Can you cook frozen vegetables in a pressure cooker? Yes, you can.
Vegetables are an essential part of our diet. Even if you have a Carnivorous diet, you should still eat vegetables from time to time. Because vegetables provide our body with essential vitamins, minerals, and dietary fibers.
People say fresh vegetables are healthier. But, it’s only true if you picked them straight from the backyard. Instead, frozen vegetables that are frozen to -18 degrees within the same day of harvesting them are much healthier. Because the nutrients that should have gone bad are now sealed inside a layer of frost.
Frozen vegetables also have a longer shelf time.
Freezing vegetables is great for preservation. But does it feel convenient when cooking?
Of course not. Who doesn’t want to cook their vegetables without waiting for a 15-minute defrosting period?
Everybody.
That’s the very reason people invented the Instant pot and pressure cooking.
Although pressure cooking is convenient and Instant pot has made it even easier, it’s not a bad idea to use it carefully and with moderation. Especially when you are dealing with vegetables.
You might think that since vegetables take a long time to defrost, cooking them for a few minutes inside a pressure cooker might do the trick.
If you think that way then you are WRONG. Here are a few precautions you should take before pressure cooking frozen vegetables.
- Don’t follow the Instant pot recipe. The recipe tells you to cook your vegetables for 2 to 3 minutes. Doing so will surely leave you a mushed product.
- Don’t add too much water, you are not boiling them. Because boiling in large amounts of water leaches the vitamins out of your vegetables.
- Pressure cookers cook faster by building up pressure. This means, even after the pressure is released there is still a large amount of residual heat inside your pressure cooker that will overcook your vegetables.
- Make sure to cut your vegetables evenly before putting them inside the pressure cooker. You want, even cooking.
- Cooking vegetables inside a pressure cooker is not faster, it’s more convenient.
Now that you are cautioned, we can tell you how to cook your frozen vegetables inside an Instant pot.
For perfectly cooked vegetables, follow the instructions below:
How You Can Cook Frozen Vegetables In Pressure Cooker
- Take the trivet and place it inside the Instant pot. Make sure it’s placed in the stand position.
- Put 1 cup of room temperature water. If you add boiling water, the cooking time will have to be changed accordingly.
- It’s necessary to have a steam basket. If you don’t have one, buy it. Place your basket over the trivet. Put the vegetables inside the steam basket and close the Instant pot lid properly.
- Look for the rotating knob on top of the lid. Make sure it’s rotated to sealing.
- Set the timer to zero seconds and zero minutes. You will be using the technique called Zero Time because the time an Instant pot takes to build pressure is enough to cook your vegetables.
- Press Start and wait for the beep that indicates a fully pressurized cooker. This will take about 5 to 10 minutes. Press Cancel when you hear the beep.
- With a spoon or a thick towel, rotate the knob from Sealed to Fast release.
- After the pressure is fully released, open the lid, take your vegetables out, flavor them to your liking, and enjoy.