enchilada sauce.
You want to be careful not to add too much liquid, because you want this to be kind of a casserole texture at the end. You can add a bunch of cheese in, or even a can of beans, at the end and stir it up until it’s nice and thick.
I sometimes like to add a half block or a whole block of cream cheese to the filling for enchiladas too, so that could work here. Just add it at the end.
25) Mongolian Beef
This is thinly cut flank or sirloin, and you’ll make a sauce of brown sugar, garlic, ginger, and soy sauce. You’ll thicken it at the end, because during the cooking process a lot of the beef will sweat, so you want to use maybe a cornstarch slurry to thicken it.
Bavette or flap meat is also a really underutilized but great cut for something like this. It’s a really tender cut of beef. You just have to make sure to cut it against the grain when you’re slicing it up, and it’s almost as tender as tenderloin.
Mix all the ingredients for your Mongolian beef sauce first before you add it. In this case I would probably add broccoli too, so I’d sauté my beef and then add the broccoli right in and then the sauce. If you’re going to serve it with rice, make the rice on the side. If your sauce isn’t quite thick enough, you can add a slurry, which is cornstarch and water mixed together. Just whisk it in and heat it up until it looks just as thick as you’d like.
