We take a break from your regularly-scheduled book chatter to discuss the Instant Pot -- more specifically, my first experience using the Instant Pot. I’m posting this here because a bunch of people asked me how to actually use it; apparently there are a lot of you who’ve bought it, watched videos, and checked out recipes but have been too scared of this high-pressure cooker exploding to actually use it.
That’s okay. I felt that way too, and it really took a few friends walking me through it to get over that hump. Now I feel way better and understand the timing/sights/sounds. So hopefully this will walk you through it, including all of the fear-inducing points. Also this gives me a bunch of notes I can reference later when I do get scared again.
I started with this chicken and rice recipe. It’s pretty straightforward but I’ll annotate the steps here:
Ingredients:
- 1 lb fresh mushrooms sliced
- 1/2 onion chopped
- 1 cup long grain white rice
- 3 chicken breasts 7-8 oz each
- 1 3/4 cups low sodium chicken broth or water
- 10 oz cream of mushroom soup condensed
- salt and black pepper
NOTE: I could only find medium grain rice. Because of that the rice turned out a little soggy but not bad.
I found the biggest cause of anxiety was not knowing what the hell was supposed to be happening. “Why is this steaming?” “Should it have beeped by now?” “Is this going to explode?” I tried to document all of the times I had these fears and what I actually experienced, so hopefully that can translate into a good guide for you.
Instructions
Note that all the steps here are from that recipe above but the comments are all from my experience.
- Grease inside of a 6QT instant pot. Season chicken breasts with salt and pepper to taste. Rinse rice under cool water until the water runs clear.
To grease the inside of the pot, I just used a paper towel with olive oil and coated it twice.
- In order add mushrooms, onion, rice, chicken breasts to the Instant Pot.
I did this like a lasagna layer. Also the 3 chicken breasts basically took up the whole radius of the pot and I was terrified that having it touch the pot would somehow burn it. I don’t think this is a concern at all but for the purpose of this recipe, I nudged them so they fit without touching the bowl.
- Pour broth over chicken breasts. Spread mushrooms soup overtop of chicken breasts. Do not stir.
The volume of broth will NOT cover the all the rice. That is okay. I double-checked my measurements when I saw this but it turned out fine.
- Set instant pot to MANUAL. Choose HIGH PRESSURE for 10 minutes. (The Instant Pot will take about 15 minutes to reach pressure).
Okay, so here is the specific play-by-play..
- Plug in your Instant Pot. The display will say OFF.
- Put the lid on and move it to the locked position. It’s gonna play a chime. If you want to experiment, you can move it back and forth from open to closed and back again to hear the open chime and closed chime (they’re different). I also compared my position to a photo online to make sure that yes, it was properly closed and not like backwards or anything.
- Move the vent valve to SEALING. The feel for this will be a little loose.
- Press Manual. This sets it to a manual timer. The default, I believe, 4 with the High Pressure setting.
- Increase the time on the display to 10 with the +/- buttons..
- Press Pressure. It will remain on High Pressure, just leave it there (pressing it again will switch it to Low Pressure).
- It will beep and the display will say ON.
- Now it starts the pressurization process. From the vent (red metal button next to the valve) you’ll see some amount of steam come out during the pressurization process. That’s okay.
- Around the 9 minute mark, it’s gonna start sounding more intense and you’ll see the red button start to gradually raise.
- At around the 10 minute mark (mine was exactly 10:30, I timed it), the red button will pop up and seal off any venting, so no more steam comes out. At this point, the display turns to 10 and begins counting down to cook.
- When it finishes, it will automatically go to Keep Warm. You can keep it here or unplug it to start cooling off your IP, either way is fine. Someone actually did an experiment with this and found that it makes no difference in depressurization. I actually unplugged mine because I was making this for future lunches rather than serving now and I figured the internal stuff would be less how this way.
- Once completed, allow the Instant Pot to naturally release for 10 minutes. Release any remaining pressure.
I set a timer for this and after 10 minutes of letting it sit (natural release is literally just doing nothing), I used a spoon to nudge the valve from SEALING to VENTING. When the hot air vents, it is definitely a little jarring. I used a hand towel to dissipate the steam so it didn’t go straight into my kitchen ceiling. This process took about two minutes and it gradually dies down. At the end, the red metal button just drops.
- Open the Instant Pot and remove chicken. Stir rice and mushrooms. Shred chicken and return to rice and mix well.
Nothing fancy here. The top layer looked soupy, but it balances out when you stir. I used tongs to take the chicken out and put on a plate to shred with forks. I also admired the perfect cook on them first. Be careful when you mix because the inside of the metal pot was hot.
- Garnish with parsley if desired and serve.
I was lazy and did not garnish with anything.
And that’s it! I used to make chicken bakes in the oven with celery, carrots, garlic, and other stuff but for this to be a controlled learning experiment, I wanted to make it exactly like the recipe. My next Instant Pot experiment will be a spaghetti recipe that Peng Shepherd, author of THE BOOK OF M, sent to me.
