Easy Instant Pot Recipes For Beginners Archives (2024)

FAQs

What is the best first thing to cook in an Instant Pot? ›

When it comes to breaking your Instant Pot in, it's a good idea to start with some basic foods and simple meals you're already familiar with, then slowly expand your Instant Pot repertoire from there. Try making staples like eggs, sweet potatoes, rice, or lentils using just the pressure cooker function.

Instant Pot Duo Plus 8-Quart Multi-Use Pressure Cooker

Easy to clean and super straightforward, this appliance is suitable for beginners and pros.

It is safe to cook frozen food in a pressure cooker because it uses pressure to move food through the "Danger Zone" quickly. As a result, you don't run into the issues that you would find by cooking frozen food in a slow cooker, where it can stay too long in the Danger Zone and could become unsafe.

Best Cuts for Your Pressure Cooker/Instant Pot

You can cook any cut in a multi-cooker, but we recommend those from the chuck and round.

An Instant Pot is not going to plan your meals and make everything in 9 minutes start to finish. It's really easy to over-steam your veggies and it's not any faster on THAT task. But. There are many advantages to pressure cooking that can't be beat.

One of the biggest differences here is that the Instant Pot is programmable: you can set it and leave it. With stovetop cookers there's still a small risk of pushing the pressure too high and blowing the thing up, but the Instant Pot doesn't have that danger.

An Instant Pot does have more functionality (like sautéing, pressure cooking, slow cooking, and acts as a rice cooker, steamer, and warmer!) than a slow cooker, but if you don't plan to use all of its extra functions and just prefer the simplicity of a slow-cooker, then you might prefer a Crock-Pot.

Pressure cookers are designed to make short work of slow cook dishes. They're economical both in the amount of power they use and are also ideal for tenderising cheaper cuts of meat.

What do I need to know before using a pressure cooker? ›

Add at least half a cup of liquid, and don't go over the maximum. One of the things you'll learn about pressure cooking is that you don't need to add as much liquid as you would in regular recipes. But you'll still need to add some because the pressure cooker requires moisture to build that pressure.

It is safe to cook frozen food in a pressure cooker because it uses pressure to move food through the "Danger Zone" quickly. As a result, you don't run into the issues that you would find by cooking frozen food in a slow cooker, where it can stay too long in the Danger Zone and could become unsafe.

First, you must add liquid to the Instant Pot before cooking. Without sufficient liquid, pressure won't build — and you'll likely get the dreaded “burn” error. Unless otherwise specified in the recipe, you'll need just enough liquid (usually water or broth) to bring the cooker to pressure.