Here at Kitchen Mastery, we are crazy about the Instant Pot. We often use it to make Instant Pot Vegetable side dish recipes, and we wanted to share our favorite recipes with you.
Why?
Because it makes our life easy.
Instant Pot is a set-and-forget type of appliance, it’s faster than a slow cooker and it cooks to perfection every single time.
The Instant Pot vegetable recipes you’ll find below are not just delicious and worth repeating, but also EASY.
If you haven’t bought an instant pot yet, these recipes will make you want one for your kitchen – now.
(👉 See the difference between an instant pot and a pressure cooker – to help you decide!)
What's In Here
Our Favorite Instant Pot Vegetable Side Dish Recipes
If you’re not yet making side dishes in your Instant Pot, you are missing out!
The recipes you’ll find below include plant-based (vegetarian & vegan) side dish recipes.
Instant Pot Rice Dishes
Rice is one of the easiest and best tasting side you can make using an Instant Pot. It can be an entire meal on its own, and it’s also a great side dish for chicken or pork.
1. Brown Rice and Vegetables
- Prep. Time – 10 minutes
- Cook Time – 25 minutes
This brown fried rice recipe is a great way to add flavor to plain brown rice with minimal effort.
The Instant Pot is perfect for making brown rice because it prevents undercooking, overcooking, and uneven cooking. This time you’ll get consistent results.
In this recipe, you don’t stir fry the rice at all but you still get the flavor of fried rice! It’s a healthier and easy alternative to traditional fried rice.
For this recipe, you’ll need your favorite (frozen) vegetables, brown rice, soy sauce, sesame oil, and ginger.
Can you smell it? 😉
👉 Get the full recipe HERE
2. Rice and Lentils
- Prep. time – 15 minutes
- Cooking time – 24 minutes
This is a complete-protein meal thanks to the rice and legumes combo and has an Indian or Moroccan flare to it.
Enjoy it as a plant-based main meal or a nutritious side dish to the main course.
We recommend not using any frozen vegetables because it will turn this fluffy dish into a mushy, sticky one.
For this recipe, you’ll need red onions, red bell peppers, white mushrooms, cumin, curry, brown lentils, brown basmati rice, and vegetable broth.
👉 Get the full recipe HERE
3. Mexican Rice
- Prep. time – 10 minutes
- Cooking time – 10 minutes
A great side dish to make when you need something quick and easy to go with a Mexican inspired main.
This restaurant-style Mexican rice recipe (with plain old long-grain rice) is super easy to make. It tastes best when served immediately, and will thicken more and more as it sits.
For this recipe, you’ll need taco seasoning, tomato paste, chicken broth (optional), and a can of fire-roasted tomatoes.
👉 Get the recipe HERE
4. Creamy Parmesan Instant Pot Mashed Cauliflower
- Prep. time – 10 minutes
- Cooking time – 25 minutes
Creamy parmesan Instant Pot mashed cauliflower is a healthier, low carb alternative to mashed potatoes. It gets so creamy, you’re going to forget you’re eating cauliflower!
With the Instant Pot, you can put the whole head of cauliflower right inside! No need to break it down into florets. Just remove the leaves and put the whole head right in.
For this recipe, you’ll need fresh thyme, stock, parmesan cheese, and plain greek yogurt.
👉 Get the full recipe HERE.
VEGAN Instant Pot Side Dish Recipes
1. Gluten-Free Sesame Orange Quinoa (Vegan)
- Prep. Time – 15 minutes
- Cooking time – 12 minutes
It’s a great side dish for Asian recipes, and it’s gluten-free, nut-free, and vegan.
This hard-to-find allergy-friendly quinoa recipe is free from the top 8 allergens (including gluten, dairy, nuts and soy!).
Since it’s hard to find a good Asian recipe without soy – we had to add this easy instant pot quinoa recipe to our list of favorites.
For this recipe, you’ll need fresh orange zest, sesame oil, and ground ginger.
👉 Get the full recipe HERE
2. Chinese Takeout-Style Tofu and Broccoli
A sticky, spicy, and slightly sweet tofu and broccoli dish, this is the best of Chinese takeout food but made at home and in the Instant Pot!
This dish is quite spicy, so if you are sensitive to spicy food, reduce the amount of Sriracha in the recipe.
For this recipe, you’ll need extra-firm tofu, sriracha or a similar garlic-chili sauce, and rice vinegar.
👉 Get the full recipe HERE
3. Easy Vegan Stuffed Peppers (with Quinoa & Black Beans)
- Prep. time – 10 minutes
- Cooking time – 20 minutes
These veggie stuffed peppers are filled with taco spiced quinoa, black beans, pecan pieces, tomatoes and corn – a fun take on nut “meat” tacos!
Stuffed peppers are a flavorful and filling weeknight dinner, great to incorporate in weekly meal plans, and now made easier with the Instant Pot!
For this recipe, you’ll need cooked quinoa, cooked black beans, frozen corn kernels, fresh pecan pieces, taco seasoning, fire-roasted tomatoes, bell peppers, and avocado.
👉 Get the full recipe HERE
4. Perfect Instant Pot Baked Potatoes
- Prep time – 1 minute
- Cook time – 10 minutes
Is there anything better than a perfectly cooked baked potato? That fluffy, pillowy, potato-y goodness is just ready to be dressed with your favorite toppings and devoured in a moment of total potato-eating bliss.
This recipe requires the Steam function in your Instant Pot, always use this function with a rack or a steamer basket on the bottom – so the food doesn’t burn.
For this recipe, all you’ll need is potatoes, water, and your Instant Pot.
👉 Get the instructions HERE
Instant Pot Pasta and Vegetable Recipes
1. Pasta Marinara
- Prep time – 10 minutes
- Cook time – 10 minutes
Healthy & easy vegan one pot pasta marinara made with whole food plant-based ingredients.
This oil-free Italian comfort dish is prepared in just 20 minutes total, using the Instant Pot. It’s a real family-favorite and a great way to have more vegetables.
For this recipe, you’ll need whole-grain pasta, vegetable broth, eggplant, fresh tomatoes, spinach, bell pepper, and balsamic vinegar.
👉 Get the full recipe HERE.
2. Creamy Garlic Parmesan Pasta
- Prep time – 5 minutes
- Cook time – 8 minutes
This Instant Pot creamy garlic Parmesan pasta recipe cooks in 8 mins, and is so creamy, cheesy, and garlicky – we love it!
Inside the recipe, you’ll find some great tips on how to cook pasta in an Instant Pot or a pressure cooker.
You’ll need linguine pasta, chicken broth, heavy whipping cream, shredded Parmesan cheese, and chopped Italian parsley.
👉 Get the full recipe HERE
3. Stuffed Shells
- Prep. time – 10 minutes
- Cooking time – 15 minutes
If you like pasta, this Instant Pot stuffed shells is the dish for you! A combination of shells, spinach and cheese, what could be better?
For the marinara sauce, you can make it yourself or just use store-bought.
For this recipe, you’ll need pasta shells, ricotta cheese, grated Parmesan cheese, shredded mozzarella cheese
and boiled spinach.
👉 Get the full recipe HERE
Indian Instant Pot Side Dish Recipes
1. Cauliflower Potato Curry
- Prep. time – 10 minutes
- Cooking time – 5 minutes
This comforting Cauliflower Potato Curry is packed full of aromatic spices and powerhouse veggies. The whole family will be running to the table for this hearty filling dish!
This recipe is whole food plant-based, vegan, plant-based, oil-free, refined sugar free, no highly processed ingredients, and gluten-free. What more do we need?
For this recipe, you’ll need serrano pepper or jalapeño pepper, petite diced tomatoes (pureed), cauliflower florets, unpeeled potatoes, and vegetable broth.
👉 Get the full recipe HERE
2. Chickpea Coconut Curry
- Prep. time – 7 minutes
- Cooking time – 30 minutes
This chickpea curry– also known as chana masala–is filled with nutritious pantry staples like dry chickpeas and coconut milk. Best of all, it’s inexpensive, nutritious, and easy to make!
We like to match this curry with white rice. It makes good leftovers and it freezes well, so you can even double the batch for meal prep.
For this recipe, you’ll need dry chickpeas, coconut milk, spinach leaves, garam masala, curry powder, and cumin seeds.
👉 Get the full recipe HERE.
3. Lentil Curry
- Prep. time – 10 minutes
- Cooking time – 15 minutes
This simple, healthy Instant Pot Lentil Curry could be a dinner pageant queen! It’s creamy, not too spicy, and can be either a brown lentil curry or green lentil curry recipe, depending upon which lentils you use.
It takes mere minutes to prep, the entire thing cooks in one pot, and it yields a generous batch that reheats beautifully.
👉 Get the full recipe HERE.
How Do You Steam Vegetables in an Instant Pot?
Steaming vegetables in an Instant Pot is as simple as adding a cup of liquid to your veggies, sealing the lid, and forgetting about them, until 5-15 minutes later, you’ll find them perfectly cooked while keeping most of the nutrients inside. We recommend using the trivet (preferably made from stainless steel) and choosing low pressure to ensure the vegetables are not overcooked in an instant.
How Much Water Should You Add To Instant Pot Vegetables?
When you use an Instant Pot, you need to have enough liquid for the pot to come to pressure and cook the vegetables properly. We recommend adding at least one cup of liquid when you cook vegetables, and more for harder vegetables such as potatoes and winter squash.
We hope you liked our list of favorite Instant Pot vegetable side dish recipes, share more recipes with un in the comments below 🙌
The KM Team