5 Easy Instant Pot Recipes For Beginners

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Looking for easy no-fuss meals? These 5 easy Instant Pot recipes for beginners have you covered from snacks to stress-free dinners.

Instant Pot spaghetti squash, pulled pork sandwich, salsa chicken burrito bowl, barbecue ribs

Whether you’re new to using an Instant Pot, or like me, you prefer recipes with hardly any prep time, you’ll love these easy Instant Pot recipes. With just a few basic ingredients you can have breakfast, lunch or dinner ready in no time.

I’ve had my Instant Pot for a few years now and it has become a staple in my kitchen. Lately, I reach for it more than my slow cooker or my air fryer (although my husband uses our airfryer all the time for snacks).

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Spaghetti squash, pork shoulder, frozen chicken thighs and St Louis ribs in Instant Pot

Tips for Instant Pot beginners

After using my Instant Pot for many recipes, there are a few things I have learned to check every time. Here are my top three tips for Instant Pot beginners:

Always check your sealing ring. Make sure your sealing ring is snapped in the lid correctly and that it’s there. (I actually forgot to check once and tried to make hard-boiled eggs with no pressure and they ended up just being steamed.) Also, if you’re cooking something strong smelling like pork, change to your meat sealing ring. I use a red one for this. Strong smells tend to linger on the silicone ring and you don’t want the next thing you cook to smell like pulled pork.
Always make sure you have at least one cup of liquid in the pot. Pressure cookers work on steam so you need liquid to build up the steam to pressure cook.
Make sure your steam release button is in the sealing position. If you have an Instant Pot Ultra or another model with the auto sealing feature, you won’t need to worry about this since it will reset itself. If you have a different model, make sure the button is set to sealing.

Easy Instant Pot Recipes For Beginners

All of these easy recipes have less than 5 ingredients—some only have one or two!

But most importantly, all of these recipes are super simple and don’t require any browning, pre-cooking or long prep times. Just throw the ingredients in and set your Instant Pot!

Instant Pot Hard Boiled Eggs

This is a super easy hands-off way to boil eggs. I make hard-boiled eggs in my Instant Pot almost every week. It’s great for meal prep and having hard-cooked eggs in the fridge makes it easy to grab a snack or breakfast on the go.

Instant Pot Spaghetti Squash

The Instant Pot makes fast work of cooking spaghetti squash and you don’t have to cut it first!

The Easiest Instant Pot Pulled Pork (Paleo, Keto, Whole30)

This is my favorite way to cook pulled pork. Pressure cooking the meat makes it so tender and juicy—my family loves this recipe and it couldn’t be easier!

Instant Pot Frozen Chicken Thighs (Keto, Paleo, Whole30)

This Instant Pot salsa chicken is my go-to dinner when I don’t have anything planned. It takes just two ingredients and the chicken thighs go into the Instant Pot frozen. Easiest dinner ever!

Easy Instant Pot Ribs (Keto, Paleo, Whole30)

Pressure cooking the ribs makes them so tender. You can eat them as is—straight out of the Instant Pot—or finish them on the grill or in the oven for extra flavor.