So many of us bought Instant Pots during Black Friday and Cyber Monday – we’ve brought them home, unpacked them – yet I’m seeing a lot of people scared to even test it out!
Take out that manual and give it a quick read and we can go from there! And I promise, it’s really not that scary to use at all! So, start with your water test. Don’t skip that one, it’s important to make sure it’s running well, good seal and so on – who knows what happened to it during shipping.
Once you’ve done that water test, you’re now free to try anything you want! I see some brave people online who go right for cheesecakes or full pots of meat. I went slow, and tested with cheap ingredients I wouldn’t be upset about if I messed up. Eggs is a good one – you can do boiled eggs or even steamed eggs. That will be personal preference for how long you want it in there too, I’m finding for us 3 minutes for boiled eggs then into the cold water has been good. Just try a few test eggs at first, if they’re not perfect, no biggie.
You will hear or see a lot of terms for it, some easy ones are NPR – Natural Pressure Release….you let the steam come out on it’s own. FR is forced release (or QR for quick release) where you turn the valve and let the steam out. Use a towel or tongs or whatever until you’re comfortable with that. Also PIP – pot in pot. So, cooking several things in there, and using jars or pots or cake pans etc.
I had fun trying out a lot of desserts, some were so-so, some were good (lava cakes) but all were edible. One fun one is making homemade caramel! Good on cakes, ice cream, cheesecake topper – tons of possibilities. Would make a nice gift over the holidays too!
So far we’ve cooked with it daily, often a few meals and desserts a day – and nothing horrible has happened! I did goof around with an oatmeal recipe and got a BURN warning which was scary. Ends up it was just sticking at the bottom because I didn’t put butter but it was cooked and totally edible.
The best one so far and kind of a good test for all of it was a meatloaf dinner. We put carrots and potatoes at the bottom in the water, then meatloaf on top on the trivet, wrapped in foil. 25 minutes later and we had a complete dinner!
Another easy one is soup! I put in a big bag of frozen butternut squash, stock and spices and in 20 minutes had boiling hot soup!
Some stuff it seems like maybe it’s not faster or easier….like making pasta. You wonder, why not just use the stove? But, the nice thing is it’s in one pot. Dump in your sauce, pasta and water and close it. On the stove you have to wait for it to boil, then add the pasta, then stir, then come back to stir, make sure it doesn’t boil over and so on. If you’re busy with kids or work, not having to ever come back to check on it is amazing! The machine beeps too to let you know what’s going on – when i got that burn notice, I was very aware of it!
Just remember that things cook FAST in there, really fast! And one big thing is recipes may sound so fast online, but you need to take into account the time it takes for the machine to get to pressure. Can be just a few minutes, but if there’s something with a ton of water it could be a while. Longest we’ve had is maybe 10 minutes extra so far. But, it’s not something you have to come back and reset or check either.
There’s a lot of extra things you can buy for it too – extra seals in case they start to stink, a glass lid if you plan on sauteeing or slow cooking a lot and all kinds of containers for PIP cooking. Keep an eye out for containers that could work on sale, at discount stores, used stores – wherever you shop! Measure out your machine and keep that written somewhere and you’ll know if it would fit or not too.
Make sure to save the recipes that work for you – whether it’s an app, screenshots or like me, printing them out to file away. I plan on saving all the ones that have worked well for us, so I have a quick list for meal planning.
And join some facebook groups for recipes, tips, help – there’s the actual branded group which is closely approaching a million members! Look for a local group too if you want – I hear people are even getting together to learn and share recipes which is great! We have one for Manitoba if you want to join and are local.
Don’t be scared to use it! Take it out and try it! If you’ve had one put away for a while, take it out again! There are so many users now that the recipes online are amazing! Google Instant Pot and the ingredients you have and you’ll find a great selection.
And if you mess up – oh well! It happens to everyone! Have fun with it!
And let me know in the comments what your favourite recipes are, and your tips for new users too!