7 Tricky Dishes Made Easier With an Instant Pot

If don’t have an Instant Pot at home, you may be skeptical of the hype surrounding this hot new kitchen gadget. The electronic pressure cooker works for many dishes once limited to the oven or stove top, and according to fans, it makes cooking them a lot less stressful. Looking for some recipes to convert you to the Instant Pot camp? Start with these notoriously tricky dishes you may have avoided in the past.

1. BROWN RICE

Why It's Hard: Brown rice delivers a whole lot of nutritious bang for your buck, but it’s also famously unforgiving to home cooks. Mess up your rice-to-water ratio and you end up with rice that’s soupy and mushy; leave it on the stove for a few minutes too long and your rice comes out dry, or worse, burnt. The whole cooking process takes 45 minutes to an hour.

How an Instant Pot Makes It Easy: Like a rice cooker, an Instant Pot delivers perfectly steamed rice that requires little-to-no babysitting on your part. When preparing brown rice in an electric pressure cooker, you should use a rice-to-water ratio of approximately 2 cups to 2.5 cups, according to the food blog Our Best Bites. Cook for 22 to 24 minutes (depending on your elevation), and then give the pot a chance to release its pressure naturally for about 5 to 10 minutes. Your rice should come out fluffy and flavorful.

2. CHEESECAKE

Why It's Hard: Cheesecake is one of those treats that rarely turns out as good at home as it does when you order it from your favorite diner. Unlike other cakes, it has to be cooked in a hot water bath: Without one, you end up with ugly cracks breaking up the top. Between the 20-minute prep time, two-hour cook time, and the time it takes to cool down, baking cheesecake can be an all-day affair.

How an Instant Pot Makes It Easy: Cheesecake may not be the first thing that comes to mind when you think of cooking in an Instant Pot, but once you try it you’ll never go back. The food blog Little Spice Jar recommends preparing the graham cracker crust and cream cheese filling like you normally would, then placing the cake on a steaming rack inside the Instant Pot above one-and-a-quarter cups of water. Instead of sitting in a water bath, the cake steams, ensuring a perfectly smooth top. Allow it to cook on manual high pressure for 37 minutes, then let the Instant Pot naturally release pressure for another 25. Your cake will be cooked through in a little over one hour instead of two. (You'll still have to let it cool for a couple of hours, though.)

3. POACHED EGGS

Why It's Hard: It isn't easy to perfect poached eggs at home. Get it right, and you have a flawless white pillow that oozes with runny yolk the moment you pierce it with your fork. Get it wrong, and you have an egg with ragged, wispy whites and a yolk that’s broken or overcooked. The method for poaching an egg on the stove top involves dropping it in gently boiling water, a method that leaves a lot of room for error.

How an Instant Pot Makes It Easy: Poaching an egg with an Instant Pot is one step above hard-boiling it on the difficulty scale. This recipe from Cooking with Curls has you crack eggs into silicone cups rather than directly into a pot. Once your cups are filled, place them on a steaming rack inside your Instant Pot above one cup of water. Seal the lid and steam them for a few minutes to get round, neat, Benedict-ready poached eggs.

4. RISOTTO

Why It's Hard: Anyone who’s watched a competitive cooking show knows that risotto is infamous among chefs. The recipe, which involves stirring rice with liquid until it reaches a creamy consistency, is seemingly simple, but add the liquid too quickly, or not often enough, and you’ll miss out on that luscious texture the dish is known for. If you’re doing it right, making risotto can take up to 30 minutes of your undivided attention.

How an Instant Pot Makes It Easy: With an Instant Pot, making 7-minute risotto without the constant stirring is a possibility. This recipe from Hip Cooking has home chefs toast their rice in a preheated pressure cooker like you would with conventional risotto. Once the rice is ready, add the broth, seal the lid, and leave it to cook for five to six minutes. After releasing the pressure and giving the rice a good stir, your risotto should be ready to hit the plate.

5. MAC AND CHEESE

Why It's Hard: Homemade macaroni and cheese is one of life’s greatest pleasures. It also requires a lot of work, including cooking pasta, making a roux, and baking it all together in the oven. More steps means more time, more dishes to clean, and more opportunities to mess up.

How an Instant Pot Makes It Easy: Instant Pot mac and cheese is even more convenient than the boxed stuff. Instead of dirtying multiple pots, throw your ingredients—dry pasta, water, butter, seasonings—into your pressure cooker, says food blog Center Cut Cook. After leaving it to cook at high pressure for four minutes, release the pressure and add evaporated milk and a blend of shredded cheeses. Mix the ingredients to achieve gooey, cheesy goodness.

6. BAKED POTATOES

Why It's Hard: Traditional baked potatoes are less difficult than they are time-consuming. To get fluffy oven-baked potatoes at home, you need to be prepared to wait about 45 minutes.

How an Instant Pot Makes It Easy: An Instant Pot makes this simple dish even simpler. For this recipe from Self Proclaimed Foodie, just add a cup of water to the bottom of your pressure cooker, place your potato on the steaming rack, and close the lid. Cook the potatoes at high pressure for 12 to 20 minutes, then naturally release the pressure for another 10. That’s all it takes to transform your potatoes from hard and starchy to soft and creamy.

7. POT ROAST

Why It's Hard: Pot roast is a great meal to make on a lazy Sunday—not so much on a weeknight. The dish traditionally features a tougher cut of meat like chuck roast that needs to be cooked low and slow in a braising liquid until it becomes fall-apart tender. Depending on the size of your cut, the cooking process alone can take three to four hours.

How an Instant Pot Makes It Easy: Meet your new weeknight dinner staple. This recipe for pressure cooker pot roast from Amy + Jack cuts your roasting time in half and tastes just as good as a chuck roast cooked in a dutch oven. Start by browning your meat and sautéing your onions and garlic inside the hot Instant Pot. Load these ingredients into the pot with a cup of chicken stock and allow them to cook at high pressure for 45 minutes. Wait another 25 minutes for the cooker to depressurize naturally before removing the roast, and then add your vegetables and cook them on high for four minutes. Do a quick pressure release before taking out the vegetables and use the remaining juices to make your gravy.