An Instant Pot is a game changer for meal prepping! Not just for making easy meals, this tool can be used in lots of ways to make meal prepping for your week easier.
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I’ve shared lots of things that I’ve made in my instant pot over on my Instagram stories and the other week I asked if you all were interested in some instant pot recipes and posts and it was a unanimous YES!
I’m working on developing some instant pot recipes to share here on the blog, but to start out I’m going to share some tips for how I use my instant pot to make meal prepping easier.
If you are wondering, I have an Instant Pot Duo 6-quart that I bought last Black Friday. Before that I had an off-brand pressure cooker that stopped working after a year or so.
#1 Meal Prep Lunches
The first way to use your instant pot for meal prepping is make lunches for the week. You can find recipes that make entire meals such as this Instant Pot Greek Chicken and Rice recipe.
Or you can just make the meat in the instant pot and roast or sauté some veggies to go with it. One of our favorites to meal prep for lunches is this Instant Pot Salsa Chicken! Then I roast some bell peppers and onions to go with it.
#2 Shredded Chicken
This is one of my favorite ways to use my Instant Pot! It’s so simple and the chicken always turns out perfectly. I love this tutorial from The Clean Eating Couple. After cooking, I just leave the chicken in the instant pot and use my hand mixer to shred it easily.
You can use shredded chicken in dinner recipes throughout the week such as chicken pot pie, enchiladas, soups and more. It saves so much time to have the chicken cooked and shredded already!
#3 Hard Boiled Eggs
I like to keep hard boiled eggs in the fridge for an easy snack or to add to salads. They are also great for making egg salad for an easy lunch.
There are many tutorials online for how to make them. I’ve found my favorite method is to set the eggs on the trivet and add 1 cup of water. Seal the instant pot and pressure cook for 6 minutes. Let it naturally release pressure for 5 minutes and then open it up and transfer the eggs to a bowl of ice water.
#4 Black Beans
Dry black beans are way cheaper to buy than canned! It takes forever to cook black beans on the stove, but you can set them up in the instant pot and have them ready in about an hour.
My kids love black beans and will eat them plain for a snack or as part of their lunch. We also add black beans to meals such as this Tomato Lentil Soup.
#5 Chickpeas
Chickpeas are another pantry item that much less expensive to buy dry instead of canned. We like to add them to meals like these Meal Prep Greek Chicken Bowls or use them to make snacks like these yummy Roasted Chickpeas.
#6 Cook Rice or Quinoa Ahead of Time
Have you tried using your instant pot to cook rice or quinoa? It’s so simple! You can cook it in bulk at the beginning of the week so it’s prepped for lunches or dinners.
#7 Bone Broth and Stocks
Save time by making bone broth, chicken stock or vegetable stock in the instant pot! When I make bone broth in my crockpot it takes 24+ hours which is not a big deal most of the time, but if I’m in a hurry the instant pot can make it in a couple of hours.
#8 Prep Vegetables to Reheat at Dinner Time
I have recently been loving using my instant pot to make vegetable side dishes to go with our dinner. Many of these recipes make large batches that you could reheat for multiple meals during the week to save time! Some of my favorite instant pot vegetable recipes I’ve found lately are these Green Beans with Bacon and these Creamy Parmesan Brussels Sprouts.
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