10 Instant Pot Basics – Saving time in the kitchen
One of the things I love about healthy cooking is that I've been able to purge and donate a lot of my old kitchen appliances that were taking up a ton of space. This year, I found the Instant Pot and was able to use that one machine to replace my crockpot, old pressure cooker, rice cooker, and yogurt maker (I think I used that once, if ever). The Instant Pot is a magical device powered by leprechauns (while it seems magical, I'm pretty sure it just runs on electricity) pressure cooker. This thing has tons of different options – besides using it as a slow cooker, rice cooker, and yogurt maker as I mentioned above, it can sauté and do a ton of other stuff. Using this one device to replace so many others has saved me a lot of space, but the best thing about the Instant Pot is that it saves this busy mama TIME.
I use my Instant Pot to make brown rice, quinoa, boiled eggs, and chicken in about half the time, which is awesome. A few days ago I realized that the brown rice I'd very responsibly prepared earlier in the week for dinners had been thoughtlessly consumed by my horde of children and/or husband, and I'd need more for dinner. I was easily able to make a big pot of rice to replace it while I was cooking our chicken – once the pressure cooker starts cooking it's 32 minutes in the Instant Pot instead of the near-hour it usually takes on the stovetop.
I made a list of my top 20 Instant Pot Recipes that work for the Trim Healthy Mama way of eating, or really any way of eating, but I thought it would be super helpful to put together a list of Instant Pot Recipes that save time with the basics.
These recipes are all frequently used in my house, and all gluten-free. Because, you know, Celiac disease. But even if you aren't gluten-free, these are worth checking out!
Instant Pot Brown Rice – The first and most important recipe (well, to me) is brown rice. I figured this out through trial and error, but to make perfect brown rice in your Instant Pot, add 2 cups of long grain brown rice, 2 1/2 cups of water or chicken broth, and 1/4 teaspoon of salt (I usually add more salt plus pepper after it's done to taste). Set the pressure cooker to 22 minutes on Manual mode, then when the 22 minutes are up, let the pressure cooker count up to 10 minutes as it's cooling. Carefully release the pressure valve following the manufacturer's directions, and it's done! Irrelevant Side Note: I love long brown rice, but I loathe short-grain brown rice. I don't really know why, but I despise it. If you invite me over to dinner and serve short-grain brown rice I will…thank you and eat it anyway, but I really think it's gross. End of irrelevant side note.
How to Cook Frozen Meat in the Instant Pot
I also use this great list of tips from Once a Month Meals on how to freezer cook for the Instant Pot.
Those are my favorite time-saving basic recipes for the Instant Pot – I hope you find them helpful!
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Hey, what is an instant pot? Is ther the crock pot/ pressure cooker pot?
Yes, mine is a pressure cooker, crock pot, yogurt maker, rice maker, and a few other functions all in one electric pot. 🙂
Wow, I didn’t knows they had them with that many functions. I don’t think mine does all that. Thanks!
Hi Jen, Laura from Hip Pressure Cooking, here. I’m so glad to see that a few of my recipes have become your go-to basics AND that you’re starting to come up with some of your own as well. I wanted to let you know that I have a “secret” page on the website where I sort pressure cooker recipes by diet – most of the major ones, including gluten-free.
Here is the link, I hope you find something unexpected and delicious:
http://www.hippressurecooking.com/category/diet/gluten-free/
Have a great day!
Ciao,
L
P.S. The secret page is linked from the menu called “sort by”.
Where is the best place to look for long grain brown rice? I just this week found Jasmine brown rice finally.
I get mine from Trader Joe’s, but when I can’t find it there, I get it at Target. My local Kroger doesn’t carry any good long grain brown rice! I’ve been looking into a co-op – apparently sometimes you can get a huge bulk order for a lot cheaper than the grocery store.
Thank you so much for the response! I’ll check Target. There is one across from my office. A co-op would be nice. I wonder if I could find it at the Georgia State Farmers market? They are about 15 minutes from me.
That’s a great idea. I know one of the most popular ones that I’ve been looking into is called Azure Standard, and I found them online.