ISO Reference (not recipe) book or website for Instant Pot

February 9, 2019 12:55 PM

I would like a reference book or web site for cooking with an Instant Pot. I want actual guidelines on how to figure out how long to cook things, how to think about natural vent versus fast vent, how to adapt recipes, etc.

I'm not looking for a recipe book. I'm more picturing a book with a bunch of tables and lists and general instructions:

How long to cook 1 boneless chicken thigh fresh, 1 boneless chicken thigh frozen, 2 boneless chicken thighs fresh, 2 boneless chicken thighs frozen etc. how long to cook if not boneless, how long to cook if cut up into little chunks, etc.

How to figure out cooking times if you're combining foods (can I make a whole chicken in the trivet above and the rice-based stuffing loose in the pot below?).

How to adapt recipes. I don't just want tips "consider the thickness of food..." but actual guidelines, even if a range e.g. (add 2-3 minutes if meat is more than 3 inches thick).

When it says max 2/3 full, does that mean it can't go over that line that is 2/3 of the way up the pot, or does it mean no more than 2/3 of the pots volume can be filled (e.g. if something is "floating" on a trivet, can it go higher than the 2/3 line since there's empty space below?)

I'm open to sections on workflow type things (freeze your ingredients in round containers, turn on the saute while you chop other ingredients so it gets up to pressure faster etc.), but that's mainly not what I'm looking for.

posted by If only I had a penguin... to Food & Drink (3 answers total)

Some of these answers you may be able to glean from an old fashioned pressure cooker cookbook. We have one that came with our old stovetop pressure cooker that had charts of times and pressure levels for various foods along with some recipes. We don't have to pressure cooker any more because we got an InstantPot-alike, but we kept the book because it's legit handy.
posted by soren_lorensen at 6:04 PM on February 9, 2019

You might want to google something like “instant pot cheat sheet.” There are lots out there, some of which are general time guidelines for various foods, and some that break down exactly what each of the presets do, and what they are actually useful for. (Many of the presets are just time settings, a few have extra functions which aren’t necessarily obvious.)
posted by catatethebird at 8:32 PM on February 9, 2019

Check out Hip Pressure Cooking. The Tips & Info section is filled with just this sort of information though you may have to wade through a bit to find exactly what you’re after. The cooking time chart is an excellent reference, and other articles do a good job explaining the science of pressure cooking.
posted by ReginaHart at 11:51 AM on February 10, 2019 [1 favorite]