Laura Pazzaglia

Did you forget to soak beans, but still need to get dinner on the table? 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.

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.

Tough cuts of meat can be tamed into a tender meal in 40 minutes or less using pressure, instead of two to three hours of slow braising. Which means this beef stew, full of mushrooms and red wine, is a real option for dinner any weeknight. 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.

Can you bake or slow-cook frozen chicken? Nope … but you can pressure-cook it! Toss rock-hard frozen pieces of chicken into the pressure cooker and serve fall-off-the bone flavorful meat in less than 30 minutes. Slow-cooking, stovetop simmering, or oven braising frozen chicken will keep it in the “danger zone,” (temperatures between 40°F and 140°F) long enough for the meat to host a stomach-wrenching bacteria party.

How long does it take to braise cabbage until tender and translucent in the oven? One hour. In the pressure cooker? Five minutes of pressure-cooking time — or 15 minutes from start to finish. 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.