Low in carbs, high in flavor
Eating low-carb or keto doesn’t have to mean boring. The Instant Pot is a magical appliance that uses the pressure cooking method to transform common ingredients into delicious meals that are low in carbohydrates, but don’t skimp even a little on flavor. We’ve rounded up our favorite low-carb recipes for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and beyond that you can make in the Instant Pot, whether you are following a keto diet, or just trying to watch your carb intake.
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Instant Pot Coq au Vin
Hearty and warming coq au vin is a staple of the French country kitchen. This classic braised chicken dish is a wonderful way to transform chicken parts, root vegetables, a small amount of red wine, and basic pantry ingredients into a satisfying meal fit for your Sunday dinner. Our recipe is already low-carb, but you can make it keto by swapping out the carrots for celery.
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Instant Pot Egg Bites
Skip the dash to Starbucks for their sous vide egg bites, and make your own copycat eggy snacks at home. They are perfect for a quick, keto-friendly breakfast, or a mid-afternoon protein boost. Our Instant Pot version includes classic quiche Lorraine ingredients, but feel free to leave out the bacon for vegetarian bites, or customize them to taste with your choice of cheese and vegetables.
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Instant Pot White Chicken Chili
White chicken chili is a weeknight dinner winner. All you have to do is layer the budget-friendly ingredients in the Instant Pot, with no pre-cooking needed, for a delicious and satisfying meal in under an hour. It makes a great game-day bowlful too, topped with shredded cheese, and optional keto tortilla chips.
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Instant Pot Bone Broth
Bone broth is a deeply rich and nourishing stock made by simmering animal bones in water, usually with a few vegetables for flavoring. It takes days to cook bone broth on the stovetop, but the Instant Pot cuts the time needed to just a few hours. Enjoy it as a keto-friendly health drink to fuel your workouts, or use the stock in soups, sauces, braises, and gravies.
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Instant Pot Turkey Breast
Use the Instant Pot to make turkey prep a breeze, whether it’s Thanksgiving or weeknight dinner. It makes short work of a boneless turkey breast, which is seasoned and seared for a few minutes to give it a beautiful golden crust, before pressure cooking to juicy perfection. You can even turn it into a delicious slice-and-serve sandwich meat situation.
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Instant Pot Cauliflower
You won’t believe how easy it is to create an elegant vegan main dish or vegetable side dish in a matter of minutes in the Instant Pot. Here, a whole head of cauliflower is drizzled with olive oil, coated with seasonings, and pressure-cooked for just two minutes. Then you slice it into “steaks” for garnishing with a tangy, Sicilian-style topping with capers, pine nuts, raisins, and fresh lemon zest. Yum!
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Instant Pot Pork Chops
Savory, tender pork chops smothered in a rich and creamy mushroom sauce are a thing of beauty. Use boneless or bone-in chops for this easy entree that includes plenty of good-for-you veggies, and cooks in about half an hour. Serve them with zucchini noodles on the side for a complete, keto-friendly meal.
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Instant Pot Chicken Wings
Get game-day ready in less than 30 minutes with these easy garlic and Parmesan-crusted chicken wings. This recipe makes a big batch of wings, perfect for noshing on any given Sunday, or serving at parties all year-round. They cook up quickly in the Instant Pot, and need just a brief trip under the oven broiler to get that extra-crispy, browned skin you crave.
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Instant Pot Deli-Style Roast Beef
Skip the nitrate-laden, packaged deli meats from the supermarket and cook up your own super-flavorful roast beef. The Instant Pot is the perfect tool for tenderizing a lean eye of round roast infused with tons of flavor from a dark beer and Dijon mustard marinade. The meat makes a tasty filling for stuffed peppers, or a protein-packed topping for salad greens.
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Instant Pot Yogurt
Sure, you could buy pre-made yogurt from the store, but why not trying making it from scratch? All you need to make this homemade Instant Pot yogurt is some milk, and a small amount of plain, non-sweetened yogurt (the kind with live active cultures). Enjoy it in a keto-friendly, low-carb breakfast parfait with fresh berries and raw mixed nuts, or as a cooling topping for blended soups.
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Instant Pot Whole Chicken
If you’re used to planning ahead when cooking a whole chicken, you won’t believe how quickly the Instant Pot pulls off this culinary feat. In just 30 minutes (plus another 15 to release pressure build-up), you’ll get a tender, juicy bird that is every bit as good as those rotisserie chickens from the store. Enjoy it for an entree, make it into chicken salad, or chop it into your favorite chicken casseroles.
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Instant Pot Meatloaf
Meatloaf is a popular family meal that is easy on the budget, and makes a filling family dinner. Our Instant Pot version is loaded with finely-chopped vegetables for extra nutrition, and cooks in a fraction of the time it would take in the oven. Slather it with the included sweet and tangy sauce, or skip the topping and drizzle on ketchup or your favorite bottled barbecue sauce.
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Instant Pot Chicken Tikka Masala
Visit any Indian restaurant in America and you are likely to find chicken tikka masala on the menu. Creamy and rich, with a tangy yogurt and tomato sauce, it’s a family-pleasing winner. Our Instant Pot recipe makes it possible to recreate the popular chicken curry at home with easily-available ingredients. Serve it ladled over cauliflower rice for a complete low-carb meal in one dish.
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Instant Pot Frittata
A fluffy frittata is always welcome at brunch. It’s a great source of protein for kids, and it makes a light, keto-friendly meal at lunch or dinner. The Instant Pot does a lovely job of steaming the eggs for that perfect frittata texture. This any-season frittata is super-tasty and colorful, with bacon, cheese, spinach, tomatoes, and bell peppers.
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Instant Pot Pulled Pork
Assemble a pleasing game-day plate with a pile of pulled pork, and no need to keep the oven heated for hours. The Instant Pot makes it possible to cook the pork in a remarkable 45 minutes, so you can even have it on weekdays. If carb-laden burger buns are off the table, try serving the meat heaped over low-carb coleslaw, nestled in a lettuce wrap, or piled over a crisp salad.
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Instant Pot Collard Greens
Bacon makes everything better, including sturdy and nutritious collard greens. Just a little sugar is needed to sweeten the greens for quick and easily cooking in an electric pressure cooker, versus the typical long simmering time on a stove-top. With a tangy kick from vinegar and spicy hot sauce, they are a great weeknight side, or a popular holiday side dish for baked ham.
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Instant Pot Tuscan Chicken
When you’re craving Italian for dinner, our Instant Pot Tuscan chicken delivers everything you want. It is an easy and extremely flavorful one-pot meal full of juicy chicken chunks, sun-dried tomatoes, and spinach, all in a creamy garlic sauce. Serve it with some roasted vegetables, instead of pasta or potatoes, for a pleasing, low-carb meal.
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Instant Pot Vegetable Soup
Use your pressure cooker to whip up this soul-soothing vegetable soup. With oodles of fresh, wholesome ingredients and flavors, it’s so much better for you than the canned kind, and makes an ideal weekday lunch idea for kids and adults alike. Round it out to a complete, low-carb meal by adding meatballs or veggie balls, or serve it alongside cauliflower tots.
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Instant Pot Leg of Lamb
A garlic-and-herb seasoned leg of lamb is a festive centerpiece for special occasion dinners, but usually involves hours of cooking. Our Instant Pot version gets a delicious lamb dinner on the table in under an hour, and leaves your oven free for other dishes. Serve it with cauliflower rice, or sauteed cabbage, for a low-carb holiday meal to remember.
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Instant Pot Artichokes With Lemon-Garlic Aioli
Do you adore artichokes, but avoid them because of all the time needed for prep? Using the Instant Pot to steam artichokes is a genius cooking trick that takes just 10 minutes, and even lets you skip the cutting and trimming when you are short on time. Serve them with the included lemon-garlic aioli for dipping, and you’ve got an elegant starter at dinner, or even a movie snack.
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Instant Pot Beef Bourguignon
Beef bourguignon is one of France’s most famous dishes. The Instant Pot is a great shortcut for tenderizing meaty morsels of beef chuck. The meat is cooked down in a fragrant sauce accented by smoky bacon, hardy vegetables, and not too much red wine. Serve over cauliflower rice and for an even lower-carb version, swap the carrots for celery, then replace the small amount of flour with xanthan gum for thickening.
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Instant Pot Chicken Stock
Homemade chicken stock is one of the best ways to make use of the Instant Pot appliance. The pressure cooker drastically shortens the usual cooking time for stock, transforming humble chicken parts, aromatics, and dried pantry seasonings into a deeply flavorful and nutritious brew.
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Instant Pot Buffalo Wings
Spicy, sticky, and oh-so-craveable, there is loads to love about pub-style Buffalo wings. Use your Instant Pot to make them for parties, game day viewing, and tailgating events. They need just a quick trip under the broiler to crisp up after cooking in the Instant Pot, and are easy to prepare and serve. Customize them to your desired spice level with tips included in the recipe.
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Instant Pot Brisket
Brisket is an iconic entree that most people reserve for special occasions. With the magic of pressure cooking, however, you no longer need to wait for holiday dinners to enjoy wonderfully saucy, tender slices of beef brisket just like grandma used to make. Use a low-sugar tomato sauce to make this dish suitable for eating on the Keto diet.
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Instant Pot Butter Chicken
Butter chicken is a much-loved Indian dish that is quick and easy to make at home using inexpensive chicken thighs. With a rich and velvety sauce made from tomatoes, butter, spices, and cream, it is sure to become a regular in your weeknight rotation. Dish it over cauliflower rice, or enjoy it simply in bowls, perhaps with a side of crunchy kachumber.
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Instant Pot Crustless Quiche
This tasty crustless quiche is an easygoing answer to the weekend breakfast dilemma when you are eating low-carb or keto. Loaded with caramelized onions, kale, and shredded gouda, it tastes special enough for family brunch, and is a cinch to make in under an hour, without leaving you too many dishes.
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Instant Pot Chicken Breast
Use your Instant Pot to batch-cook chicken breasts for the fridge, so you can shred them for piling atop keto nachos, dice them up for soups, salads, and casseroles, or serve them as an entree at dinner along with side dishes. You’ll get perfectly poached, tender, juicy chicken breasts every time, without ever turning on the stove.
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Instant Pot Meatballs
Tender, delicious, Italian-style meatballs are always welcome at the dinner table, and make a great buffet appetizer. There is no added step of browning as these meatballs cook right in the sauce, making both cooking and clean-up a breeze. Serve the meatballs and sauce with spiralized zucchini noodles or spaghetti squash.
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Instant Pot Beef Stew
Beef stew is a dinnertime staple in many households, and this flavorful version is perfect for cold-weather days. It is a comforting blend of budget-friendly beef chuck, leeks, carrots, beef stock, and pantry seasonings, with just a little red wine added for richness. Serve it to solve a comfort food craving on days when you are really hungry.
