These 20 basic Instant Pot recipes are perfect for beginners and experienced Instant Pot users alike! The best vegetables, proteins and grains to cook in the pressure cooker to save you time and free up your hands.
The Instant Pot has become absolutely indispensable in my cooking routine; I’ve been known to use it 3 times in a day! I love that it can cook food in a fraction of the time as the stove or slow cooker, and it also often eliminates the need to stir or babysit a pot on the stove.
If you are new to Instant Pot cooking, you might be wondering which are the best ingredients to cook in your Instant Pot. After years of trial and error, I can tell you with certainty that the ingredients in this post are the best ones!
These basic Instant Pot recipes will save you time in the kitchen and get food on your table quickly. Some of these recipes are cooked all the way through before a pot of water can come to boil on the stove!
If you are looking for full Instant Pot recipes, check out my Instant Pot page. This post focusses on how to cook the basics: from single ingredients to a handful of ingredients, each of these basic Instant Pot recipes deserves to be in your recipe box!
Chicken
Cooking chicken in the Instant Pot is a great idea! Since the Instant Pot cooks using wet heat, the chicken comes out perfectly juicy each and every time. The other benefit of the Instant Pot is that unlike the slow cooker, it is safe to cook chicken from frozen in the Instant Pot! Here are my favorite resources for cooking chicken in the Instant Pot:
7 Instant Pot Chicken Breast Recipes– this post talks you through the basics of cooking chicken breasts in the Instant Pot, plus shares 7 different recipes that you can cook. These recipes come with a sauce that is perfect for spooning over rice + veggies, but they may also be assembled ahead and frozen as ‘freezer packs’.
Instant Pot Whole Chicken– a budget-friendly and efficient way to cook chicken in the Instant Pot is to cook a whole chicken! This post walks you through the important steps to get maximum flavor from your chicken, plus explains how to cook it from fresh or from frozen.
Pork
The Instant Pot is great for cooking a few different cuts of pork, my favorites being pork shoulder (to make into pulled pork), and pork tenderloin.
Healthier Instant Pot Pulled Pork Recipe– this recipe speeds up the process of cooking pulled pork immensely! Rather than 8 hours in the slow cooker, you can have pulled pork in under 2 hours. This is the perfect ‘cook ahead and eat for multiple meals’ recipe.
Instant Pot Pork Tenderloin with Soy Ginger Sauce– smaller and way more prone to overcooking and drying out, pork tenderloin stays nice and juicy in this Instant Pot recipe, which also comes with a sauce that is perfect for spooning over rice and veggies. This recipe cooks quickly and can have pork tenderloin on your table in under 25 minutes!
Beef + Turkey
We don’t eat a lot of tough cuts of beef, but the Instant Pot is great for cutting down the cook time for those cuts of beef. What else is it good for? Cooking ground beef (or turkey) from fresh or frozen!
Instant Pot Frozen Ground Beef– this post shows you how to cook ground beef from frozen so that you don’t end up with tough, chewy beef. It also shows you two different ways you can flavor the beef after partially cooking it through.
Instant Pot Ground Turkey Lettuce Wraps– this post shows you how to cook ground turkey from frozen (spoiler- it’s exactly the same as ground beef)- plus comes with a delicious Asian sauce that is delicious in lettuce wraps or served with rice.
Vegetables
The Instant Pot is particularly useful for cooking vegetables that require a long cook time. Cooking the vegetables under high pressure speeds the cooking process immensely, and also makes it much more hands off.
Instant Pot Sweet Potatoes– one of my favorite veggies to cook in the Instant Pot is the sweet potato. Not only does the pressure cooker drastically reduce the time needed to cook a sweet potato, but they are perfectly tender and creamy each and every time. This post shares a formula for cooking your sweet potatoes that is based on the width of the potato.
Instant Pot Spaghetti Squash– another favorite veggie of mine to cook in the Instant Pot is the spaghetti squash- I don’t even bother cutting it, just poke it a few times and put it on to cook. This way, it’s easy peasy to cut in half, scoop out the seeds, and get the best textured spaghetti squash noodles possible.
Instant Pot Corn on the Cob– ready before your pot of water can boil <–That says enough! Cooking corn in the Instant Pot is easy, fast, and perfect corn on the cob each and every time.
Creamy Parmesan Instant Pot Mashed Cauliflower– just like my spaghetti squash method, I don’t bother cutting up my cauliflower before cooking in the Instant Pot. After cooking, the cauliflower is mashed with parmesan cheese and greek yogurt for a creamy, low carb side dish.
Instant Pot Carrots with Honey Glaze– looking for a quick and easy side dish? These Instant Pot carrots are going to be perfect for you. From start to finish: 20 minutes!
Herb & Garlic Instant Pot Mashed Potatoes– another recipe that could be cooked through before your pot of water comes to a boil! These Instant Pot mashed potatoes can be left on warm for hours after cooking and are great for a holiday or weeknight dinner.
Instant Pot Applesauce– not a veggie, but is so great cooked in the Instant Pot. You con’t need to keep an eye on a pot of applesauce to prevent it from boiling over or burning, and you get perfectly cooked applesauce each and every time! We make this at least twice a month.
Grains + Beans
Grains and beans are also so great to cook in your Instant Pot. From oatmeal to farro to black beans and more, the Instant Pot can help you fit more beans and grains into your diet by making the cooking process quick and easy.
Instant Pot Steel Cut Oats– probably my favorite Instant Pot recipe…ever. This is one I make 1-2 times a week! The Instant Pot speeds up the cooking process for steel cut oats, but more importantly does not require you to stand over the stove, making sure it doesn’t burn. So hands off and perfect for meal prep!
Perfect, Fluffy Instant Pot Quinoa– this recipe cooks quickly, and can cook a big batch. For very little effort, you are rewarded with perfectly fluffy quinoa each and every time!
Instant Pot Chickpeas (No Soak)– ditch the cans and cook your own chickpeas from scratch using this SUPER simple recipe. We cook this regularly and freeze leftovers. They taste so much better than canned chickpeas!
Perfect Black Beans– just like the chickpeas, no soaking is necessary and these taste so much better than canned!
How to Cook Farro– farro is a grain that has a long cook time. Cook it in the Instant Pot to save time!
Misc
A few odds + ends that don’t really fit in any category, these recipes are easy and convenient to prep in your Instant Pot.
(coming soon)- Instant Pot Hard Boiled Eggs- I find hard boiled eggs so much easier to prep in the Instant Pot, and the best part is that the shells are so easy to peel off!
The ONLY Bone Broth Recipe You’ll Ever Need– enriched with collagen and nutrients, bone broth is sometimes called ‘liquid gold’. Cooking bone broth the traditional way requires simmering on the stove top or in the slow cooker for at least 24 hours, but the Instant Pot reduces the cook time to 2 hours (a total of around 3 1/2 hours when you include time to come to pressure + naturally release).
