For many individuals, sitting down to dinner with a nice hot plate of vegetables and a piece of tender meat is the perfect way to end the day. Add on some sauce, gravy, or even herbs and spices and you end up with this delicious meal that everyone savors.
However, in order to get tender meat, you either need to purchase a variety that is already tender to begin with or you need to slow cook tough meats all day long. This doesn’t work very well for families that need to prepare food quickly and would rather use a pressure cooker instead.
So, the question remains, do pressure cookers make meat more tender? Yes, all types of meat cuts can become more tender in a pressure cooker. While some meats will inherently become more tender than others, permitting that you use the correct cooking methods, you can get all types of meat to a very tender and moist state.
There are a few factors that determine how tender a cut is going to become, which we will explore further down.
Why Does Pressure Tenderize Meat?
The answer to this question lies in a few factors, the first being how pressure cookers work and the second, in how the cooking process impacts your meat cuts structure.
- How A Pressure Cooker Works: a pressure cooker artificially creates a high atmospheric environment within the pot by using a secure and tightly sealed lid. The water that builds up inside the pot, turns into steam which reaches temperatures well above the normal boiling point of water. This is what allows you to accelerate the cooking time of many of your favorite recipes.
- How the Cooking Process Impacts Meat Cuts: the key to how tender your cut of meat is going to be lies within how much collagen it has and how quickly you can break it down. In meat, there is a structural protein called collagen, which acts as connective tissue and is what holds the meat together. The more collagen there is, the chewier and stringier the meat will be. When you place meat in a pressure cooker, the high atmospheric temperature breaks down the collagen sheaths and it becomes a substance called gelatin. This is what makes your meat nice and rich in flavor, texture, and tenderness.
Slow cookers can also make meat tender – but what’s the difference between the two? I wrote an article comparing the two appliances a while ago, you can find it here.
How Does This Work Exactly?
When collagen is heated between 160 degrees Fahrenheit and 205 degrees Fahrenheit, the collagen melts away and breaks down into gelatin, but this can take several hours within this range.
In a pressure cooker that can get closer to 300 degrees Fahrenheit, this breakdown of collagen happens at a much faster rate. When the collagen breaks down, it coats the muscle fibers with gelatin, which is what makes your meat tender to eat.
What Other Factors Determine How Tender a Cut Can Get?
- How Much Collagen is Present in Your Meat Cut? Some cuts of meat contain more connective tissue than others, resulting in more being broken down when cooked in a pressure cooker. For instance, a braised bone chuck roast is going to be more succulent than a beef round, as the beef round is a lot leaner and contains less fat, less collagen, and less elastin in it.
- The Timing of Your Cooking Process. With pressure cooking, due to how quickly it works, an extra minute or two can be the difference between having an extremely moist cut of meat and one that is too tough and dry.
- How Much Cartilage Is in Your Meat Cut? While cartilage is not connective tissue, it is another source of collagen. When it is simmered, the cartilage can break down into gelatin. If you are using a cut of meat that has bones-in, the amount of cartilage present can impact how tender the entire dish can become.
- Always Start at Room Temperature. If you are planning on searing your meat before tossing it into your pressure cooker, it’s a good idea to allow it to defrost gradually or allow it to warm up to room temperature. Why? If the temperature of the meat rapidly changes, it can cause the muscle fibers to shrink down and harden up, causing you to cook the meat for a lot longer to reverse this process.
Can You Overcook Meat in a Pressure Cooker?
Like any other cooking apparatus, a pressure cooker has the capability of overcooking meat. Pan-frying meat can leave it dry and burnt, while overcooked meat in liquid may become mushy and tasteless, so what does overcooked meat from a pressure cooker look like?
Despite being submerged in liquid, it becomes dry and chewy as though all the moisture were wrung from it like a wet towel.
However, continuing to cook the meat as though in a slow cooker will reverse this effect with time, re-infusing moisture into it and leaving you with extra liquid for making gravy.
How Long Does it Take for Meat to Cook in a Pressure Cooker?
The amount of time that it takes to cook your cut of meat in a pressure cooker is dependent on how much pressure the cooker can get too. Most modern pressure cookers will cook at a 15 psi (lb.), which is the fastest speed available.
If your pressure cooker cannot reach this amount of pressure, you may have to add on additional time to all your recipes. Here is how long it takes for meat to cook in a pressure cooker, using a 15-psi model on the highest temperature available.
| Beef, Stew Meat 1 ½ Cubes | 15 Minutes |
| Beef, Meatballs 1-2 LBS | 4-9 Minutes |
| Beef, Steak 1-2” | 20-25 Minutes |
| Beef, Dressed 2LBS | 10-15 Minutes |
| Beef Ribs, Short Grilled | 15 Minutes |
| Beef Ribs, Short Stewed | 20 Minutes |
| Chicken Breasts (Bone) 2-3LBS | 8-10 Minutes |
| Chicken Drumsticks | 5-7 Minutes |
| Chicken, Ground | 4 Minutes |
| Chicken, Frozen (Boneless) | 7-10 Minutes |
| Chicken, Whole 2-3 LBS | 12-18 Minutes |
| Chicken, Whole 3-4 LBS | 18-26 Minutes |
| Duck, Whole 3-4 LBS | 25-30 Minutes |
| Lamb, Chops 1” | 10-18 Minutes |
| Lamb, Leg | 35-40 Minutes |
| Lamb, Stew Meat | 12-15 Minutes |
| Pork, Roast | 40-46 Minutes |
| Pork, Ham Pieces | 20-25 Minutes |
| Turkey, Breast (boneless) | 20 Minutes |
| Turkey, Breast (Bone) Whole | 20-30 Minutes |
| Turkey, Drumsticks | 12 Minutes |
More Information About Cooking Times Can Be Found Here.
3 Tips for Cooking with Meat in a Pressure Cooker
It may be tempting to rely on cooking with your chef’s instincts, but pressure cooking completely changes the process in that you’re working with a sealed vessel.
There’s no poking it with a fork to see if it’s done yet, tasting it to see how the flavors are melding, or adding in just that little bit of extra spice to top things off. There’s only start and finish, the former being the most important part, as preparation is key to good pressure cooking.
- Prepare Your Meat. As tempting as it is to simply throw everything together and turn the cooker on, you’ll need to start by ensuring you remove any connective tissue you can from your meat. This means getting a sharp knife and brushing up on your butchering skills. Removing extra sinew and remembering to cut against the grain of the meat will make it more tender when it’s finished.
- Consider Browning Your Meat First. When you sear your meat before putting it into the pressure cooker, you seal in the meat’s natural juices.
- Marinating for Tenderness is a Myth. Luckily, you don’t have to marinate your meat in order to get a tender and juicy result out of the pressure cooker, but it certainly doesn’t hurt the flavor. The pressure cooker will help the flavors permeate the meat, improving the overall taste.
If you are new to cooking meats in a pressure cooker, it is highly recommended that you do a little research beforehand and find a high-quality and reputable recipe to follow.
Match this with a premium-grade cut of meat and the correct cooking technique, and you’ll end up with a mouth-watering result.