My Instant Pot has become a pivotal part of maintaining a real food lifestyle with our busy family.
With school, sports, scouts, church, etc, my family seems to always be running in the evenings. With 2 teenage drivers, we hardly ever get to eat meals together except Sunday.
I got my first Instant Pot about 2 years ago, and I have loved it ever since.
If you don’t know what the Instant Pot is, or how it works, click on the link above for more info.
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The Instant Pot makes cooking real food easy and quick, which are big selling points on our homestead.
This is the Instant Pot we currently have and we love the versatility of it.
So today, I want to show you how the Instant Pot can help you as you move towards a real food diet.
8 Ways Your Instant Pot Can Help Your Real Food Lifestyle
1. Cook meat from frozen quickly
One of my biggest problems in meal planning is to remember to thaw the meat in the refrigerator the night before. What good is a meal plan if you don’t have the meat ready to cook?
Enter the Instant Pot. You can cook a full, frozen roast in an hour. You can cook frozen chicken breasts until they are ready to shred in 20 minutes.
Compare that to all day for the slow cooker and you can see that the Instant Pot can save your sanity when you forget to plan ahead.
Here are a couple of my favorite shredded meat recipes:
Instant Pot Pulled Pork @ Savory Tooth
Instant Pot Shredded Chicken @ The Recipe Rebel
Instant Pot Barbacoa Beef @ Taste and Tell
Instant Pot Pot Roast @ Sweet and Savory Meals
2. Boil (and peel) eggs quick and easy
I love to boil eggs in the Instant Pot because it is quick (7 minutes), easy, and I don’t have to watch the pot.
I use the steamer rack trivet with the eggs to keep them up off the bottom of the bowl.
And the best part: the eggs are super easy to peel out of the Instant Pot (even farm fresh eggs!) It is such a time saver!
Here is a simple hard boiled egg recipe:
No Fail Instant Pot Hard Boiled Eggs @ All The Nourishing Things
3. Bake potatoes quickly
My family likes baked potatoes, but they take so much time in the oven!
With the Instant Pot, you can bake small potatoes in 10 minutes and jumbo potatoes (that’s the ones we like) in 20 minutes.
Then you can eat them as full potatoes or mash them quickly for real mashed potatoes.
An added bonus: no aluminum foil needed!
Here are a couple of my favorite potato recipes:
Instant Pot Baked Potatoes @ A Mind Full Mom
Instant Pot Mashed Potatoes @ Kristine’s Kitchen
4. Many Functions in One Machine:
The Instant Pot includes functions for slow cooker, steamer, rice cooker, yogurt maker and more.
It saves money and space in your kitchen to have all of these appliances in one place.
My favorites are rice cooker, yogurt maker and steamer. Making rice and yogurt at home can save you headaches when trying to find clean eating versions of these at the store. Steaming vegetables that don’t require a microwave is the way to go.
Most pre-made rices have preservatives and ingredient lists that are a mile long. Most yogurts at the store (especially the “kid-friendly” kind) have so many additives and tons of sugar. That is not real food!
So by making these things at home in your Instant Pot, you can offer your family real food without slaving over the stove all day.
Here are a couple of my favorite recipes:
Instant Pot White Rice @ The Typical Mom
Instant Pot Mexican Rice @ Cook With Menali
Instant Pot Cold Start Yogurt @ This Old Gal
Instant Pot Greek Yogurt @ So Very Blessed
Zero Minute Instant Pot Cauliflower @ One Happy Housewife
Instant Pot Steamed Veggies @ Eating Instantly
5. You don’t have to think ahead
I hinted at this up in #1, but I think it is worth spending more time on here.
Cooking real food can be elaborate and beautiful, but on most days it is rushed and adaptable.
If you have stocked your fridge and pantry with real food, you should be able to throw something together quickly that fits your lifestyle.
The Instant Pot makes putting a healthy meal together fast and easy. Cook a protein from frozen (as mentioned above), add a salad or other vegetable and a carb (rice or bread) for a quick meal.
You can cook rice, boiled eggs, beans, or meat in bulk to use on other nights if you want, but you don’t have to. Are you seeing where multiple Instant Pots can come in handy? Don’t worry, it’s a thing.
6. Cook beans quickly
I always groaned at cooking beans from dry beans because it takes soooo long. Who has time for that?
But with the Instant Pot, you can buy dry beans in bulk to save money and get a healthier outcome than canned.
So instead of 8 hours in the slow cooker, you can have many different kinds of beans that are ready to go in under an hour.
Here are a couple of my favorite bean recipes:
Instant Pot Black Beans @ Yup It’s Vegan
Easy Instant Pot Pinto Beans @ Adventures on Idlewild Way
Instant Pot Baked Beans @ Tastes Better From Scratch
7. Whole chicken
Nothing says whole, real food like cooking a whole chicken.
Making a whole chicken for dinner has many advantages: it is cheaper, can be used for 2 or more meals, can be used for chicken broth, etc.
The best way I know to cook a whole chicken is in the Instant Pot. You can cook it in less than an hour (altitude depending) and you can throw the bones back in the pot with some veggies to make broth as well.
Here is a great recipe:
How To Make A Whole Chicken In An Instant Pot @ Real Food Dietitians
8. Dump and go soups
Our go-to meals in the winter are soups. I love a good beef stew or chicken noodle soup on a cold Colorado day.
There are many recipes for dump and go soups that do really well in the Instant Pot. Just get all of the ingredients, dump them in, turn on the Instant Pot and leave the kitchen for 30-45 minutes while your soup is becoming dinner.
Here are a couple of my favorite soup recipes:
50 Instant Pot Soup Recipes: A Cozy Way To Feed Your Family This Winter @ Real Food Homestead
If you are still on the fence about using your Instant Pot to make your real food lifestyle easier, I don’t know what more to say to convince you.
The Instant Pot is by far the one appliance that makes cooking real food at home quick and easy. Move over Crock Pot, Instant Pot has taken over!
How do you use your Instant Pot? Let us know in the comments below. And if you found this post helpful, please share. Thanks!
Healthy Food Changes You Can Make WITHOUT Freaking Out Your Family
Tired of your kids (and husband) complaining about eating healthy food. Get our list of Real Food Substitutions to help you switch out the bad foods for better choices. And they taste better too!
When you sign up for our email list, you will get this PDF for free, along with weekly emails covering topics on gardening, homesteading, etc. Don't worry. We won't spam your inbox. You can unsubscribe any time.
