Think a pressure cooker is just for meat? Think again. Here are dozens of vegetarian Instant Pot recipes to prove you wrong.

Best vegetarian Instant Pot recipes

Alex and I eat a mostly vegetarian and plant based diet. (In fact, we wrote a book about it!) When we heard about the Instant Pot, we figured it was just for meat: and didn’t give it a second thought. It wasn’t until a friend shared with us that she cooked sweet potatoes in her Instant Pot that we started to reconsider. Fast forward until today, and we’ve made dozens of vegetarian Instant Pot recipes! The sky’s the limit: from basics like rice and quinoa, to soups and even pastas!

And one of our favorite ways to use an Instant Pot is to cook dried beans. You can cook up a pot in 1 hour. It’s a drastic time savings versus the stovetop method (which calls for starting to soak the beans the night before and takes hours on the stove).

Here we’re sharing all of our best vegetarian Instant Pot recipes! Ready to get started?

Best vegetarian Instant Pot recipes

What Instant Pot do you use?

For all of these vegetarian recipes,Alex and I use an Instant Pot brand Instant Pot (Instant Pot is the brand name; Instapot is a slang variation). The Instant Pot we use is the Instant Pot DUO60 6 Qt 7-in-1 Multi-Use Programmable Pressure CookerWe have used that Instant Pot to test all of the Instant Pot recipes on this website. There is definitely variations between pressure cooker brands and sizes, so you may see some variation in cook time.

Understanding Instant Pot cook time

When you look at cook time with any pressure cooker, you’ll need to factor in a few more things than just the actual cook time. Keep the following in mind:

  • “Preheat” time: Once you add the ingredients to the pot, the pressure cooker requires about 5 to 10 minutes for come up to pressure. This time can vary depending on the recipe.
  • Natural release: Some recipes call for a Quick Release: here you’ll immediately release the pressure and open the lid. But some recipes call for a Natural Release method, where you wait with the cover on after the cook time for the pressure to naturally release from the pot.

Cleaning the Instant Pot

The plastic sealing rink inside the Instant Pot can pick up odors when you use the pot to cook vegetarian recipes. To remove the smell from an Instant Pot sealing ring, soak it in vinegar for a few hours. Another option is purchasing two sealing rings. We have 2 Instant Pot sealing rings and use one for savory recipes and one for sweet recipes.

A good practice is to store the Instant Pot with the lid upside down so the sealing ring is exposed to air, instead of with the lid closed onto the pot. This allows the sealing ring to air out between uses.

More Instant Pot recipes

Try all our Best Instant Pot Recipes!

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Creamy goat cheese pasta

Vegetarian Instant Pot Pasta (& More Recipes!)


  • Author: Sonja Overhiser
  • Prep Time: 15 minutes
  • Cook Time: 5 minutes
  • Total Time: 20 minutes
  • Yield: 3 to 4 servings 1x

Description

Can you cook pasta in an Instant Pot? You bet. This recipe is a seriously creamy Instant Pot pasta recipe that you’ll make again and again.


Ingredients

Scale
  • 1 ½ cups water
  • 28 ounce can crushed fire roasted tomatoes (or best quality crushed tomatoes)
  • 2 tablespoons olive oil
  • 1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar
  • 2 teaspoons garlic powder
  • 1 teaspoon dried oregano
  • 1 teaspoon kosher salt
  • 2 cups baby spinach leaves, tightly packed (or chopped spinach)
  • 8 fresh basil leaves
  • 8 ounces penne pasta (regular, not whole wheat)
  • 4 ounce goat cheese log

Instructions

  1. Place the following ingredients into the Instant Pot: water, tomatoes, olive oil, balsamic vinegar, garlic powder, oregano, kosher salt, spinach, whole basil leaves, and penne.
  2. Cook on high pressure for 5 minutes: Press the Pressure Cook button, making sure the “High Pressure” setting is selected, and set the time. Note that it takes about 10 minutes for the pot to “preheat” and come up to pressure before it starts cooking. (During cooking, avoid touching the metal part of the lid.)
  3. Quick release: Vent the remaining steam from the Instant Pot by moving the pressure release handle to “Venting”, covering your hand with a towel or hot pad. Never put your hands or face near the vent when releasing steam. Open the pressure cooker lid.
  4. Open the lid and crumble in the goat cheese; stir until a creamy sauce forms. The sauce will thicken even more as it cools.
  • Category: Main Dish
  • Method: Instant Pot
  • Cuisine: Italian

Keywords: Vegetarian Instant Pot Recipes, Instant Pot Pasta Recipe

Last updated: January 2021

About the authors

Sonja & Alex

Meet Sonja and Alex Overhiser: Husband and wife. Expert home cooks. Authors of recipes you'll want to make again and again.

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3 Comments

  1. Thank you for sharing these recipes. Have you published a Vegetarian Instant Pot Meals cookbook? My husband and I are vegetarians and we just bought a Ninja Foodi. I was sad to see how few vegetarian recipes (other than desserts) were included in the cookbook. I’m really looking forward to trying these!