Instant Pot Meatballs with Tomato Sauce. Why simmer meatballs for hours when you can pressure cook them in minutes?

Instant Pot Turkey Thighs with Thanksgiving Flavors. Dark meat turkey with a traditional Thanksgiving flavor profile, done in about an hour thanks to pressure cooking.

Instant Pot Rotisserie Chicken and Wild Rice Soup. A Minnesota classic, with homemade pressure cooker broth from a rotisserie chicken.

Instant Pot Mexican Beef and Tomatillo Stew (Entomatado de Res). A traditional Mexican stew, adapted for the pressure cooker.

Instant Pot Lamb Youvetsi. The classic Greek lamb stew, thickened with orzo pasta

Instant Pot Jamaican Beef Stew. A taste of the islands from my Instant Pot.

Instant Pot Baby Back Rib Sandwich. Made from a real slab of baby back ribs, and ready in about an hour thanks to pressure cooking.

Instant Pot Pork Loin Roast – a quick pork roast with a pan sauce from the pressure cooker

Instant Pot Stuffed Peppers. Peppers stuffed with beef, onions, rice, and tomatoes, cooked in under a half an hour in the pressure cooker.

Instant Pot Duck Confit. French style duck legs, silky and tender thanks to pressure cooking.

Instant Pot Chicken Cacciatore. Italian hunter-style chicken, braised in the pressure cooker.

Instant Pot Irish Beef Stew recipe – a hearty beef stew with flavors from the emerald isle.

“Beef brisket soup? That sounds goooood” said my dental hygienist. “Uhnhuh” I gargled back. It was the usual dentist office conversation – get asked a question (What am I cooking right now? “Instant Pot Beef Brisket Soup”) and then try to carry my side of the conversation with a mouth full of dental tools. But my hygenist is right – this soup is gooood. (I could hear the extra O’s when she said it). The key is homemade beef broth. Yes, you can use store-bought beef broth, but the difference between homemade and store-bought is dramatic. Homemade broth is pressure cooking’s killer feature. Take the time, at least once, to make broth in your Instant pot, and you’ll see what you’re missing. I make a big batch of broth on a lazy Sunday afternoon, and freeze the results. Then I’m stocked up for soup1, and can hurry through the rest of this recipe on a busy weeknight. (And, if you’re really into it, you can make homemade hominy, like I did last week.) Brisket is …

I have a confession: I didn’t make this soup the Day After Thanksgiving. I stashed the leftovers from my Christmas turkey in the freezer…and forgot about them. I was googling around for a recipe idea when I stumbled across the idea of mashed potato dumplings. That’s when I remembered the frozen turkey bones in my freezer, and the leftover mashed potatoes from Sunday dinner. I loaded up my Instant Pot with frozen turkey bones and I was off to the races. This is why I beg people to save the bones from roast birds. Leftover turkey, roast chicken, whatever you’ve got – it makes a fantastic pressure cooker broth. After you have broth, the world is your…soup? Yes, the world is your soup. Where was I? Oh, yes, mashed potato dumplings. I couldn’t pass up using leftover mashed potatoes in turkey soup, or calling it Day-After-Thanksgiving soup. (If I could work stuffing and cranberries in somehow, I would. But that seems a bit too far.) The potato takes the place of the milk, butter, and …

Grandma said: If you want luck in the New Year, you have to have pork on New Year’s Day. Who am I to argue with Grandma? Here’s my New Year’s day recipe inspired by the German side of my family, Instant Pot German Pot Roast with Mustard. In Germany this is a Senfbraten, or mustard roast, pork rubbed with mustard and cooked with onions, carrots, and thyme. I use my Instant Pot Pot Roast trick of cutting the roast into pieces – it cooks faster and more evenly. Other than that, it’s a standard pot roast; brown it to add a flavorful crust, sauté the onions, simmer in a little wine, add the roast and some broth, and cook with carrots until falling-apart tender. (You don’t have to add the carrots, but they’re my wife’s favorite part. I get asked a lot of pointed questions if there aren’t carrots.) Oh, and of course I made a side of Sauerkraut and Kielbasa – Grandma says you need pork AND sauerkraut for luck in the new year. …

Instant Pot Day-After-Thanksgiving Turkey Carcass Southwestern Soup. Save the bones, and make this soup with hominy, beans, and chili powder. Did I remind you to save your Thanksgiving turkey carcass? No? Dang it, I slipped up this year. I hope you did save the bones, though, because here’s what to do with it. (I’ve got a spare carcass in my new freezer, so I can make another batch of soup in a month or so.) This is my day after Thanksgiving sorta-posole, a Southwestern style soup inspired by the cans of hominy in my pantry. Hey, Thanksgiving was busy, and I wanted an easy after-the-bird soup this year. While I was in the pantry, I grabbed a can of Ro-Tel tomatoes and a can of black beans and went to work. You have to be willing to get rough with the turkey carcass to fit it in a 6-quart pressure cooker; I break the backbone away from the breast to get it to fit. If you have an 8-quart cooker, you can just drop it …

Instant Pot Beef Goulash. Hearty Hungarian beef and paprika stew, ready in about an hour thanks to pressure cooking.

Instant Pot Easy Braised Oxtail. Simple and delicious braised oxtail in a little over an hour thanks to pressure cooking.

Instant Pot Rotisserie Chicken Noodle Soup – how to make a pot of homemade chicken noodle soup using a store-bought rotisserie chicken.

I got a bag of flageolet beans in my Rancho Gordo bean box and immediately thought of France. Instant Pot Flageolet Beans with Lamb, here we come! This recipe is in memory of Peter Mayle, author of A Year in Provence. He is a large part of why I’m writing this blog; I vicariously visited the south of France through his books, dreaming of lavender and sunshine. Ten years ago I got to live that dream, traveling to Provence and Paris, and taking cooking classes. Six months after that, energized by the trip, I started writing Dad Cooks Dinner. Unfortunately, Mr. Mayle passed away last month at age 78. His last book, My Twenty-Five Years in Provence, is sitting unread on my bedside table. I don’t have the courage to open it yet. Au revoir, Mr. Mayle, and thank you for the inspiration. Flageolet beans (pronounced Fla-zhoh-lay) are small beans, some white, some pale green. They remind me a lot of navy beans and are as Traditional French as you can get without wearing a …