14 Pressure Cooker Recipes to Get You Started

Chicken stock, one of the building blocks of good cooking, is a snap to make in the pressure cooker. After only two hours, you’re rewarded with a rich, flavorful broth that tastes like it simmered all day.

Potatoes cook in only eight minutes and come out creamy and flavorful each time. In fact, I think they taste better — more potato-y than traditional boiled, steamed, or baked potatoes.

Cooking dried beans always seems like such a chore — you have to soak the beans and then cook them low and slow on the stovetop for hours. While this can be a nice project for a low-key Sunday, there are times when you need a pot of beans right now for a quick weeknight meal and you don’t have time to soak and cook low and slow.

Unlike the stovetop method — which will give you a great final product — you don’t have to worry about monitoring the doneness of the lentils so they’re firm yet tender every time.

Since electric pressure cookers vary from manufacturer to manufacturer, be sure to check your owner’s manual before making oats in the pressure cooker first. You can always contact the manufacturer if you have any questions.

Rice seems to flummox so many home cooks, and even more so when we want our rice in a rush. Stovetop rice, rice cookers, rice in the oven — many methods promise perfect rice, but few offer rice that is ready almost as soon as we want it. An electric pressure cooker is the key to perfect rice in a rush.

There’s no need to order chicken tikka masala takeout when you can make it lightning-fast in the pressure cooker.

Diner-style meatloaf cooks up tender and tasty when made in the pressure cooker. Topped with ketchup and enjoyed warm or cold on a sandwich, it’s easy to see how meatloaf became a comfort-food classic.

The pressure cooker makes long-cooked dishes like curries possible on a weeknight. If you also want to keep the slicing and dicing to a minimum, partner with your freezer so chicken curry can be on your table in just about 30 minutes whenever that craving hits.

Risotto is one of the pressure cooker’s triumphs. It’s a dish that typically requires the cook’s attention from beginning to end, and at least two pans to make (one for simmering stock and one for rice). With a pressure cooker, you get the same creamy results in a fraction of the time (after the initial sauté). The 20-minute-add-broth-simmer-and-stir part of the recipe is reduced to just five minutes of pressure-cooking time.

Pressure cooking will not only cook vegetables faster, but compared to conventional boiling and braising, it retains more vitamins and minerals, too. Make this side dish of sweet and spicy braised cabbage the next time you want a flavorful companion to any roast meat.

The pressure cooker will come to the rescue, cooking dried beans in about 30 minutes. If you remembered to soak the beans, the time savings are even greater — the beans will just need five to 10 minutes of pressure-cooking time. And some legumes, such as lentils and black-eyed peas, can forego the soaking process altogether.

This recipe, unlike a conventional stew, has the addition of butter and flour at the end. This is done to ensure that the cooker reaches pressure quickly and easily. Thickening a stew before pressure-cooking will thicken its cooking liquid, too. Viscous liquid has difficulty boiling and might not generate enough steam to build and maintain pressure. The gravy will, instead, remain motionlessly stuck to the base of the cooker, scorching and burning.

There are two ways to make rice pudding: with an egg or without. I’m firmly in the egg camp. Made without eggs, rice puddings lacks the richness and body I love in this classic dessert. Made in a pressure cooker, rice pudding takes about 30 minutes and comes out creamy and perfect each time.