When You Need Dinner to Practically Make Itself, Try These Instant Pot Recipes (2024)

FAQs

What foods should not be cooked in an Instant Pot? ›

This age-old preparation method is found among almost all ethnicities and cultures, and as its name suggests, it needs just one pot or pan. This pot may be a Dutch Oven, casserole dish, tagine, roast pan, skillet, or wok. All your vegetables, protein, and starches are mixed in just one vessel.

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.

While it might not be the best option out there for nutrient retention, you should never feel bad about making a home-cooked meal in your Instant Pot, as there is no "perfect" preparation method for food.

Mostly we boil potatoes in a pressure cooker, but like rice, potatoes also contain a lot of starch. This is the reason why boiling or cooking in this pressure cooker is not considered good for health. If you still plan to use cooker for the same, add a lot of water and wash them thoroughly post cooking.

You can still pressure cook leaner pieces – like eye of round and top sirloin – but these work best if they've been stuffed, shredded or rolled (with other ingredients). Best cuts of beef to use: Chuck steak, Round Roast, Shoulder, Pot roast, Ribs, Brisket, Oxtail.

First available to buy in 2010, the Instant Pot has become a veritable craze, a success built through social media word-of-mouth instead of traditional TV or print advertising.

As NPR reported, sales of “electronic multicooker devices” (a large chunk of which are Instant Pots) hit $758 million in 2020. But those numbers weren't tenable. Sales in the category dropped by half by 2022, and in the first quarter of 2023, Instant Brands' sales dropped 22 percent compared to last year.

Disadvantages of cooking food in a pressure cooker

However, starchy foods may form acrylamide, a harmful chemical, when pressure cooked. Consumption of this chemical on a regular basis may lead to health issues like cancer, infertility, and neurological disorders.

MYTH: Pressure cooking destroys vitamins and minerals.

With a few exceptions, one which we note below, scientific data supports pressure cooking as one of the cooking methods that preserve the most vitamins¹.

Is a slow cooker healthier than a pressure cooker? ›

Is cooking in a pressure cooker healthy? Yes, cooking in a pressure cooker is healthy. Unlike a slow cooker, which cooks foods for a long time at a lower temperature, pressure cookers do use high heat when cooking - but not for a long time. This means that most of the nutrients won't be lost.

The pressure cooking process breaks down tough meat, making it tender. Put the lid back on, seal the pressure cooker, and cook at high pressure for another 10 to 20 minutes.

Yes, electric pressure cookers like the Instant Pot are generally safe and easy to use.

The very best feature is the ability to brown aromatics or meat before cooking. This feature gives the Instant Pot a huge advantage over a crock pot in building flavorful dishes! But is it safe to use olive oil in the Instant Pot? The answer is yes!