There are a few old Instant Pot threads, but they all have been dormant for several years so I might as well start a new one.
I just aquired a never used Instant Pot Lux 6 Quart and want to learn how to use it. First thing tomorrow night will probably be hard boiled eggs, but I would like to use it for cooking more complex dinners, especially if I get home late and need to scrape together dinner in a short time. What’s your go-to dish?
The one I got had no accessories, so any must haves that I should pick up?
Hard boiled eggs work great in the instant pot. I have a metal contraption designed to keep things off the bottom of the pot that I put eggs on. It’s not made for eggs, but it works. It came with my instant pot.
Another very convenient accessory is a lid that seals onto the inner pot for transport. It makes traveling with recently cooked food very easy.
All of my recipes are timed for high altitude, and if I remember correctly your username represents how you get to altitude, not that you live at altitude.
I make brown rice in it a lot, with a 17/7 rule. 17 minute high pressure cook, and then 7 minute natural release, and a 1:1 rice:water ratio. Not a meal, but it means brown rice is an option to go with a quick stir fry. Stove top brown rice takes 1.5 hours here.
I’ve posted my favorite recipe before, but here it is again. Altitude timing, so 52 minutes is going to be too long, but you can follow whatever the recommendation for pinto beans. Set it up in the morning, and time it to be done for dinner.
1 lb dry Pinto beans
2 tbls bacon fat
1 white onion
4 cloves garlic
1 tbls cummin
1 tbls salt
1 Chipotle
5.5 cups water
2 bay leaves
1 can chopped tomatoes
Sweat onion with bacon fat and salt. Add garlic and cummin. Deglaze. Add chopped Chipotle. Add beans, water, bay leaves. Pressure cook 52 minutes, natural release. Add tomatoes after beans are cooked.
Set timer to start cooking 1.5 hours before time to eat
I agree about the potatoes. Me, I make burgers in our pot. They are the juiciest burgers ever. And as a bonus, you don’t have fat spraying all over the stove. Anything that saves on cleanup is a plus.
My husband and I really enjoyed the lasagna I made last summer. You make it in a springform pan so it comes out round.
I’ve also made strawberry jam, blueberry-Earl Grey jelly, and orange marmalade as Christmas gifts.
Regarding rice, I’d recommend getting a ceramic inner pot to use instead of the stainless steel one. Getting rice to not stick to the stainless steel is almost impossible.
But soaking the pot is ready and then the rice comes right out.
I don’t usually cook a meal in the instant pot. I use it for:
Multiple hard boiled eggs
Chicken broth (from leftover chicken carcasses)
Yogurt
Bean soups. I guess this category is “meals”. It’s really good for split pea soup, black bean soup, anything with beans, really. The only legume i still make on the stove is lentils, because they cook so fast anyway. And dishes that start with canned beans. But if I’m starting with dried beans, it’s the instant pot.
My husband and daughter use it for rice, but i usually use a pot on the stove.
I think it makes great pot roast and does well on rice (just remember to turn off Keep Warm when making rice, unless you enjoy scrubbing cooked-on starch off the pot). I’m also partial to sticking a whole chicken in there with water, garlic, onion, and MSG (feel free to substitute your preferred seasonings), and brewing up the makings of chicken soup. Hard-boiled eggs also do well in the IP.
I’d recommend a second inner pot (very helpful if you like to cook ahead in quantity) and backup silicon sealing rings. I’m also rather fond of the air fryer lid/basket I have. Great for reheating things like fried chicken.
I make my own yogurt in mine. My butcher has a nice non-homogenized milk with tons of cream floating on the top. I do the yogurt setting for boil, then cool it down (usually by putting the pot in the sink with cold water, an instant read thermometer, and a milk frother to keep it moving until the heat dissipates to less than 110 F). I started with a strain of cultures from Amazon but now I just use leftover whey from the previous batch’s Greeking. I got a couple Greek Yogurt Strainers. I tried it once with regular grocery store milk and it was not in the same ballpark. Then it gets 12-16 hours of fermenting in the Instant Pot.
I also make my own stocks for soups. Usually I pick up a rotisserie chicken and dismantle it, bones and all (Costco’s $5 one is the best. It’s cheaper than buying a whole raw chicken). In the pot goes a couple onions, 2-3 large carrots, 3-4 stalks of celery, all sliced, some fresh thyme, rosemary, A little salt, but not much as I want to do that in the soup. TS of whole peppercorns. Lately I’ve been adding a pound of chicken feet for extra collagen. Low pressure for 2 hours if I do the chicken feet, 1 hour high pressure sans feet. And of course water to the max line. Strain it when done and I store it in 32oz deli containers in the fridge for a week or freeze for months. I also take the done chicken feet and reprocess them in a pot on the stove with enough water to cover them, low simmer (after reaching boil) for an hour then an immersion blender so I get all the collagen out and strain back into the base.
I also make most of my soups in the instant pot. Best practice is to have different color seals for yogurt and savory. I use white and red.
I cook just about anything that I would cook in a crockpot in the Instant Pot: roast, stew, soup, etc. And I will also agree on boiled eggs. One thing that doesn’t work well is spaghetti sauce. Whenever I’ve tried, it seems to burn on the bottom.
We use ours a lot. Rice on the stove is easy, but in the instant pot is even easier IMO, and it frees up stovetop space. When I make Indian food, I do a spiced rice: rinse the rice, big spoon of ghee in the instant pot, fry up some spices (cardamom pods, cloves, cinnamon sticks, cumin seeds), throw in the drained rice and saute, add some turmeric and salt and water, and cook. Otherwise, plain rice, white or brown. My wife makes steel-cut oats for breakfast most mornings, and black beans for burritos are a nearly weekly occurrence. I love white bean salad in the summer, and dried white beans in the instant pot are much tastier than canned beans; cook them up with salt, drain, and add to a big bowl with all the lovely chopped summer veggies and an herbed vinaigrette.
I have the Instant Pot Pro and lost the vent does anyone know where to get a replacement? I’ve searched everywhere but also does it need the removable vent to work properly?
These are the two main things I use my Instant Pot for as well. For making chicken stock alone it’s worth it-- makes amazing stock in a fraction of the time it takes simmering on a stovetop.
I also use it to ‘save’ meat-based stews and chilis sometimes. What I mean by that is, sometimes the pieces of chuck roast in the stew / chili just don’t seem to render to the falling-apart tender consistency they should have, when dinner is closing in-- the chunks of meat are still too tough, despite long simmering. So I put it all in the IP and give it 1/2 hour pressure-cook time-- perfectly tender meat.
I don’t usually do all the cooking of stews and chilis in the IP because I like to monitor what’s happening, taste and season along the way, and sometimes reduce the cooking liquid-- difficult to do in an IP. But saving the day when dinner is getting close and the meat is not properly rendered makes the IP a great backup-- like a top-notch baseball relief pitcher.
There are a number of great recipes online and in cookbooks. One of our go tos is Butter Chicken from Urvashi Pitre’s Indian Instant Pot book. It is copyrighted, so I cannot reprint it here. Instead, I’ll give you my Chicken & Rice soup;
1 Tbls vegetable oil
1 lb chicken breast or thighs - seasoned with salt & pepper
1 Onion - diced
2-3 carrots - diced.
1 tsp salt
8 cups chicken stock
1 cup rice (proportional to the chicken stock
1 - Set the IP to Sauté mode (High), when it is hot, add the oil (just a glug) and cook the chicken about 4-5 minutes a side. Remove.
2 - Add the onions, carrots, and salt and cook until the the onions are translucent - about five minutes.
3 - Pour in a bit of the stock - about two cups, and scrape up those yummy burnt brown bits stuck to the bottom of the liner. Pour in the rest of the stock.
4 - Turn off the IP. Stir in the rice and put the chicken on top.
5 - Cover and set it on Pressure Cook (Manual) High pressure for forty minutes.
6 - After the pressure cook, let it natural release for about five minutes, the open the pressure release valve.
7 - Remove the chicken, shred it with two forks, and stir it back in.
8 - Enjoy some of the heartiest chicken soup you’ve ever had.
I’m curious-- does cooking rice in stock in the IP for forty minutes result in a soup that’s still a clear broth with individually distinguishable rice grains, or does the rice dissolve in the stock into a porridge or congee consistency?
I like it either way. My wife makes a long-simmered rice soup that’s kind of a porridge / congee consistency and is really good, especially on a cold Winter day.
Another easy one is chicken taco meat. A skinless breast or two, some broth, some salsa (you can also find recipes that use a mix of dried spices instead of salsa - if you are really lazy, I mean in a hurry, just a packet of “taco seasoning”). Cooks quick, then use a hand mixer to separate the meat and mix it into the remaining sauce. Usually, while the chicken is cooking, it’s enough time to prepare toppings and heat-up some tortillas. I think it’s about 30 min total for everything.