Instant Pots are taking over the world of fast cooking these days with seemingly endless features: pressure cooking, sautéing, even yogurt making. While Instant Pots use pressurized steam to cook food so quickly, you may be wondering if such a high-intensity method works for steaming foods like vegetables.
Can you steam in an Instant Pot?
You can steam in an instant pot. Your Instant Pot has a Steam function, and you can also use the Sauté function to boil water and steam in that way. Use your Instant Pot to steam anything that you would steam in a traditional pot: vegetables, seafood, eggs, and more.
Using an Instant Pot for steaming in the same way as you would a stovetop steamer can lead to overcooking delicate foods. But with a proper understanding of how these Instant Pot features work, you’ll be on your way to quick and easy steaming in no time.
Using the Steam Function on Your Instant Pot
Conveniently, most Instant Pots come with a pre-programmed “Steam” setting. To use an Instant Pot’s pressure steaming function, pour in a cup or more of water, and then place the trivet (metal rack) that came with your Instant Pot inside, and place a steamer basket on top of that.
If a steamer basket didn’t come with your Instant Pot, there are countless options available online, like this one.
After adding your food to the basket, press “Steam,” and then enter your cooking time. (See below for more guidance on cooking times.) The Instant Pot will then operate as normal, beeping when it reaches full pressure, and again when the timer runs out.
Important tip: For steaming, it is crucial to press Quick Release immediately once you have finished steaming, to avoid overcooking your food.
Will Steaming in an Instant Pot Overcook Food?
It’s important to understand that, because of the pressure of the Instant Pot, the duration of your steaming will be much different than traditional stovetop steaming.
It’s helpful, first of all, to know the Instant Pot’s automatic time settings:
- If you press only the “Steam” button, it will automatically steam your food under high pressure for 10 minutes.
- If you press “More,” this time will go up to 15 minutes
- Pressing “Less” will steam it for just three minutes.
- You can also change the time manually and adjust the pressure as usual with the “Pressure” button.
While the steaming process in an Instant Pot can accomplish the same result as steaming on a stovetop, the added pressure of the Instant Pot accomplishes these results much more quickly, in the same way its Pressure settings accomplish many aspects of traditional cooking in less than half the time.
For tougher veggies like potatoes, carrots and other roots, this can be a great time-saver, and there are really no disadvantages. But for delicate foods that are more easily overcooked, like spinach and broccoli, there can be a risk with the Instant Pot of overdoing it.
To compound this risk, unlike in traditional steaming over the stovetop, you are unable to check on the progress of your steaming foods while they are inside a pressurized Instant Pot. You will not be able to see how far they have cooked until the process is completely over.
How Long to Steam in an Instant Pot
However, any vegetable or food can be perfectly steamed in an Instant Pot with intentional timing. Fortunately, it doesn’t take any guesswork to figure out the ideal times to steam a variety of foods.
Refer to the guidelines that came with your Instant Pot to see the recommended times for steaming different types of vegetables and other foods, or refer to online guidelines like these from Taste of Home or these from Instant Pot.
Here are some of the guidelines from Instant Pot, each for steaming with 1 cup of water (please note that these cooking times are for fresh vegetables):
- Broccoli florets: 1 minute
- Brussels sprouts: 1 minute
- Potatoes (whole, large): 5-8 minutes
- Spinach: 1 minute
- Butternut squash (slices): 1-2 minutes
Note that, compared to the automated steaming times in an Instant Pot, the ideal steaming times for most vegetables are very low. In other words, for most delicate green vegetables, you will want to enter a low steam time manually after hitting the “Steam” button.
Steaming times for seafood are also low, according to Instant Pot. See some examples for ideal seafood steaming time below:
- Shrimp or prawn: 1-3 minutes
- Whole fish: 4-5 minutes
- Lobster: 2-3 minutes
While Instant Pot’s time guides only give the time for pressure cooking eggs (5 minutes for hard-boiled), this recipe suggests the following guidelines for steaming eggs, again with 1 cup of water:
- Soft-boiled eggs: 3 minutes
- Medium eggs: 5 minutes
- Hard-boiled eggs: 8 minutes
Traditional Steaming in an Instant Pot
While any food can be perfectly steamed in an Instant Pot with careful timing and precision, you may still be nervous about getting it right, and prefer a more traditional method of steaming, and the ability to more closely monitor your food and its progress as it steams. No worries, traditional steaming is also possible in your Instant Pot!
If you are having trouble getting pressure steaming just right, try purchasing Instant Pot’s glass lid (if your pot did not come with one).
How to Do It
The process for traditional steaming with a glass lid is similar to the pressure steaming process:
- Set up your Instant Pot with your trivet, steaming basket, and at least 1 cup of water.
- Instead of hitting “Steam,” hit the “Sauté” button. Doing so will create a steaming environment similar to steaming on the stovetop: the water in your pot will boil, the lid will retain the steam, and you will be able to watch your steaming food inside the pot through the clear lid.
- With this method, you can also remove the lid periodically to check on or stir your food at any point during the steaming process, although you will want to be careful to leave the lid on for the majority of the process, in order to retain steam.
Once your vegetables are sufficiently cooked, simply turn off the pot as normal and remove them, being careful of all of the hot elements in the pot (the trivet, the water, the basket and the walls of the Instant Pot.)
Don’t Forget These Instant Pot Steaming Tips
- Always, always Quick Release the pressure immediately once you finish steaming in an Instant Pot.
- You may need some additional equipment for steaming: a steaming basket can be found here, and a glass lid for traditional steaming here. (Make sure you are ordering the right size for your Instant Pot!)
- Steaming times are much shorter with pressure steaming than with traditional steaming. Make sure to refer to Instant Pot’s guidelines or look up a recipe online to avoid overcooking.
- Fresh and frozen foods have significantly different steaming times. Make sure to look up steaming times for the type of food you will be steaming.
- Many foods require less steaming time than Instant Pot’s automatic time settings with the “Steam” function. Make sure to adjust the time manually according to the type of food you are steaming.
You’re Ready to Steam in Your Instant Pot!
With knowledge and a little practice, an Instant Pot can steam any food perfectly, and in a fraction of the time it would take to steam on the stovetop. And for fans of stovetop steaming, it will get a traditional steam going almost immediately as well.
The next time you want to steam vegetables, eggs or seafood, don’t hesitate to reach for your Instant Pot.