Instant Pot recipe and owners' thread

[perditax]

I don't have the Instant Pot but I have the PPXL version, the one on the infomercial and love it. All pressure cooker recipes can be made in the various brands. I love it for potato salad. I refuse to make hard boiled eggs any other way now. One of my favorite easy recipes is to brown my hamburger or sausage, add pasta, jar of spaghetti sauce and a jar of water. I cook it 1/2 time that is listed on the pasta package. Then I quick release. You would think that it would be watered down with that jar of water but not in the least. After that recipe I was hooked. Haven't tried meat in mine. I hear people complaining about dry meat and I don't want to gamble $$.

I'm going to start with something like bone-in chicken thighs, in a coq au vin style. (Brown chicken, add onions carrots, garlic, red wine, broth, bit of tomato paste, etc).

 

[perditax]

Cooking hard boiled eggs in the IP is amazing! I put a cup of water in the pot, then a steamer basket on the trivet and then put the eggs on that, Set for 5 minutes on manual, 5 minutes natural release (then quick release to open the lid) then an ice bath for 5 minutes. It's known as the 5-5-5 method. Some do a 6-6-6 method as well. Cooked perfect every time and peeling is a breeze! I usually make a batch once a week, peel them and keep them in the fridge for a quick snack.

There's another method but I haven't tried it yet. Might the next time around.

Do you use one of those silicone baskets or something else?

 

[CarolAnn856]

For everyone who ordered one and is waiting until Christmas, a word of caution. I ordered a DUO60 during Amazon's Black Friday sale to use, not as a gift. When I plugged it in, nothing turned on. Made sure it was plugged in all the way. Nothing. Switched to a different outlet I knew was working. Nothing.

So, I now have a ticket submitted to Instant Pot and am hopeful that they will resolved the issue quickly. I was so excited to try mine out. Sigh.

 

[Lynne M]

Thanks for posting this! I've been curious about the Instant Pots for awhile, and now you've really gotten me interested.

One thing that concerns me is the sheer size of the thing. They seem to be around 5 or 6 quarts, which after using my little crockpot, sounds enormous. Sometimes I cook in bigger batches to make meals to freeze, but most of the time, I'm making one or two portions. Do smaller meals work well in an IP?

 

[OceanAnnie]

I wish I had seen the post about the Instant Pots that can make yogurt. That would have been cool. I think it's too late. Pretty sure my husband ordered one already. I guess if I see a sale on the yogurt making one, I could return the other. That's a lot of trouble though. I don't know how often I'd use that feature. Decisions, decisions.

 

[phorsenuf]

Thanks for posting this! I've been curious about the Instant Pots for awhile, and now you've really gotten me interested.

One thing that concerns me is the sheer size of the thing. They seem to be around 5 or 6 quarts, which after using my little crockpot, sounds enormous. Sometimes I cook in bigger batches to make meals to freeze, but most of the time, I'm making one or two portions. Do smaller meals work well in an IP?

Sure do! It's only my husband and I and I make the majority of my meals in it. You may find yourself making extra though because everything is soooo good!

 

[anniemae]

I still have not taken mine out of the box. I am too intimidated. What is an easy first recipe to try?

 

[perditax]

Heads up for people who may have ordered these as Christmas presents – – Amazon delivered mine today, and it comes in a clearly marked box with the Instant Pot name.

Right now I'm trying out a batch of chicken soup. I browned some chicken thighs and more poix on the sauté setting, added some garlic and bay leaf, covered in water, and now I'm waiting for it to come up to pressure. It seems like I could never get my old stove top pressure cooker to come to pressure, but maybe I was impatient or afraid of using too much heat. I'll let you guys know how it turns out.

 

[kidshop]

Making yogurt: I use the mason jar method so three 16 oz wide mouth mason jars and a quart of half and half. (I use this for my skinny ds's smoothies and it is a great sour cream sub!) You can use whatever dairy milk you like. The higher the fat the thicker and creamier the yogurt. I will do the directions for soy yogurt below.

First you steam the milk...add 1 cup of water to the pot with steam rack, place jars on rack and fill evenly with milk. Steam 1 minute, natural release. Remove jars and let cool to between 115 and 110 degrees. Then gently stir in starter. I use commercial yogurt, about a teaspoon a jar. Dump water out of pot and remove rack. put jars in pot, select yogurt and choose the amount of time. I do 15 hours for mine. the longer you go the tart-er the yogurt! I suggest 10-12 hours then adjust to your liking. When complete, put lids on the jars and place in refrigerator. Yogurt is ready when chilled. (6-7 hours)

soy yogurt is so easy and it tastes really good. The best soy milk to use is West Soy plain or Trader Joes plain. The ingredients should be just soybeans and water. It is already sterile in the aseptic pack so Just pour the room temperature milk into the 3 jars (for a quart) a stir in the teaspoon of starter for each jar. It seems like the milk should be warmed up but I have not and it worked just fine. Choose your yogurt button and hours (I do 15 ) Chill in refrigerator.

 

[MataHari22]

Thanks for posting this! I've been curious about the Instant Pots for awhile, and now you've really gotten me interested.

One thing that concerns me is the sheer size of the thing. They seem to be around 5 or 6 quarts, which after using my little crockpot, sounds enormous. Sometimes I cook in bigger batches to make meals to freeze, but most of the time, I'm making one or two portions. Do smaller meals work well in an IP?

Sure do! It's only my husband and I and I make the majority of my meals in it. You may find yourself making extra though because everything is soooo good!

I was contemplating getting one for myself on Monday, when it was $68, but talked myself out of it, because I have a tiny 2 quart crockpot that I always use because I only cook for myself, and don't usually do leaftovers, plus I also hardly eat any meat. I was thinking it would just be too big for me, plus I was just not sure what I'd cook in it. Now that it's back up to $128, I have some remorse that I did not buy it. I just don't know. I do cook for myself everyday, but I'm just not sure if it would work for tiny portions. Also, I'm kind of scared of them. Plus, I'm wondering how hard it is to open and close the top cover. Not sure if I'll be able to, I have extremely bad neuropathy in my hands and arms, and they are super weak. I'm wondering if I'll be able to manage all the pieces if they have to lock together and stuff.

 

[Tinijocaro]

We've had ours for two years now and it lives on our counter. I've used for so many things. Daily is stuff like rice and hard boiled eggs. Pulled pork, beef stew, pork chops-any time I need tender meat but don't have time I use my IP. The IP makes amazing cheesecake and rice pudding. I get most of my recipes from Pinterest.

You really just have to dive right in but don't start with a complicated recipe. Hard boiled eggs, frozen chicken breasts. Keep in mind that it isn't always as simple as one step cooking. For ribs I cook in the IP, then baste and broil them.

The other thing people seem to be confused on is the cook time. Before the timer comes on, the machine has to build up to pressure which can take anywhere from 10-30 minutes. THEN the countdown cook timer starts. So if a recipe says 15 minutes cook time, you have to add in the time that it takes to build up to pressure so I always allow at least 20 more minutes than the recipe says when I'm planning a meal. Also, you ahve to allow a few minutes for either manual or natural pressure release. Natural takes longer so you have to factor that time into your planning as well.

A couple things I do to make the pressure build up faster is turn the unit on saute before I start-that gets the pan hot. Then when ingredients are in, i turn it off and start the proper cycle. I also put in hot liquids whenever possible, it comes to pressure quicker.

 

[Flutter-butter]

I made spare ribs last night. I rubbed the ribs with dry rub, put 1 cup of water in the instant pot and coiled the ribs on top of the metal wire insert. I cooked it for 24 minutes manual and let it natural release. It was falling off the bone tender. I think I will try to do it for less time next time I do it so it has a little more substance.

ETA: I finished the ribs under the broiler to get them a little charred.

 

[Lynne M]

Does anyone know of any stores that carry the IPs? I'd like to look at it before I buy, get an idea of the size, weight, etc. I know I can look up the dimensions and weight online, but sometimes it's better to just look at the thing in person.

 

[perditax]

I don't think I've seen any in stores. The counter "footprint" is similar to other appliances like a stand mixer, large food processor or the older large circular crockpots (it seems like the big ones are all oval now). The six quart is actually more compact that I expected, which is nice.

I've done two "cooks" with the IP so far. One was a chicken soup from bone-in thighs, mire poix, and soup mix with noodles at the end. Very good. Tonight I tried the "whole chicken in a pot" trick. Texture was great (as was the texture of the meat for the soup), wasn't crazy about the flavor (bland). I usually dry-brine or marinate my chickens. I think I needed to make a good mushroom gravy or something to go with it.

Tomorrow I'll make some stock with tonight's carcass. Other plans I have include red wine-based braised dishes (coq au vin and such), maybe chili, and I still need to try the hard-boiled eggs.

Overall I'm impressed with the unit. It does what it's supposed to do, unlike my Fagor pressure cooker which I felt like I was constantly monitoring and worrying about. The IP comes up to pressure and then does its thing. It's surprisingly easy to work with and clean. The sauté mode gets very hot very fast, and will easily bring any liquids to a boil (such as for reducing). And best of all, I like the texture of the meat so far, which is something I could never really say about slow cooker meals, which always seemed dry and mushy to me. The IP turns out meat that's more similar (in my mind) to braising in a Dutch oven, but in much less time. That right there is a huge win.

EDIT: Oh, I forgot -- don't have a link, but there are recipes for caramelizing onions and then making French onion soup on Serious Eats. They really seemed to think the pressure cookers (including the electric ones) are the way to go if you want to caramelize a large batch of onions in a relatively short time, hands-free.

 

[Lynne M]

You guys are doing an excellent job of selling this thing, you should all be getting commissions.

I just looked up the measurements for this and compared it to my current slow cooker. It's actually smaller and lighter than the slow cooker. I think I'm running out of reasons not to buy it......

 

[kidshop]

I made black beans from dried today. My preferred method is to soak overnight, but last week I needed beans so 1 hour complete I had them for dinner! The quick soak under pressure works great but the beans split more and don"t look as pretty.

So to quick soak; (this is for black beans) add your rinsed and sorted dry beans to pot, add water to cover by a few inches and use manual for 2 minutes. I did a natural release but I have seen variations. At this point the beans are the same if you had soaked them overnight, so the following is for quick soaked or overnight soaked beans: Drain and rinse, put back in pot add water to cover by an inch or so and add seasonings if you like. I do add salt, as well as cumin, garlic and onion. Then use the bean or manual mode and cook for 9 minutes, natural release. Drain and use.

 

[OceanAnnie]

Making yogurt: I use the mason jar method so three 16 oz wide mouth mason jars and a quart of half and half. (I use this for my skinny ds's smoothies and it is a great sour cream sub!) You can use whatever dairy milk you like. The higher the fat the thicker and creamier the yogurt. I will do the directions for soy yogurt below.

First you steam the milk...add 1 cup of water to the pot with steam rack, place jars on rack and fill evenly with milk. Steam 1 minute, natural release. Remove jars and let cool to between 115 and 110 degrees. Then gently stir in starter. I use commercial yogurt, about a teaspoon a jar. Dump water out of pot and remove rack. put jars in pot, select yogurt and choose the amount of time. I do 15 hours for mine. the longer you go the tart-er the yogurt! I suggest 10-12 hours then adjust to your liking. When complete, put lids on the jars and place in refrigerator. Yogurt is ready when chilled. (6-7 hours)

soy yogurt is so easy and it tastes really good. The best soy milk to use is West Soy plain or Trader Joes plain. The ingredients should be just soybeans and water. It is already sterile in the aseptic pack so Just pour the room temperature milk into the 3 jars (for a quart) a stir in the teaspoon of starter for each jar. It seems like the milk should be warmed up but I have not and it worked just fine. Choose your yogurt button and hours (I do 15 ) Chill in refrigerator.

Thank you for posting this! I'd like to try making greek yogurt. Trying to reduce sugar and that would help a lot.

You guys are doing an excellent job of selling this thing, you should all be getting commissions.

I just looked up the measurements for this and compared it to my current slow cooker. It's actually smaller and lighter than the slow cooker. I think I'm running out of reasons not to buy it......

Yep. Looking forward to using it! It sounds nice.

 

[Flutter-butter]

Has anyone made anything else? I'm looking for ideas for tomorrow.

 

[Dancind]

I've had one of these for a couple of years and didn't really use it. Then found this recipe and had to try it:

https://thedomesticman.com/2016/01/26/pressure-cooker-duck-fat-risotto/

It's still our favorite recipe. So yummy, and it makes great leftovers. We vary the stock, meat, mushrooms. Once did a lobster risotto by using a seafood broth and adding the lobster after the risotto cooked. Don't skimp on the duck fat!

Now I use it several times a week, also make bone broth, chili, stews, soups, even Beef Bourginon. The trick to meat dishes is to not do quick release, let it release naturally. Pretty much any liquid you put in will still be there when you're done, so add accordingly. And it doesn't dissipate the alcohol in wine, so cook the wine down with the saute' function before you put the lid on and pressure cook. It really does make delicious food!

 

[Flutter-butter]

I've had one of these for a couple of years and didn't really use it. Then found this recipe and had to try it:

https://thedomesticman.com/2016/01/26/pressure-cooker-duck-fat-risotto/

It's still our favorite recipe. So yummy, and it makes great leftovers. We vary the stock, meat, mushrooms. Once did a lobster risotto by using a seafood broth and adding the lobster after the risotto cooked. Don't skimp on the duck fat!

Now I use it several times a week, also make bone broth, chili, stews, soups, even Beef Bourginon. The trick to meat dishes is to not do quick release, let it release naturally. Pretty much any liquid you put in will still be there when you're done, so add accordingly. And it doesn't dissipate the alcohol in wine, so cook the wine down with the saute' function before you put the lid on and pressure cook. It really does make delicious food!

I was wondering where you got the duck fat until I read the recipe. Duh. A jar. Have you ever tried to substitute the duck fat with something else?