Marcella Hazan’s three-ingredient tomato sauce is famous, and rightfully so. Butter, onion, and canned whole tomatoes make a simple, yet fantastic sauce. Let’s try it in a pressure cooker with Instant Pot Marcella Hazan Tomato Sauce. The only tricky part of this recipe was getting the timing down. 30 minutes under pressure is the Goldilocks zone: a balance of breaking down the tomatoes into a sauce without overcooking and losing the bright, tomato flavor. Marcella recommends Italian San Marzano DOP tomatoes, which are fantastic…and expensive. I get good results with American brands of canned plum tomatoes, which are less than half the price of San Marzano tomatoes. (I usually go with American canned tomatoes.) The big difference between Italian and American canned tomatoes was the amount of salt in the can. Italian tomatoes don’t have salt; they need some, or the sauce comes out tasting a little flat. Looking for a simple tomato sauce that replaces hours of simmering with 30 minutes of pressure? Try this one out. Thanks, Marcella! What do you think? Questions? …

Instant Pot Minestrone. A warming bean, pasta, and vegetable soup, made with quick-soaked dried beans.

Instant Pot Steak Chili. Chili with bite-sized cubes of chuck, ready in about an hour thanks to pressure cooking.

Instant Pot Carnitas Carnitas are Mexican pork candy. Cubes of pork shoulder, simmered until tender, and then fried in their own rendered pork fat. Crispy on the outside, tender on the inside, I’ve tried Instant Pot Carnitas many times, but the results were not what I wanted…until now. The problem was, I kept trying to make this a one-pot meal, and fry the pork cubes in the Instant Pot by simmering off the liquid. There were two problems. First, the pork would always burn on the bottom of the pot, no matter how carefully I watched it. Second, pressure cooker pots (like the Instant Pot) are not that wide – at best, I could fit 2 pounds of pork in a single layer on the bottom. That’s not enough to satisfy my hungry crowd of kids. My breakthrough was giving up on the authentic, one-pot approach. Mexican kitchens cook carnitas in wide, shallow pots, so there’s plenty of room to fry the pork. Me? I brought out my frypan, and use vegetable oil or lard …

Instant Pot Split Pea Soup with Ham Thanks to a tip from J. Kenji Lopez-Alt, I can make Instant Pot split pea soup as thick as any fog.1 That tip? Make sure to quick release the pressure. The pressure release starts a vigorous boil inside the pot, boiling, roughing up the peas and releasing their starch into the soup. My pea soups used to be a little watery; now I can practically stand a spoon in them. (Not really, but you know what I mean.) Pork and peas are a perfect pair, so I add pork in two different ways. A smoked pork hock gives up its flavor to the peas, and cubed ham adds meaty bites to the soup. I also sauté my vegetables – a mix of onion, celery, carrot, and garlic – to add a sweet undertone to the bowl. Don’t skip the sauté step – the soup will be bland without it. What do you think? Questions? Other ideas? Leave them in the comments section below. Related Posts Pressure Cooker Senate …

Instant Pot Flank Steak Tacos – a quick, beefy taco from the Instant Pot or other pressure cooker.