By Sara
Whole food plant-based Instant Pot recipes are easy and convenient to make. With fall being in full swing, and the holidays fast approaching, simple and quick are the best adjectives you can describe your vegan meals with. Not to mention WFPB recipes are ones that will fuel your daily activities and warm you from the inside out, without animal products, thus making your main and side dishes tasty ways to fuel your soul also.
Benefits of the Instant Pot:
The beauty of cooking with an Instant Pot is that the cooking is mainly hands-off time. You don’t have to stir it throughout the cooking time as you would with regular stove top meals. Being able to set it and walk away to do some laundry or empty the dishwasher is a huge benefit to utilizing this tool as a mainstay in my weekly meal prep.
Furthermore, easy meals are my jam! The speed at which a meal comes together is a major benefit over using a slow cooker. This makes busy weeknights less hectic and more manageable. Who has the time to spend hours in the kitchen preparing meals that are both healthy and delicious? Not I and surely not you! The Instant Pot can become your new fast food staple in the kitchen, by decreasing cook time on most recipes.
“If it came from a plant, eat it; if it was made in a plant, don’t.” –Michael Pollan
Quick Tips for Whole Food Plant-based Meals:
Whole Grains:
First, choose one whole grain each week, rotating through the many different types you can get quite a variety of healthy plant-based foods into your diet. Often in recipes you can substitute one whole grain for another, so you don’t need to follow a recipe to a T. Making a big batch of whole grain on the weekend eases the work of meal creation during the week.
Some of the different types of whole grains include:
- Wild rice
- Quinoa
- Barley
- Farro
- Amaranth
- Sorghum
Leafy greens:
Next, prep some leafy greens (have them washed, chopped and waiting in your salad spinner for you to add to recipes).
Legumes:
Additionally, to save time batch a large pot of beans or lentils to use throughout the week in your meals. (When you soak whatever beans are used in the recipe first, your cooking time comes down even further.) The combination of whole grains and legumes will help you feel satisfied.
Sides:
Finally, by simply combining the whole grain and legumes with a sheet pan of roasted vegetables, or whatever vegetable sides you prefer with a sauce or two for variety and you have a week’s worth of meals with little effort.
Thankfully, these meals come together quickly on busy weeknights as you are running from children’s after school activities to parent-teacher conferences to home and scrambling for ideas for dinner. With a little practice you can begin putting fresh ingredients together like a pro and the depth of flavor the instant pot brings is fantastic for many plant-based meals, making them ones your family will ask for again and again.
A collection of my favorite recipes are included below (I hope some of these will make it into your regular rotation of family favorites as well).
These recipes are as delicious the next day, as when I make these, I make enough to have leftovers, and sometimes even freeze a couple of meals for nights when I need an easy convenience meal that can go into the fridge to thaw while I’m at work, and be ready for the microwave to reheat, and they taste freshly made.
Each of these is an excellent option for just this type of habit, and makes eating healthy whole foods even easier! To increase texture and interest, you can mix cooked and fresh veggies. Your whole family can enjoy whole food plant-based instant pot recipes!
Vegan Pressure Cooking by JL Fields:
A great vegan instant pot cookbook which includes four of my favorites! I come back to this cookbook time and again for the convenience and ease of getting meals onto the table. Featuring many popular recipes as well as some that are for a more varied palate.
- Umami Anasazi Beans: So delightful and the smoky umami flavor, onions, mushrooms, liquid smoke and miso all add to the complex flavor which leaves even meat lovers satisfied, rather than asking “Where’s the meat?”. Serve over sautéed greens and whole grains along with some crusty bread to soak up the savory liquid this meal creates. A perfect fall or winter meal that will satisfy the toughest critics!
- Black Eyed Pea and Collard Green Chili: This is the perfect dish to ring in the New Year with! Serve over some quinoa or any other favorite whole grain to make it a little more hearty. The luck will follow you well into the new year after consuming this colorful and appetizing meal.
- Soy Curl Mac ‘n’ Cheese: Soy curls can be difficult to find, but make a great chicken substitute in many meals. They are a textured vegetable protein food (TVP food). Omit the vegan butter and the shredded vegan cheese, which makes it slightly less decadent but more aligned with a WFPB diet preference. Mac ‘n’ Cheese is after all, the ultimate comfort food! Serve this with a mix of roasted veggies (think roasted asparagus, or broccoli and cauliflower, or even some sautéed dark leafy greens.
- Taco Mac ‘n’ Cheese: This recipe uses rehydrated TVP to replace the meat, but lentils and mushrooms can easily be substituted for an equally enticing main dish. Again, substitute the vegan mozzarella with nutritional yeast and some miso to help this meal comply with WFPB dietary preferences. I enjoy this over baked sweet or regular russet potatoes and it’s filling and so yummy!
The Essential Instant Pot Cookbook by Coco Morante:
By the same token, this is another favorite cookbook. Full disclosure, it is not a plant-based cookbook, however I’ve found several recipes to be either WFPB or easily converted to this style eating. Some of my favorite healthy instant pot recipes are in here.
- Borracho Beans: are a great dish that is a Tex-mex flavor for beans cooked in beer. Omit the bacon and instead add a tablespoon red miso and a couple of drops of liquid smoke to give more umami flavor without the need for the bacon.
- Jamaican-Style Rice and beans: these are delicious and with just the addition of some fresh or cooked veggies provides a complete meal.
- Tomato Basil Soup: is the classic tomato soup, from which I omit the oil and of course, use vegetable broth. The winter classic to eat with a plant-based grilled cheese sandwich! Winter meal perfection!
- Sisilian-style Chard with Raisins and Pine nuts: A fantastically scrumptious side dish that is so quick to come together and makes eating healthy greens a breeze with the earthy flavors!
Whole Food Plant-Based Instant Pot Recipes on Pinterest:
Favorite whole food plant-based instant pot recipes which are brought to you by Pinterest include:
- Creamy Carrot Ginger Soup Tasty and comforting soup recipe to warm you on chilly nights.
- Weekday Instant Pot Pasta Delicious and easily assembled meal for those hurried weekday evenings.
- Instant Pot Beans and Whole Grains An easy complete meal that can easily be made with a few minimally processed ingredients.
- Refried Beans Delicious and easy, freezable (making a large batch to freeze and store is so easy!) and convenient.
- Pumpkin Risotto A great fall recipe with simple ingredients and layers of flavor.
- Vegan Broccoli Cheddar Soup (I substitute white beans for the cashews to make it a lower fat soup that I can enjoy guilt-free).
- Minestrone Soup This is a comforting soup that tastes remarkably like Olive Garden’s minestrone. Delicious!
- Carrot Cake Oatmeal For breakfast, you can’t beat the delicious warming spices in this steel-cut oats recipe!
Surely whole food plant based instant pot recipes are the best things since sliced bread. They are an easy way to be sure to add a wonderful variety of delicious plant-based foods to your diet. Your favorite thing about them will be the ease with which they come together, allowing you to not need be in the kitchen while they are cooking.
Tell me friend: is there a recipe you’d love to see added to this post? Let me know, so I can update it and add your favorites as well!
