I'm curious what you like to use your pressure cooker for.

I use my Instatpot several times a week at least. I use it mostly for large fatty cuts of meat (chuck roast, pork shoulder, beef shank, short ribs, chicken thighs stuff like that.

I also use it to cook potatoes often. Beans are another common use here... from dry bean to cooked in 45-65 minutes depending on the bean size.

Soups are another common use for mine and so simple... toss in veggies, broth (water + Better than Bullion for me), and a few flash frozen chicken thighs (I put them in straight from the freezer) and after 8 minutes of cook time we have a great soup. Easiest meal in under 30 minutes.

Instantpot spaghetti is significantly better than stove-top methods. Easier too.

I'll use it to sterilize jars for canning as well, if I don't need to a big batch of jars.

What I don't use it for? Chili. My chili, I guess, doesn't have enough moisture for it to work. It always burns.

Looking for new ideas to try so hit me with what you got

I mostly use my Instant Pot for easy unplanned one-pot meals. I'll pull a frozen chop from the freezer (no defrosting necessary), and throw it in with some fresh chopped vegetables from the fridge and a few small potatoes from the pantry. It all comes out perfectly and evenly cooked, even though some started out frozen and some fresh.

Hmm, I.P. spaghetti- haven't tried that. How do you do it?

quote:

Originally posted by thumperfbc:
I'll use it to sterilize jars for canning as well, if I don't need to a big batch of jars.

Unless you're doing water-bath for less than 10ish minutes, canning jars don't need to be sterilized.

I used to do all of mine as well until I realized that it wasn't necessary. The canning process does the sterilization for you.

As far as the InstaPot goes, I've only done steel cut oats with mine. I've never been a huge fan of pressure cooked meals, preferring to take my time on the stovetop. Better flavor and better texture in my experience. But, that's just me. I know a lot of folks who love theirs and use it alot.

Lots of different soups and stews, for sure. For example, Chicken Parmesan Soup is one of my favorites in the Instant Pot, and gets made a few times per month during the winter. https://www.365daysofcrockpot....y-chicken-parm-soup/

It's also great for cutting down on the amount of dishes you have to clean by making "one pot meals", since you can use the Sauté setting to cook down or brown stuff like onions/garlic or meat and then add the other ingredients and pressure cook the meal using the same single pot. I use it this way for various "chicken breast in assorted sauce" type of recipes, like Dixie Chicken, Marry Me Chicken, or Lemon Chicken Romano.

I also use it this way to make Swedish meatballs from scratch, first browning the hand rolled meatballs before pressure cooking them in the sauce. https://damndelicious.net/2018...t-swedish-meatballs/

You can also use an Instant Pot for any recipe that calls for a crockpot/slow cooker, although the low slow cooker setting on my Instant Pot seems to be noticeably hotter than the low setting on my actual slow cooker, so it's not quite as good for really long 8-12 hour slow cooking.

Mostly soups and stocks.

quote:

Originally posted by thumperfbc:
<snip>
What I don't use it for? Chili. My chili, I guess, doesn't have enough moisture for it to work. It always burns.
<snip>

Put the chili in a large Corelle bowl. Put a half inch of water in your pressure cooker. Put in the riser. Set the bowl of chili on the riser. Your chili won’t burn.

Insta-Pots, air fryers and other such gadgets I never got a long with. I fail to see any advantage over conventional methods of cooking. But I'm old school when it comes to most things.

Mostly, I use it to air fry chicken. Quarter the chicken, coat pieces in corn oil. Usually, I just apply garlic salt but you can season any way you want. Let the bird sit on the counter for a couple of hours, which makes for more even cooking.

Preheat my 6.5 quart Ninja Foodi to 380 for seven minutes with the wire rack in low position. Place one breast/wing section and one leg quarter, face down (the cavity side of the bird.

Air fry for 15 minutes, then flip both pieces and air fry at the same temp for abut 25 minutes, give or take, depending upon the size of the bird. Use a thermometer to stop when the beat reaches 155 to 160, to allow for a bit of carry-over cooking while the bird is resting.

Then, air fry the other half of the bird.

This is a great way to get really tasty and moist chicken. Sometimes, I use barbecue sauce. I start out each side of pieces without barbecue sauce, coating the pieces in sauce only in the last 6 or 7 minutes of cooking each side, otherwise you would end up with completely burned sauce.

I tried a 6-point-something pound turkey breast for Thanksgiving this year, pressure-cooked. The Ninja guide recommended 40-50 minutes on high for a breast that size. I split the difference- 45 minutes and ended up with a breast temp of just shy of 200 degrees.

As you know, for pressure cooking, you can't stop the process to check temp, so...

Next time I try this for turkey, I'll reduce the time to 30 minutes. Should be about right.

quote:

Originally posted by kkina:
I mostly use my Instant Pot for easy unplanned one-pot meals. I'll pull a frozen chop from the freezer (no defrosting necessary), and throw it in with some fresh chopped vegetables from the fridge and a few small potatoes from the pantry. It all comes out perfectly and evenly cooked, even though some started out frozen and some fresh.

Hmm, I.P. spaghetti- haven't tried that. How do you do it?

With ground meat:
Brown the meat in the instant pot as normal. Pour in a full jar of sauce and mix it in with the browned meat (when doing this I use a wooden angled spatula and ensure I scrape the bottom of the pot to free any stuck on meat or else you might get the dreaded "BURN" message). Layer in a 1lb of dry noodles. Add another full jar of sauce (I live my spaghetti heavily sauced). Then pour 1.5 jars of room temp water into the pot. I try and make sure all noodles are submerged, but I suspect it actually doesn't matter at all. Cook it all for about 8 minutes (for the pasta I use).

Perhaps start with a 6 minute cook time for yours knowing you might need to cook it another minute or two until you figure out the right time for your taste.

Alternatively, for even easier prepping I'll use a whole bag of frozen small meatballs (like the Trader Joe's party meatballs). Those go in first, from frozen, then follow the rests of the directions above).

Quick release as soon as the cook time is over and give it a mix. It'll look liquidly at first but it'll absorb very quickly.

quote:

Originally posted by Gustofer:

quote:

Originally posted by thumperfbc:
I'll use it to sterilize jars for canning as well, if I don't need to a big batch of jars.

Unless you're doing water-bath for less than 10ish minutes, canning jars don't need to be sterilized.

I used to do all of mine as well until I realized that it wasn't necessary. The canning process does the sterilization for you.

Yea, I don't bother with my longer waterbath recipes but for short stuff, anything processing for less than 30 minute, I go ahead and do it. Plus having the hot jars saves time as I can preheat the water bath and not worry so much about thermal cracks.

quote:

Originally posted by lastmanstanding:
Insta-Pots, air fryers and other such gadgets I never got a long with. I fail to see any advantage over conventional methods of cooking. But I'm old school when it comes to most things.

Bone-in pork shoulder from raw to shredded in less than 90 minutes. The convenience and speed is worth a lot with 3 small kids at home. I'll often do either chuck roast of pork should seasoned only with salt and pepper as a "protein prep" for a week. Then it is easy to use the meat in a variety of ways using different flavor profiles. Saves a bunch of time.

Not having to defrost food alone makes pressure cooking a win for me.

Beyond that, food actually tastes better and has higher nutritional value. Reason is that high temperature, short duration causes less denaturing of nutrients. Veggies especially taste better to me.

One pot meals, faster cooking times...

I make a lot of stuff in my instant pot. I have even made a cake ( it didn't turn out great, but I think that was mostly my fault).

The best lasagna I have ever made were in the Instant pot, and bonus it's way faster like 35 to 50 minutes instead of 2 or 3 hours! The only problem is getting the lasagna out of the damn thing!

I make my pups lightly cooked homemade food in it, I add all the veggies in first! Cook 5 minutes, stick blinder and break it down some, add meat and the rice and oats ( small amount as binder ) cook 7 more minutes add the mackerel and salmon and eggs mix well let cool and bag it up and freeze until need.

I make bone broth in it every mouth or so, way faster and I can see any change in quality.

I say since I got my instant pot about 85%+ of what I make is in it. I love LOVE my instant pot!

I have an 8 quart instant pot with air fryer top. Heck, I made my complete Thanksgiving dinner with it, I smoked the turkey breast but I put it in the Instant pot with air fryer top for 12 minutes @ 400° to crisp up the skin ( which was almost perfect ), and dessert was smoked apples. So between the instant pot and smoker nothing else was used. Yes, some planing of time was in order, but everything came out perfect.

The funny thing is, I still haven't used all of the functions on it!



ARman

I don't use my instant pot a lot, but I sure do for when I want chicken, or turkey gizzards with extra wide egg noodles. I do my beans (pinto and Navy) in an old deep fat fryer and cook them for hours with the ham hocks. The kitchen smells Heavenly!!

I cooked about 90+% of my meals in one (a couple) for 3-4 years. I cooked pretty much everything in it.

quote:

Originally posted by kkina:
Not having to defrost food alone makes pressure cooking a win for me.

I wonder if that is why I overcooked my turkey breast using supplied directions. I thawed it. A 6 pound turkey breast, frozen, is a rock. It would never have occurred to me to put it in the cooker still frozen, but since I overshot my target temp by 40 degrees...

I'll have to check the cookbook. I don't recall that it specified frozen or thawed.

^That certainly sounds like it. I sometimes do a frozen pork roast, straight from the freezer, mixing with fresh vegetables and potatoes. It all comes out perfectly and evenly cooked.

I'm not sure what made me even try this, but a quick AI query tells me it's the way to go.

Whole oat groats for my breakfasts, rice, and lately chicken marsala.

quote:

Originally posted by mark60:
Whole oat groats for my breakfasts, rice, and lately chicken marsala.

Recipe for the Marsala, please?

I want to try it for steel cut oats now.

I use it mostly for Korean style braised short ribs (kalbi gim), Taiwan style beef noodle soup, ox tail soup, steamed beets, steamed artichokes, Japanese style braised pork belly (buta bara kakuni).