Welcome back to our Instant Pot Series! Just to recap – when we say Instant Pot, we are really talking about a programmable pressure cooker. In this post, we are sharing all of the ways that you can transform your freezer cooking with an Instant Pot.
But be sure to check out all of the other great info in this series!
- Instant Pot Tips and Tricks 101: Our best tips for Instant Pot recipes!
- Instant Pot Tips and Tricks 201: Helpful hints on converting, adjusting and adapting recipes!
- What is an Instant Pot? (Includes a Buyers Guide!)
- Crock-Pot VS Instant Pot: Pros, Cons, Recipes, Videos & more!
- Pot-in-Pot Method: Learn what and how this method works!
- 50 Instant Pot Freezer Meals: 50 Meals to cook from frozen!
- 101 Instant Pot Freezer Meals: 101 MORE meals to cook from frozen!
- New Dump and Go Instant Pot Mini Meal Plan!
4 Ways to Transform Your Freezer Cooking with an Instant Pot
All of those Instant Pot benefits are great, but we are freezer cooks around here. So why take the extra step to add the Instant Pot to our freezer cooking process? Like most appliances, it is helpful, but not absolutely necessary to freezer cooking. You can certainly still freezer cook in a bare essentials kitchen. But Instant Pot freezer cooking might be for you if…
1. Bring some adventure to your kitchen.
For weeks after purchasing her Instant Pot, OAMM staffer, Mindy, was ducking and covering every time she cooked with it. She has since determined that this fear is unwarranted, even after she got sprayed by one of her soups. Seriously, these appliances are safe, but they still might give you the thrill you are looking for in the kitchen.
2. Say goodbye to the weird consistency/texture of slow cooker meals.
Have you have ever been disappointed by a slow cooker meal that looked and smelled amazing, but when you bit into it it was all grainy or the vegetables were mushy? Because the Instant Pot cooks meals more quickly and all of the moisture is kept inside by the seal, the texture of your meals will not be affected like it sometimes is in the slow cooker.
Just a disclaimer, we all still love our slow cookers, but some dishes taste better slow-cooked than others. The Instant Pot is a great equalizer!
3. Don’t worry about defrosting meals!
Say what?
Yes! the Instant Pot lets you break one of the cardinal rules of freezer cooking. And let’s face it. Real life happens. Sometimes it is 5:30, and dinner is still a frozen brick. Maybe you haven’t yet discovered the post with all of our tips and resources for meal planning from the freezer or maybe you just forgot. But with the Instant Pot, you can cook freezer meals from frozen and still cook it in less time than the original recipe! This post from Hip Pressure Cooking has some great tips for cooking frozen meat.
4. Save TONS of time on serving day.
Some of you are seriously busy. You wear a lot of hats, and even with freezer meals, you don’t always have time to wait for a meal to bake or slow cook. If you don’t know this already, increased pressure means that you can cook at higher temperatures, which means that you can cook meals in a fraction of the time!
Here are some recipe examples:
Juicy Roast Chicken
Normal cooking time for this whole chicken is 1 1/2 hours in the oven or 6-8 hours in the slow cooker.
Instant Pot cooking time is 30 minutes!
Instant Pot Potato Soup
Normal cooking time is 6 hours in the slow cooker.
Instant Pot cooking time is 20 minutes from FROZEN!
Instant Pot resources:
Additional Instant Pot resources:
- Dump and Go Instant Pot Mini Meal Plan
- 10 Basic Instant Pot Techniques
- Pressure Cooking Ebook by Traditional Cooking School
- Pressure Cooking ECourse by Traditional Cooking School
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22 Comments
Join the discussionWill these recipes work the same with my stove top pressure cooker? I have a really nice Kuhn Rikon that I would like to use more often.
You can adapt these for a stove top pressure cooker. Just make sure to follow all of the manufacturer’s recommendations for the sake of safety. You might have to keep a closer eye on your stove top pressure cooker than the programmable types, but the recipes should still work.
I am so glad you have recipes from freezer to pressure cookers! I have an electric one I love and can’t wait to see some new recipes for it
We are now firm believers in the convenience and benefits of the IP in our kitchens! We can’t wait to provide more tried and tested recipes for you!
Could you make mini meatloaves in foil pans as a freezer meal and cook them in the instant pot?
Absolutely!
I love this idea of freezing mini meatloaves. Would you have a suggestion on cooking times from frozen?
We do meatballs for 6-10 minutes depending on thickness, mini meatloaves would be similar. I would say 7 minutes for a typical muffin size.
How long f)o you steam frozen soup?
Can you please clarify what you mean by steam? Do you mean heat from frozen?
Can i put my frozen slow cooker recipes in the Insta Pot?
Sure! They’ll just cook a little faster ? Enjoy!
Recently we made the instant pot mini menu (20 meals). I bought round containers to fit in my instant pot. It was so quick and easy that when we finished our prep items, we went ahead and finished making the meals instead of waiting for the next day! We decided it was faster, fewer dishes and serving day will be so easy!
Yea! ??
Does the meat actually brown? Chicken? Beef roast? Ribs etc?
We definitely recommend the saute feature for browning/searing meat prior to pressure cooking for added flavor!
How long do you cook frozen peppers in the Instapot?
Hi Marilee! It really depends on what else is in the pot with them, if they’re already chopped, and how much you’re putting in. One suggestion would be to just allow the peppers to “steam” after you’ve cooked something else in the instant pot by simply leaving the pot off with the cover on to use the residual heat. We have a couple of blog posts that go into a deeper dive of tips and tricks for the instant pot. You can check those out here: https://onceamonthmeals.com/blog/series/instant-pot/instant-pot-tips-tricks-101/ and https://onceamonthmeals.com/blog/series/instant-pot/instant-pot-tips-tricks-201/
Personally, I find pressure cooker meals come out with a boiled texture that is not always pleasant and with time needed to pressurize/depressurize a “20 minute” cooking time can easily balloon to an hour or more. I’m trying to find a way to love this appliance but beyond corn on the cob and shredded meats, I am really struggling to understand the devotion it garners.
I have the same problem. I find cooking meats works fine but any time I’ve tried cooking a whole meal, the texture is funny.
If I cut freezer meal in half . The original insta pot directions said 20 minutes for two pounds and now I have only a pound. It is shredded chicken fajitas. How much time for only the pound and onion and peppers and seasoning
It depends if the chicken was cooked prior to being frozen – if so – you could probably get by with 10 minutes. If the chicken was raw when frozen – you could go with 15. Some of it might also be in how the chicken was frozen – but typically 15 minutes is good.