How to cook frozen pork chops Instant Pot style. From rock hard to perfectly tender in minutes. A healthy dinner with vegetables you can make even if you forgot to defrost! Try this in a Ninja Foodi pressure cooker or Crockpot Express too.
We experimented with making frozen pork chops Instant Pot style until we got it just right! Now we can share this easy InstaPot recipe with all of you so if you are forgetful too you can have dinner ready and nobody will be the wiser. 😉 (affiliate links present)
Instant Pot Frozen Pork Chops
Actually, I wrote an entire post about cooking frozen meat in Instant Pot because I did it so often! From a frozen pork shoulder Instant Pot recipe to chicken and more you’ll be surprised how well it turns out.
If you need easy Ninja Foodi recipes, you can use that pot instead with the lid that is not attached and the pressure cook button. The other directions remain the same as far as the cook time.
If you are new to pressure cooking we have a lot of easy one pot meal recipes for you here. To begin with let’s start with a few basic tips:
- Make sure to Bookmark our InstaPot recipes page. We add new ones each week!
- Then PRINT this —–> Instant Pot cooking times cheat sheet that will help you understand how long meat, vegetables and beans take to cook in your pressure cooker.
- I HIGHLY recommend you buy this non stick pot.
- You should know how to deglaze a pressure cooker after sautéing but it won’t have as many issues with this better liner.
For reference, this is the model I have (a 6 quart) and use for all recipe creations.
Here are a few questions you might have before you get started:
Can you put frozen pork in Instant Pot?
Absolutely. We’ve made Instant Pot frozen pork loin before and that came out great. Then we moved on to chops which we share with you here. Tender and juicy in no time.
Frozen pork roast Instant Pot style is amazing too. Now this isn’t something I do on purpose. I still would recommend cooking from raw instead of rock hard, but stuff happens. In a pinch it’s nice to have this information handy so you can still eat.
Any other method other than the slow cooker works fine. Steaming them essentially in a pressure cooker is our favorite way. Follow our steps here so you can try it too.
It will take about 50% longer than if you had defrosted pork chops. In the oven it is close to 50 minutes, in an Instant Pot it is only 12 minutes!
Ingredient Notes
When it comes to choosing your Frozen pork chops I prefer boneless when possible because they will get more tender and they are easier to eat. Bone in will work too, either way you want medium sized pieces that aren’t too thick. Ours were 3/4 inch or so. With thin pork chops I might decrease timing by 1 minute.
And with every meal I do like to add vegetables if at all possible. In this case I added some baby Carrots or chopped into large bite size pieces.
Celery is a really cheap other option that holds up well under high pressure.
Broth or water is needed to steam the meat and get it to nice and tender in no time. You will want a Trivet with handles as well.
Pork dry rub
We typically use our steak dry rub on almost everything no matter what type of meat it is, or how we cook it.
- Brown sugar
- Garlic salt
- Salt and pepper
- Smoked paprika
Can you cook bone-in pork chops from frozen?
It doesn’t matter if you have bone in pork chops or boneless, these are the latter. The cooking time seems to be the same when you pressure cook these. Of course you won’t be able to brown them beforehand, but you could do 2 minutes per side at the end if you wanted. I personally want them as tender as possible so I don’t.
If you have really small pieces I might adjust the time to 10 minutes but I tend to buy medium size and thickness and 12 is just right.
The biggest thing to remember is that these need the steam to release naturally and slowly. Do not do a quick release or it won’t finish cooking slowly at the end so they’re nice and soft. To get the rub to stick you could rub a bit of olive oil on the outsides. If you need instructions for air fryer frozen pork chops we have that too.
Time needed: 12 minutes
Frozen Instant Pot pork chops recipe
- Prepare
Chop vegetables into large chunks. In a small mix dry rub ingredients together. Rub on both sides of frozen chops generously.
Put trivet into pot. Add vegetables on top, then pour chicken broth over the top. Place meat on top of everything.
- Cook
Close lid and pressure valve. Cook on high pressure for 12 minutes.
When done allow pressure to naturally release, this will take about 15 minutes. Release any remaining pressure, should be gone. - Enjoy
Remove meat and vegetables, enjoy together with some white rice.
How Long to Cook Frozen thick cut pork chops Instant Pot
If yours are more than 1 inch thick that would be considered larger than the norm and you would want to increase the timing by 1 minute, that is all. 2 inch thick pork chops typically need a fraction of time longer no matter which way you cook them.
Frozen Pork Chops Instant Pot Recipe
Equipment
Ingredients
- 4 medium pork chops, frozen
- 1 cup chicken broth
- 3 stalks celery, cut into large chunks
- 2 large carrots, cut into large chunks
- 1/2 small onion, sliced
Dry Rub
- 2 tbsp brown sugar
- 1/2 tsp garlic salt
- 1 tsp salt
- 1 tsp pepper
- 1 tsp smoked paprika
Instructions
- Chop vegetables into large chunks.
- In a small mix dry rub ingredients together. Rub on both sides of frozen chops generously.
- Put trivet into pot. Add vegetables on top, then pour broth over the top. Place meat on top of everything.
- Close lid and pressure valve. Cook on high pressure for 12 minutes.
- When done allow pressure to naturally release.
- Remove meat and veggies, enjoy together.
Video
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
Looking for more Instant Pot recipes? We have over a hundred of these! They don’t always have pork either. Mix it up and enjoy chicken, seafood and beef the other nights. A few of our favorites are:
- Instant Pot casseroles are the best because if you have any leftovers you can just throw them in.
- Need to know how to cook a frozen Instant Pot roast too? We have instructions for that.
- We have cooked thawed and frozen Instant Pot shrimp. Eat as is or in some fettuccini.
Already defrosted? You can make pressure cooker pork chops with gravy this way. We’ve made a pork stew Instant Pot recipe that’s amazing too.
Was great, ty!
CD..Curt what a great meal and so easy I also put in some sauage for a little extra flavor yum yum..
Absolutely Excellent Recipe..I made it yesterday and am repeating it today..Very Easy & Delicious..
so glad
10/10 would recommend this recipe!! It turned out so amazing! I prefer sweeter foods and I love honey garlic! So for my veggies I did celery, carrots, a sweet potato, a whole jumbo sweet onion, and a whole bulb of garlic (peeled of course). Then I added about 2 tablespoons of honey with the chicken broth and trust me when I say… AMAZING! The pork chops came out so juicy and tender and moist!! Very impressed! Thank you!😍
Definitely a keeper … grab 2 thick chops out of freezer after church and meal completed by 1:40!
Mad a couple changes – we don’t like celery so I put sweet peppers and celery salt.
I was glad I read comments and let it de-pressure naturally!
Glad they were a hit, thanks for the note!
I have thinner pork chops so I reduced my time to 8 minutes. I didn’t have chicken broth but did have a can of Progresso chicken rice and veggies. I had celery tho and onion. Crossing my fingers!!!!
I can’t wait to try this tonight. Do you hit the steam button or the pressure cooker button? Then set to 12 mins.
Thank you!!
Around how long to naturally release pressure after the 12 minute pressure cooking is done?
Maybe 15 min?
Can I use frozen veggies ??
I haven’t done that so unsure but I imagine you could they may just get a bit more tender than you’d like after 12 min
I forgot to thaw pork chops to pan fry so I tried this recipe for the first time tonight and it was SO good. Everyone in the family agreed they were better than the usual chops we make. Thank you!