2 Delicious & Super-Easy Instant Pot Meals for Families

Turkey pasta

For this creamy pasta, you will need:

• 8 slices of crumbled bacon
• 5 ounces of spinach
• 2 pounds of ground turkey or chicken
• 1 packet of ranch
• 4 cups of chicken broth or 4 chicken bouillon cubes
• 1 pound of pasta
• 1 cup of shredded cheese
• 8 oz block of cream cheese

1. Start off by cooking four pieces of crumbled bacon in your Instant Pot on the sauté function.

2. Once it has finished cooking, fish out the crumbled bacon and start cooking up the ground turkey.

3. Add in four bouillon cubes and four cups of water, a packet of ranch, and the pasta.

4. Give it all a good stir. Make sure that the pasta is just slightly submerged in the water. That way everything gets cooked and you do not have any crunchy pasta.

5. Put the lid on, set it to sealing, and put it on pressure. Cook for five minutes.

6. Turn the knob to fast release and take the lid off.

7. Stir up the pasta. Mine was stuck a little bit together, but it came apart pretty easily once I started scooping it with a spoon.

8. Once all the pasta is nice and separated, add in the remaining ingredients: a block of cream cheese, spinach, a cup of shredded cheese, and the crumbled bacon.

9. Mix it all together and let that cream cheese melt together.

This turned out really creamy and delicious, and I had a lot of people asking to put it onto the repertoire.  

Honey mustard chicken and rice

For this Instant Pot recipe, you will need:

• 2-3 chicken breasts or 8-10 chicken tenders
• ¼ cup of honey
• ¼ cup of Dijon mustard
• 1 teaspoon of salt
• 2 tablespoons of lemon juice
• 1 tablespoon of crushed garlic
• 2¼ cup of water or broth
• 2 cups of rice
• Optional: 2 bags of peas

1. In a bowl, mix minced garlic, a little bit of lemon juice, and a little bit of honey. Life hack: you can spray the scoop that you use to measure your honey out with some nonstick spray, in order to help it come out easier. Moreover, if your honey is thick or crystallized, you can microwave it for a few seconds. That way, it will loosen up and be much easier to pour.

2. Add Dijon mustard and salt.

3. Cut up the chicken into small pieces. The recipe calls for chicken tenders, but I have found that the smaller the pieces, the easier it is for people to get exactly the portion they wanted, which can really help if you are on a budget.

4. Place the chicken in the bottom of the Instant Pot, and pour the honey mixture over it. Then, add in the water.

5. If you are not cooking the rice separately as I did, add in the uncooked rice. Alternatively, you can cook it separately and just serve the chicken and the rice together.

6. Set to Manual High (Pressure Cook) for 12 minutes with a 10-minute Natural Release.

7. Once the meal has cooled off and the pressure has been released, take off the lid and give it a stir. The chicken should be fully cooked and very tender, breaking apart easily.

8. Optionally, add peas. A great tip I always use is that if your meal is meat-heavy, adding some veggies will stretch that meal a little further.

9. If you are cooking the rice separately and feel like you need to thicken the chicken up, combine two tablespoons of cornstarch and ¼ a cup of water and add that in.

This turned out absolutely delicious.

Instant Pot meals for family

I hope you try these easy Instant Pot meals for your family at home so your family can enjoy them as much as mine did.

Do you have your own simple Instant Pot family recipes you would like to share? You are very welcome to leave your ideas down in the comment section, and I will be happy to give them a try.