If I had a dollar each time someone asked me about adjusting the cooking time for a recipe in the pressure cooker, I would probably be able to afford a nice cup of tea each week. (I have been asked this twice in the past few days which is what prompted this post.)
Me and my pressure cooker
Rest assured that even without those dollars, I do enjoy many nice cups of tea each week. Let me explain, though, about the cooking times in the pressure cooker and why you don’t have to change anything about the cooking time.
Let’s say that instead of cooking 1 cup of brown rice and adding 1 1/2 cups of water and cooking for 20 minutes, you want to cook 2 cups of brown rice. Using The Veggie Queen’s magic grain cooking algorithm you would add another cup of rice and 1 1/4 cups more liquid (of your choice). You would have 2 cups of rice and 2 3/4 cups of liquid. You lock the lid on the pressure cooker and wait for it to come to pressure and start timing for 20 or 22 minutes, according to how you like your rice cooked.
The pressure cooker will naturally take longer to get to pressure because there is more liquid in the pot. It will also take longer to do the “natural pressure release” because the pot will be hotter with the additional liquid. The time will not double but might increase by 20 to 30% depending upon what you are cooking and if you are doubling, tripling or making multiple servings of your dish.
The same principle applies when you cook beans, soup, chili, curry or any other dish in the pressure cooker. You just cook for the amount of time indicated in a recipe. The cooker does the work for you.
Isn’t this handy?
Whether you use a stove top or an electric pressure cooker, this is the case. This is just another reason that I love pressure cooking so much. It takes the work out of cooking. Rice takes 20 minutes at pressure even if you cook 4 cups, although some people say that I am trying to fool them with this statement. I am not.
Truth be told, it will take longer to cook 4 cups of rice than just 1 cup, but no matter what it will likely still take less time than cooking rice on the stove top. This is even more true for beans, which might take 1 hour on the stove top and just 8 minutes at pressure in the pressure cooker.
If you have any comments or any other pressure cooker questions, please feel free to leave them here. I love getting more people to use the pressure cooker. It changes lives…
I would like to do 2 bags of dried black eye peas in my instant pot? So I double the liquid and cook for same time?
Sorry that I couldn’t get back to you more quickly.
To cook 2 bags of beans, you double the liquid and the time stays the same. It will, though, take longer to cook because of the increased volume.
I have read several of your articles where you discuss adding progressively less water for each additional cup of rice. I have never found one where you give the actual water measurement beyond 2 cups of rice. Usually you say “and so on”, but as a mathematician and computer scientist, I must say that there are several interpretations to your formula. So, for the sake of clarity, would you mind giving the actual rice to water measurements for 3 cups of rice and also 4 cups of rice, assuming we’re beginning with a rice-to-water ratio of 1:1½. It would be great if you would do the same for 1:¼ ratio as well. I would greatly appreciate that.
If you are cooking brown rice, the 2nd cup gets 2 3/4 cups, the 3rd cup of rice, you use 3 3/4 cups, for the fourth cup, you ought to be able to use as little as 4 1/2 cups liquid.
Since I don’t usually cook more then 3 cups, I don’t go through this often.
You can do the math for the 1 1/4 cups, 2nd cup gets 2 1/4, 3rd cup the ratio is 1:1- so 3 cups. These all seem to work.
Hi Jill! Just wondering if I want to make really mushy basmati..ratio being 1:3.5…which I made in my old fashioned pr cooker..came out great..in the IP..that wld mean 4 c rice to 14 c water..wld I have to change the cook time..minutes? I usually do 6 minutes. Altho..i do see u have said cook times need not b changed!!Any suggestions?
Thanx in advance..
Not sure why you want your rice like that but for white rice, I cook 3 minutes. For mushy rice and all that water, it might be a bit longer. I do hope that this helps.
I have a four pound pork roast. Recipe says to use two pounds. Do I use same pressure time
Since I only cook plants, I am not certain but when cooking plants, it doesn’t matter if you cook 10 potatoes or 4 or 1, so I would say, Use the same timing.
Thank you for shairng.