Meal prep is a valuable life skill that optimizes your time and energy in the kitchen. The Instant Pot, a versatile electric multi-cooker, can be a game-changer for healthy cooking and meal planning. This article provides a comprehensive guide to using your Instant Pot for healthy meal prep.
Is the Instant Pot Good for Meal Prep?
The Instant Pot and other electric multi-cookers can make meal prepping and batch cooking faster and easier. If you're motivated to cook healthy whole foods, this tool can support your efforts.
Reason #1: Faster Cooking Times
Inside a pressure cooker, the boiling point of water is higher, resulting in shorter cook times compared to other methods. This is especially helpful for tough foods like dried beans, whole grains, root vegetables, or longer-cooking cuts of meat. For example, quinoa can be cooked in 1 minute, brown rice in 22 minutes, and steel-cut oatmeal in 5 minutes.
Reason #2: Hands-Off Cooking
The low-maintenance, hands-off cooking that the Instant Pot offers is a game-changer. You can drift in and out of your kitchen to deal with other tasks while your meal is cooking.
Tips for Healthy Meal Prep with the Instant Pot
To set yourself up for success, consider these questions:
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- Who are you feeding? What kind of nutritional needs do they have?
- What kind of meals are you covering? Breakfast, lunch, dinner, snacks?
- What about time constraints? How much time can you dedicate to the prep session? How much time will be available for secondary prep before serving? Do you need fully ready-to-eat dishes, or will prepped components give you the head start you need?
Choosing Meal Prep Recipes
Consider these factors when choosing recipes:
- Balance and variety: Aim for well-rounded nutrition. Fill your fridge with a diverse buffet of vegetables, beans, grains, meats, eggs, soups, and whatever else your dinner plans require.
- Pressure cooking vs. other methods: Complement your pressure cooking with other kinds of food prep. Include fresh, crunchy vegetables and roasted items.
Optimizing Your Time
- Order of Operations: Start with recipes that require less prep time and less cleanup for your Instant Pot, such as a batch of hard-boiled eggs.
- Take advantage of hands-off pressure cooking time: Wash and chop vegetables or tackle other tasks while your Instant Pot is running.
- Double Decker Cooking: Use the "Pot in Pot" method to cook two items simultaneously.
Favorite Easy Foods for Healthy Instant Pot Meal Prep
Here are some foods that are easy to prepare in the Instant Pot for meal prep:
Whole Grains
Serve whole grains as a fluffy bed under stews or stir-fries, or add them to salads. Oatmeal or other porridges are also a great make-ahead breakfast option.
- Quinoa: 1 minute
- Brown rice: 22 minutes
- Steel-cut oatmeal: 5 minutes. Flavors to try: Banana Nut, Coconut, Pumpkin Spice, Carrot Cake!
Beans
Add protein and fiber to salads or soups, puree them into dips, or use them to fill burritos or quesadillas. Chickpeas are great for baking into crunchy snacks, too.
- Black beans, soaked: 10 minutes
- Chickpeas, soaked: 15 minutes
- Lentils, unsoaked: 5 minutes
Eggs
Hard-boiled eggs are nutrient-dense additions to snacks, lunches, or breakfasts.
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Meats/Poultry
Add protein to your plate, salads, sandwiches, or other meals throughout the week.
Vegetables
Lots of veggies are good candidates to make ahead in your Instant Pot.
Soups
It is so great to have homemade soup ready to reheat for quick lunches, especially in cold weather. They’re even better if you make your own chicken stock.
Instant Pot Meal Prep Recipes
Here are some healthy Instant Pot meal prep recipes to get you started:
Breakfast Recipes
- Instant Pot Breakfast Casserole: A simple, healthy, and flavorful casserole with eggs, bacon, spinach, bell peppers, and cheese.
- Instant Pot Protein Pancake Bites: A fun alternative to pancakes.
- Instant Pot Baked Oatmeal: Tender and lightly sweet.
- Instant Pot Egg Bites: Soft, creamy, and easy to customize.
- Instant Pot Hard and Soft Boiled Eggs: Easy to peel and ready in minutes.
- Instant Pot Steel Cut Oats: Creamy, nutritious, and easy to customize.
- Instant Pot Applesauce: The most hands-off way to make it.
Chicken Recipes
- Instant Pot Honey Garlic Chicken: Has a deliciously sticky sauce that can be spooned over the chicken, rice, and veggies.
- Instant Pot Chicken Breasts with Sun Dried Tomato Cream Sauce: Makes a restaurant-quality meal in under 30 minutes!
- Instant Pot Thai Curry: Has a creamy, spicy, and flavorful sauce.
- Instant Pot Coconut Sweet Chili Chicken Stir Fry: Easily ready in under 30 minutes!
- Instant Pot Lemon Garlic Chicken Thighs: Tender and infused with lemon garlic flavor. Spoon the sauce over the chicken, rice, and vegetables!
Other Meat Recipes
- Instant Pot Cajun Rice and Sausage: An easy one-pot meal made with smoked andouille sausage, basmati rice, carrots, onion, tomatoes, and celery.
- Pulled Pork Meal Prep Bowls: Full of summery flavors: spicy Instant Pot pulled pork, roasted sweet potatoes, corn, and fresh tomatoes!
- Pulled Pork Burrito Bowls: Packed with southwestern flavor and lots of healthy ingredients for a complete one-bowl meal.
- Mongolian beef: High in protein and B vitamins.
Vegetarian Recipes
- Instant Pot Fiesta Rice Bowls: A vegetarian, gluten-free recipe that works great for meal prep!
- Moroccan Instant Pot Lentils: Made with sweet potato, tomatoes, carrots, and warming spices!
- Instant Pot Quinoa Enchilada Casserole: A delicious and easy weeknight dinner!
- Instant Pot Vegan Chickpea Curry: Cooks chickpeas, carrots, potatoes and green beans in a fragrant Indian curry sauce.
- Instant Pot Vegetarian Chili: Hearty and flavorful!
- Instant Pot Mujadara: A classic Arabic recipe that consists of a mix of lentils and rice and gets all the more crave-worthy thanks to a mix of Moroccan spices.
- Instant Pot Channa Masala: Cooking the tomato sauce in olive oil gives everything a richer, deeper flavor.
- Instant Pot Lentil Soup: This recipe takes things a step further with a rainbow of beautiful veggies.
- Instant Pot Sweet Potatoes with Thai-inspired peanut sauce: The spuds get super creamy.
Soup Recipes
- Instant Pot Cauliflower Soup: Creamy, smooth, and sinfully cheesy.
- Instant Pot Turkey Chili: With bold Tex Mex flavor and a simple ingredients list.
- Instant Pot Butternut Squash Soup: Creamy and rich, with a hint of sage flavor.
- Instant Pot Vegetable Beef Soup: Has tender chunks of beef and plenty of vegetables simmered in a flavorful broth.
- Instant Pot Lentil Soup: Tastes gourmet but uses simple pantry ingredients to build big flavors.
- Instant Pot Tuscan Chicken Stew: Full of veggies, with a boost of flavor from fennel seeds, rosemary and balsamic vinegar.
Freezer-Friendly Meal Prep Instant Pot Recipes
Some Instant Pot recipes can be prepped ahead of time, stored in your freezer, and dumped into the pressure cooker on a night when you need a quick, easy dinner!
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Overcoming Instant Pot Hesitations
Some people prefer traditional cooking methods and are hesitant to use an Instant Pot. However, many Instant Pot recipes can be adapted for the stovetop or slow cooker. The Instant Pot simply offers a faster and more convenient way to cook certain dishes.
Meal Planning and Prepping
- Choose your dinners for the week and prep them ahead of time or just prep the ingredients.
- Choose a carb from the basics list that takes no prep time to get into the IP (like brown rice, quinoa or sweet potatoes) so that you can get right to your other prepping while that's going.
- Choose 1 breakfast and 1-2 lunches to make for the week, choosing one that is a non-IP recipe that you can have cooking while your IP is going!
- First, cook the carb that you chose from the basics list in your Instant Pot. If you also wanted to make your dinners ahead, you may want to freeze a few that you'll eat towards the end of the week!