Beets, short for beetroots, are purple-colored vegetables with a marvelous sweet, earthy taste. They’re often roasted or boiled but this way can take up to an hour.
It is much quicker to cook them in a pressure cooker. Once cooked, they can be pickled, used in salads, or eaten as a hot vegetable.
Pressure cooking beets turns them from hard and crunchy to soft and buttery in a very short time. Do you want to give it a try cooking your beets in a pressure cooker but aren’t sure how long?
Read on because we have done all the math for you!
Why eat beets?
Firstly because they’re sweet and delicious! Also, they add a pop of jewel bright color to your plate. Nutritionists tell us that brightly colored veg are the most nutritious and this is definitely true for beetroot.
Beetroots are highly nutritious and have high amounts of fiber. This aids in digestion. The major minerals found in these root vegetables are folate, manganese, and iron. Beetroots get their antioxidant properties from vitamin C.
How Long To Cook Beets In Pressure Cooker?
You should pressure cook your beets for 1o to 20 minutes, depending on the size of your beets. We have provided more info on this below!
Preparing To Pressure Cook Your Beets
Pressure cooking is a process that cooks foods under extreme heat and pressure, thereby greatly shortening the cooking time. It also saves energy costs plus the flavors are retained and sometimes even enhanced during the process. Nutrients are preserved also.
You might have pressure-cooked meat and beans but not beets. Make sure the beets are not very large, as this will increase their cooking time. Plus, smaller beets are sweeter.
The most important watchpoint for even cooking is to choose beets that are similar in size. If your beets vary in size, cut the big ones in half.
The beets are not peeled before cooking, just scrubbed well to remove any dirt and sand. Cooking loosens the skin which can be easily slipped off afterward. A short section of the stem can also be kept on to retain the flavor and prevent the color from bleeding out.
Remember to reserve any beetroot leaves that may have come with the roots. These are a delicious type of spinach and the young ones can be shredded into salads.
How To Cook The Beets
1. Put the steamer basket or trivet into the pressure cooker.
2. Next, add about a cupful to a cup and a half of water to the pressure cooker.
3. Arrange the beets in a single layer on the bottom of the rack.
4. Fasten the lid and press “manual”. Set the timer as follow:
- Small beets – 10 minutes
- Medium-sized beets – 12 minutes
- Large beets – 15 minutes
- Very large beets (10 oz) – 20 minutes
5. Cook the beets and release the pressure naturally.
6. Once it is safe to remove the lid, test the beets for doneness by inserting a knife. It should penetrate the beetroot easily. If not, cook them for another couple of minutes.
The time is about the same for a conventional stove-top pressure cooker.
Enjoy Your Beets!
Once cooked and peeled, you can slice or dice your beetroot according to your recipe or preference. We love to sprinkle them with a balsamic dressing and crumble some creamy feta cheese over them. We hope our post has helped you with how long to cook beets in a pressure cooker.