An Instant What? Why and How to Use and Instant Pot for SIMPLE Meal Prep
I was talking to a friend recently and she told me about this cartoon she saw.
The first frame is of a woman who just got an instant pot and is totally overwhelmed by all the settings and just doesn't know what to do with it. So she doesn't use it and let's it sit. FOR MONTHS.
Then she finally uses it. And the first time she manually releases the pressure she jumps and screams a little, because she wasn't expecting all that force!
After that, she becomes obsessed with using the Instant Pot and literally makes everything in it.
Yep, that totally sounds like me.
In this episode, I provide some guidance on how to use the Instant Pot, and describe how you can make some SIMPLE recipes for your family.
Transcript of the Episode
So a couple weeks ago, I was at my book club, and my book club has transitioned over to online virtual book club. And before we really started the discussion, one of my friends, the friend who organizes the book club, was talking about how she had an instapot, but never has used it. She got it for her birthday, which, two years ago, so her birthday is in February right now it's December. So it's almost been a full two years, and she literally has never used her instant pot. So I offered to help her out. And so I put together a little workshop for it. And this recording is a summary of what we talked about at our book club, with our book club for our instantpot group.
Adventures In Feeding My Fam is a weekly podcast discussing the challenges and fun around feeding your family healthy meals. I'm Andrea Heyman. And I've been a registered dietician for over 25 years. So I know the importance of good nutrition. But I'm also a mom of three, so I understand the challenges in tumor that comes along with trying to make this happen. In this podcast, I'll share my tips, tricks and menus, but also share the stories and food prep failures that come along the way to interview guests, we'll discuss family food traditions, how to strengthen bonds around the family table, as well as their favorite family recipes. There isn't one right way to feed your family. But there are countless stories, you can take bits and pieces and learn from all of them.
So we will go over learning to use the instant pot. Now why is it so overwhelming. It's really funny. Another friend of mine was telling me how she was looking at this spoof. I forget the name of it. But she was looking at this kind of sketch of somebody who had put together like the typical reaction of what people feel like when they get their instant pot. So initially, it's like, oh, my God, super overwhelming, and they never use it. Because A 027 Final Copy AIFMF Page 1 of 4 Transcribed by https://otter.ai there's so many buttons and just to have no idea how to go about using this thing, then they finally get to using it. And it's like the first time they release the steam from the top and release that pressure, no matter what no matter how many times someone warns you, you will jump because the force of the steam that is released from it is actually quite shocking. And it's hot, so it's a little bit scary. And then once you kind of get the hang of it. It's almost like you're obsessed with the instant pot and proceed to make everything using it. So it's definitely kind of a very typical progression with it.
So what is it really well, it's a multi cooker. It's six in one cooker. So not only can you pressure cook, but you can slow cook, saute, and there are settings for specific foods as well. But I would say the most typical features are the slow cooker, the pressure cooker and the saute feature. And we're going to talk a little bit more about each of those in a minute. But it is a device, typically about $120 at most stores, although you can find them on sale periodically. It's not the smallest item. However, there are a lot of benefits to it. So some of the pros are that the cooking process self regulates, it uses less time, so significantly less time, let's say you were going to make a brisket in there that would take all day to cook typically maybe nine or 10 hours to cook, you can make that roast in the instapot under the pressure cooks setting in an hour and a half, typically. So since it's all in one, there are typically fewer dirty dishes. The instapot requires a lot less oil to cook, and it's super versatile. So pretty much you can make anything in there.
However, people do get really overwhelmed with all the settings and the buttons that they find on the face of the instapot. And to be quite honest. Mine has a series of preset buttons. So for example, there's a button for vegetable there's a button for rice, and there's a button for yogurt, a variety of different options. I literally never use those. I really just use The manual cook option, so that I can choose how much time I'm going to be cooking the item. There are some really nice charts. And typically if you find a specific recipe that you're following, the recipe will indicate the recommended cook time. And whenever the cook time on the recipe indicates the high setting, that's always going to be the pressure cook setting. So I usually just use the manual buttons and adjust the time I don't use all of those preset buttons, I tend to find that they don't always work perfectly, whether it's foods get a little bit overcooked, or Yeah, typically things might get burned because it doesn't, the machine doesn't necessarily know how much you have in the pot. So I really stick to those manual settings and adjusting the time to what I want. But I do however, use the saute feature what I would recommend if you are for example making a soup or you're browning some meat or chicken in the Instant Pot before you pressure cook it, the saute feature, you might put the food item into the base, press saute start to get that going. I would turn off saute shortly before you are finished sorting. The reason is is because the food remains in and in the pot. And so if you wait until the food is completely sauteed and finished, then you tend to overcook it because the heat doesn't cool down automatically right away. Okay, there also is a keep warm button. So you can set your cook time, then go ahead and once Once that's complete, the machine will then have the option to keep your food warm. And that's a really nice feature depending on what your food is if you want to maintain the temperature for a period of time, rice, there is a rice button on my instapot I honestly have never mastered using that. And my rice tends to not turn out great in there. But some people have luck with it. And probably the biggest component or the biggest the trickiest thing on there is the natural pressure versus the manual pressure release. So if you look at the lid of your instapot when you're putting the lid on, you want to make sure that there's a knobby thing up there and it needs to be turned toward the ceiling, so that when you put the lid on, and it does its thing, it is sealed tight, and that way it can come to a proper pressure cook. After the cook time elapses, you can either do one of two things, you can allow the machine to slowly come to release the pressure inside the machine. And that could take somewhere between 10 to 20 minutes about, I typically use the manual pressure release. That is where you will take that same knob at the top and turn it to the venting position. I will tell you one, always make sure when you do this that the instant pot is not under a cabinet, because it will release quite a lot of steam. And especially if you have wooden cabinets, that moisture from that steam can be quite damaging. If your device is set underneath the cabinet, the steam can damage the wooden cabinets. So we definitely don't want that. And this is where I mentioned before that no matter what you will scare yourself the first time you use the manual pressure release. I recommend using a spatula or something of that nature so that you don't have to touch it directly. And I would still even put a hot pad on my hand. But I guarantee even though I'm warning you now you will jump in your will do a little hook the first time you do it because it is pretty forceful, and it's pretty shocking.
Okay, in which settings Do you want to let it go on the natural pressure versus the manual pressure. So if you do the natural pressure release food, there's still going to be a fair amount of cooking still. So if it's something like vegetables that you don't want to get mushy and overcooked, then I would do the manual pressure release so that it quicker. So those are the typical options. I'm going to leave a link at the bottom so that you guys can see a short video about manual versus natural pressure release. And I think that'll be really helpful just for you to see what it looks like when that happens, it's a minute video.
The other thing I'm going to do is leave you all with some of my favorite Instant Pot recipes. That'll be in the show notes for those of you who are listening on the podcast, and also that'll be a bonus for those of you who are watching this over video, okay, you will find a bazillion accessories out there for your instant pot. So I would say right off the bat, you don't necessarily need to have all of those accessories. However, if you become one of those people that loves your instant pot, and you make so many things using it, and then you might in fact, want to get some accessories, I actually did get an accessory package. So usually they're sold in like a package, you get like 20 different items all together for a pretty reasonable price. But I have to say the things that I like the best are the steamer basket, and also the silicone oven mitts. So they almost look like crab claws. And that's so that you can very easily pull out the interior bucket of the Instant Pot without burning yourself because it does get pretty hot. Something that a friend told me about just yesterday is called a steam release diverter. For $10, you can get a silicone attachment that you can put right on top of that valve on on your lid. So that the next time if you want to do the manual pressure release, you can first of all touch directly on that silicone device. It's just like a little, almost like a nozzle. And then what it does is instead of all that pressure coming spewing out up above the top, it sort of diverts it to the bottom and toward the sides. So you don't have all the pressure coming out in one stream. It's kind of in a couple of different streams. So it's not nearly as powerful or forceful. And you just don't have kind of the the fear factor there.
And cleaning. So most of the components of the Instant Pot are dishwasher safe. That includes the inner part of the cooker. And also the lid is dishwasher safe. I've never put mine in the dishwasher, I don't find that it gets particularly dirty at all. But obviously the base of the machine with the heating element that is not dishwasher safe. If you find that your inner part of your cooker and over time, you're going to find that it gets like these little bluish rings on the interior that can be easily pretty easily scrubbed off with white vinegar, if that bothers you, and the exterior of the base can be cleaned with a damp cloth. And that's it. So what I mentioned was, so yesterday, I made a cauliflower curry, which was absolutely fantastic, feeds a lot of people and I did make rice on the stovetop as well.
But I hope you enjoyed that. I'm going to include my five favorite recipes that I make in the instant pot. And I hope you'll enjoy that. For those of you listening on the podcast. As always, if you enjoy this episode, you can review you can share the episode with a friend. But I hope this was helpful. Let me know what you want to hear more of. And I'm always available on Instagram at adventures and feeding my fam. And I've also got my facebook group. And now most of you may or may not know that I am offering my 52 recipes challenge. And that is where I challenge folks, myself included. To make one new to me plant based recipe every once a week for a year. The idea is that we're getting additional variety in our diet, more plant based foods and improved health. While we're all doing this with the camaraderie of others and sharing ideas. Take care