Learn how to cook beets in the Instant Pot. It’s really fast and the skins peel right off after they’re cooked, which means less mess.
I absolutely adore beets. Not only do they taste delicious, but the color is just stunning. I always marvel at the natural beauty of them when they’re cooked and cut up like little jewels.
Ways To Cook Beets
I know how to roast beets really easily, but I figured there had to be a faster way to pressure cook them in the Instant Pot. The Instant Pot is my new best friend, these days. I’m known to keep cooked beets on hand so I can whip up a batch of my Borscht whenever I want, or if I have friends stop by I can make some Beet Hummus quickly.
The Instant Pot came through again, and I was right! It’s a faster and easier way to cook beets perfectly every time. I’ll tell you how I do it.
Beets In The Instant Pot
You want to work with really clean beets. I spend some time scrubbing them, and then I trim off the greens on the stems, leaving about 1 inch. Don’t throw away those greens though, here’s how I cook beet greens – they’re delicious.
To cook them, all you do is add some water to the bottom of the Instant Pot and put the beets on in. I pressure cook them for 20 minutes and let it naturally release for a bit before releasing the pressure manually.
Once you let them cool to the touch, the skin slides right off. You won’t believe it! Make sure you peel them on a plastic cutting board or over the sink so the mess stays contained and you don’t stain anything.
Now you have perfectly cooked beets to use in whatever you’d like.
More Instant Pot Basics
Below I’ve gathered up some links for you to some of my favorite Instant Pot recipes for making basic things, like these beets.
- Instant Pot Farro
- Instant Pot Mashed Potatoes
- Instant Pot Plain White Rice
- Instant Pot Butternut Squash
- Instant Pot Collard Greens
- Instant Pot Black-Eyed Peas
If you’d like to browse all of my Instant Pot recipes, head over here.
Podcast Episode: Cooking Beets In The Instant Pot
Listen to me explain briefly about how to make these beet greens, along with some other great tips, by clicking the play button below:
Listen to more Recipe of the Day episodes here.
Print
How to Cook Beets in the Instant Pot
- Prep Time: 5 minutes
- Cook Time: 30 minutes
- Total Time: 35 minutes
- Yield: 8 servings 1x
- Category: Side Dish
- Method: Instant Pot
- Cuisine: American
DESCRIPTION
Learn how to cook beets in the Instant Pot. It’s really fast and the skins peel right off after they’re cooked, which means less mess.
Ingredients
- 1 lb. beets (about 3 large, or 5 small)
- 1 cup water
Instructions
- Scrub the beets well and trim the greens off, leaving a 1-inch stem.
- Pour the water into the bottom of the Instant Pot.
- Place the clean beets in the Instant Pot.
- Put the lid on and turn the valve to “Sealing”.
- Select “Pressure Cook” or “Manual” on high pressure and set the cycle to 20 minutes.
- Allow the cycle to run and let the Instant Pot naturally release for 10 minutes.
- Carefully perform a manual release.
- Remove the beets from the Instant Pot, and allow them to cool so you can handle them without burning yourself.
- On a plastic cutting board, or over the sink, peel the skin off the beets simply by pressing with your fingers. They should slip right off.
- Serve or store in the fridge for about a week!
One more question. Any suggestions on preparing the ingredients for a meal to be cooked later in the day? My energy is in the morning so when it comes to dinner time, I am too tired to prepare anything. Sometimes I use a slow cooker for all day. I have a small Instapot since I am one person, slow cooker is larger and I use it for soup. Learning one step at a time.
Tamara, Soups and stews are a wonderful option because they can be easily reheated. Also, casseroles can usually be made earlier and cooked later.
The other thing I’d point you to are some of our more hands-off recipes. There are some really amazing no-boil pasta dishes, for instance. You take 5 minutes to put the ingredients into a baking dish and then put the dish in the oven and walk away for an hour. You’d end up with more than you need for one meal, but with no effort and the leftovers would reheat really well.
Here are some links: https://cookthestory.com/no-boil-feta-pasta-bake/
https://cookthestory.com/delicious-no-boil-pasta-bake/
For entree portions, I’d recommend trying these chicken thigh stacks. You could assemble as many as you want to earlier in the day when you have energy, even just one, refrigerate them, and then bake later. I would say though to not add the breadcrumbs until you’re ready to bake it. Here are links to some for variations on these:
https://cookthestory.com/easy-chicken-cordon-bleu-recipe/
https://cookthestory.com/chicken-burrito-stacks/
https://cookthestory.com/baked-reuben-chicken/
https://cookthestory.com/baked-pizza-chicken/
I hope that helps! Thank you for the question.
Do you k ow the amount of potassium in this recipe? I’ve learned that beets are high in potassium and for those on a chronic kidney disease diet both sodium and potassium need to be reduced. I have to leach vegetables. I made beets tonight leached and they had no taste. Your sodium content is low so I’m hoping your potassium is low also. Thanks.
Kim, looks like for this, it’s about 166.6mg of potassium or 4% daily value in each serving (about half a beet). Of course, if you’re concerned I would definitely consult your doctor as our nutritional information should be taken as estimates and not medical advice.
I noticed at the top of your page on “How to Cook Beets in the Instant Pot”, it states cook time is 30 minutes. However, in the actual recipe it states 20 minutes. If I cook more than 1 lb. of beets at a time should I increase the cooking/pressuring time to 30 minutes? I will be dicing and pickling the beets for bottling.
I just found your site doing a search for how to cook beets in an Instapot. Learning the basics and signed up for your free Instapot guide. So – I am over 70 and cook only for myself so I use smaller portions. I don’t like leftovers. I bought one beet to try it out and wrapped it in foil and put it in the oven for about half hour at 400; still hard. How do I time one beet in the Instapot?
Tamara, Thank you for the question. First, to cook beets in the oven wrapped in foil, they typically need longer than 30 minutes. It depends on the size of the beets. I have a recipe for oven-roasted beets that you can look at over here https://cookthestory.com/how-to-roast-beets/
Second, for 1 beet in the Instant Pot I don’t think that the time would change very much from doing 3 beets. I’d try following the same recipe and just using 1 beet.
Ann, The reason that the times don’t match up is that one (30 minutes) is the total cooking time. That includes the time it takes for the pressure cooker to heat up and come to pressure, and also the natural release time. I actually now think that the total time should be increased to 40 minutes. That must have been a typo. The 20 minutes in the instructions is the amount of time you will set your instant pot to pressure cook for. So, you put your beets and water into the instant pot and put the lid on and turn the valve to Sealing. Then you set it to pressure cook for 20 minutes. It will take a bit of time to heat up, then it will pressure cook for 20 minutes. Then you leave it alone for a further 10 minutes (the natural release). After that, you turn the valve to Venting and release the remaining steam before taking the lid off.
I’m not entirely sure if you will need to increase the pressure cooking time for more beets. You see, with more beets in there, it will take longer for the machine to come up to pressure. But then, the inside is fully-pressurized and hot and the beets all will be cooking for that full 20 minutes. It might be the case that they don’t need any longer. If you finish the process and try stabbing a beet with a skewer or fork and it isn’t soft, you would then do another round of pressure cooking for 5 minutes and that should do it. I apologize for not knowing for certain but I haven’t tried it myself to know. Thanks for the great questions!
And even better, they freeze beautifully, so once you peel them, just slice them, put in freezer bags and pop into the freezer. They taste like fresh and there you go — beets all winter!
Wonderful! Thanks for sharing, Carol.
I’m usually skeptical of cooking times with a pressure cooker and this is no different. Medium sized beets, cooked at high pressure for 20 minutes and allowed a natural release for about 10 minutes. The beets are not close to being cooked through! I just put them in for another 15 minutes and hopefully they’ll be done. I see the same, but opposite issue, with cooking stew. Throw veg and meat in for 20 to 30 minutes and presto it’s done. Yes, meat is tender, but veg is mush.
I’m sorry to hear that, John! We just had another comment saying the timing was perfect.
Excellent info, right to the point and came out perfect!!
Delicious!
Thanks!
You’re very welcome!
Do you use the trivet or just put the beets directly into the bottom?
You can actually do either, Honor. It’s not going to make much of a difference since there is so little water that the beets won’t be very submerged. 1 cup of water spread out in the bottom of the instant pot is only going to come up a quarter of an inch over the beets, if that, and so the beets will be steaming above the water with or without the trivet.
If I double or triple this recipe, do I have to double or triple water and cooking times?
Elle, You don’t have to add extra water. As to the cooking time, I’m not positive. You see, the extra beets will mean that it will take longer for the pot to heat fully and reach pressure. That added heating time might be enough to make up for the difference. I think that if the beets aren’t too large and if they are all of similar size, it should work in the time given. 20 minutes is quite a lot. However, if I’m wrong, you can always do another round of 5 minutes. Then you will know for next time. If it does take longer, please come back and let us know. I’d really appreciate it!
Wow! First time making beets in the instant pot.
I had some red and golden with different sizes.
The cooking time was just right.
Thank you for sharing.
You’re welcome, Romy!
Brilliant easy recipe and tastes delicious.
Thanks, Hills! Glad you enjoyed it.
Brian. You can use that beautiful beet water as a stain. Make tyedied tshirts or dye the whole shirt or cloth. It will stain wood also.
Thank you for your suggestions, Cindy!
Brian the purpose of leaving the stems and about 1/4 inch of the tops is to preserve the Nutritional value of the beets.
Has anyone done anything with the water that’s left over?
I don’t leave the stems and I end up with this beautiful dark colored water afterwards. I’m wondering if it can serve a better purpose than going down the drain.
I have not done anything with the liquid, Brian. However, you could definitely add it to any soup that is already red or dark-colored just for extra flavor. You could add it to a lighter soup or broth but it would tint it.
These look delicious, and fast to make in the Instant Pot.
Thank you, Cheryl!
I love sweet potatoes in the IP, never thought about beets until now!
There’s so many uses, Rebekah!
Nice way to cut down the mess from preparing beets, instant pot does it all I see.
It can certainly do a lot, Calvin!
Perfect way to do beets for salads.
Thanks, Deborah!
I hate to admit it but I’ve never once cooked beets without peeling them first. I had no idea!! I hate peeling them so much!! Yet another awesome use for my instant pot!
Game changer, right? Enjoy, Angelica!
I think beets are underrated. You do have to watch out that they don’t stain.
Very true, Sarah!
Made these last night and used them in a salad. Very easy to do and cheaper than canned beets.
That’s great to hear, Sandy!