25 Recipes to Get You Started with Your Pressure Cooker (2024)

FAQs

What Cannot be cooked in a pressure cooker? ›

It is safe to cook frozen food in a pressure cooker because it uses pressure to move food through the "Danger Zone" quickly. As a result, you don't run into the issues that you would find by cooking frozen food in a slow cooker, where it can stay too long in the Danger Zone and could become unsafe.

Slow cookers utilize long cooking times to develop these richer flavors, while pressure cookers use high heat and pressure to impart as much flavor as possible in a shorter time.

Pressure cooking can reduce heat-sensitive nutrients (e.g., vitamin C, folate) and bioactive phytonutrients, such as betacarotene, glucosinolates (helpful compounds found in cruciferous vegetables) and omega-3 fatty acids, that are beneficial for human health.

To cook meat without water in a pressure cooker, simply add the meat to the pot, along with any seasonings, herbs, or other ingredients that you like. Close the lid, seal the pressure release valve, and set the pressure cooker to high pressure.

Mostly we boil potatoes in a pressure cooker, but like rice, potatoes also contain a lot of starch. This is the reason why boiling or cooking in this pressure cooker is not considered good for health. If you still plan to use cooker for the same, add a lot of water and wash them thoroughly post cooking.

For an old-fashion-type pressure cooker, place the cooker on medium-high heat and brown the foods. Then add liquids and remaining ingredients, cover, bring pressure up, and complete the pressure cooking. For newer cookers, most have a brown function—see manufacturer's instructions.

Before first time use

Clean the pressure cooker with a sponge using a mild detergent or soapy water and 2 or 3 drops of vinegar, before using for the first time. Any oil adhering to the cooker will yellow and harden if it is exposed to heat before the oil is cleaned off and will be difficult to remove.

To play it safe, we recommend waiting for 15 minutes after you've turned your cooker off to open it. This will allow enough time for its internal temperature and pressure to drop to safe levels. It's important to note that if the lid seems slightly stuck at first, you'll need to wait a bit longer.

Both slow cookers and pressure cookers do a good job of tenderizing tough meat, but each makes meat more edible in a different way.

What meat can you cook in pressure cooker? ›

You can still pressure cook leaner pieces – like eye of round and top sirloin – but these work best if they've been stuffed, shredded or rolled (with other ingredients). Best cuts of beef to use: Chuck steak, Round Roast, Shoulder, Pot roast, Ribs, Brisket, Oxtail.

Unfortunately, once you overcook a piece of meat in the pressure cooker, there's no going back. You'll be left with a pile of dry, crunchy, tasteless fibers and no amount of additional pressure cooking is going to put that moisture back into the meat. Earlier, I explained how ingredient size affects the cooking time.

You can use a pressure cooker to brown, boil, steam, poach, steam roast, braise, stew, or roast food. Nowadays, you can even bake in your pressure cooker! Many people who are using electric pressure cookers like Instant Pot Pressure Cooker are even making cheesecakes and homemade yogurt.

In a pressure cooker, you put the food in and something that takes hours and hours, like short ribs, can cook in just 45 minutes or an hour. Instead of simmering chicken stock on the stove for hours, you can make it in about an hour. As a Personal Chef, speed is of the essence and I use my pressure cookers a lot.

In fact, it's water that helps generate the high-pressure environment that makes your food cook faster. Most pressure cooker instructions state a minimum amount of water required for pressure cooking even a tiny amount of food.

As the ingredients cook under pressure, their flavors are concentrated, resulting in a richer taste. Tenderization: Pressure cooking breaks down tough fibers in meats and other ingredients, making them more tender and juicy.