How to boil potatoes in Instant Pot or Ninja Foodi is easy! Great to dice, mash and make into our popular palt recipe, or butter as a dinner side dish. Gluten free and a cheap choice everyone loves.
Ready for boiling potatoes fast instead of waiting for that dang pot of water to boil on your stove? I know, that’s annoying and this is very quick. You will probably never do it that old fashioned way ever again after making them like this. Just one Instant Pot recipes we have on our site. (affiliate links present)
Boiled Potatoes Recipe
You can use a Mealthy, Crockpot Express or your Ninja Foodi. You are just using the steam function to make these and all the newer pressure cooker pots offer this. High pressure works too. No worries if your brand isn’t the same as mine, they basically work the same.
Yes we make pressure cooker mashed potatoes quite often, but sometimes you want a bit of different texture. Instead of diced, just slice them in half next time. It is the perfect amount for kids (and me). These will come out just like boiling potatoes on the stovetop, but much faster. Fork tender you can add butter and serve with your meal easily.
We live in Idaho so we eat a lot of taters. From baked potatoes in Ninja foodi to Instant Pot bacon potatoes that are cheesy, there are hundreds of ways to change them up. Russets are the cheapest and most common. You could boil red potatoes this same way with just about the same timing because those are smaller, but firmer.
I like medium potatoes in size to make any version of Instant Pot baby potatoes, and I prefer to leave the skins on. That is where the fiber and nutrition is anyway. If you are totally opposed to that then you could easily decrease your cook time by about 1-2 minutes depending on how large they are.
How Long to Boil Potatoes in Instant Pot
You really can use any variety to get these done. Thing to remember is the timing = size. WE are discussing medium size russets cut in half so keep that in mind if you use something else. In total though you are looking at 10-15 minutes. For whole pressure cooker baked potatoes you’re looking at 15.
Baby Potatoes
You could choose those cute bags of petite potatoes too. Not the really teeny tiny ones but they are basically the same size of a small russet cut in half. These you will NOT cut at all. Just rinse, poke each one with a fork, pour them inside the vegetable steamer and steam whole. Things you’ll need for this Instant Pot side dish
Red Potatoes
So there isn’t a big difference between the two when boiling red potatoes in pressure cooker because they are smaller. Yes they’re firmer in general but if because there is a smaller surface area when sliced in half the cook time doesn’t change. Choose large sizes for these.
Ingredient Notes
- Potatoes should be medium in size, ideally use russets cut in half, baby potatoes kept whole, poked with a fork, leave skins on, if you remove them decrease cook time from 10 to 7
- Water or broth is even better to permeate them with a bit more flavor and and a bit of sodium, chicken or beef.
- I like to sprinkle on a little salt but you’ll want seasonings and butter when serving for sure
Of course if you choose to make pressure cooker garlic mashed potatoes when done <—–you’d need other items too.
This is NOT a sponsored post for this Real salt brand but larger granules are just my favorite. If you have never strayed from using boring Mortons there is a HUGE difference y’all. I even have truffle salt which is amazing when they’re done with some salted butter and sour cream!!
You could do this at the same time as eggs so you can make Instant Pot potato salad! With that I prep the pieces much smaller so the cook time for both foods are the same. About 5 minutes is all you need for that, seriously.
Other ideas we love – Pour some velveeta cheese sauce on top when done, kids love this one for sure. Add steamed broccoli under that to get more veggies on the plate too.
What to make with leftovers
If you have leftovers, don’t throw them away!! You can mash and make air fryer potato pancakes or leftover mashed potato balls with them.
You can print recipe card at the bottom of this post. Print it out and keep if you have a recipe book or just come back every time you need the instructions. We love to “see you” of course.
Boil Potatoes in Instant Pot
Equipment
- 1 pressure cooker
- 1 trivet
Ingredients
- 4-6 medium potatoes, washed, russet used, cut in half
- 1.5 c water
- 1 sprinkle salt
Instructions
- Pour water into pot. Lower down vegetable steamer basket.
- Wash potatoes and slice in half width wise. Place into basket and shake sea salt on top of all of them.
- Close lid and steam valve. Select steam function for 10 minutes, allow for a 2 minute natural release, then release rest of steam. (if you remove the skins I would set to 7 minutes with 2 min natural at the end instead)
- Remove, serve, mash, cube, dice, or use them however you wish.
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
Kind of. Yes when you add broth or water with food together under high pressure the liquid will boil or essentially steam to soften them. You will use the lid that is not attached to do this. It works great with potatoes to soften them vs. boiling on the stove.
