Hey there!
I’ve been eyeing the Instant Pot for a few months. My friend Jaime bought one a couple of months ago, and has been raving about it since. J is not a fan of the crockpot, but fell in love with the Instant Pot. I put it in my online cart a wile ago, but couldn’t justify buying another kitchen gadget. I already don’t have space for my two crock pots, dehydrator, mixer, etc. When I found a great Cyber Monday deal on the Instant Pot DUO Plus 6 Qt 9-in-1, I had to grab it. It’s been a week, and it’s already been worth it!
Caesar was excited to get the delivery too!
Basically, it’s a crock pot, pressure cooker, steamer, sterilizer and more all in one. You can read all the details of mine here. I’ve been using a crock pot for a while, but I’ve never owned a pressure cooker. My father uses his pressure cooker often, but he’s like a professional chef, so I think I always assumed they were complicated to use.
The pressure cooker part was intimidating for me at first, so I knew I wanted to start with something easy. After reading the manual and cleaning the parts, we decided to try making applesauce as our first dish. I had apples that were starting to wrinkle from our apple picking outing earlier in the fall. And, we were sick of pies so it was a win-win.
Most applesauce recipes are simple, and pretty much the same ingredients – apples, cinnamon, sweetener and water. I used raw honey as my sweetener. Some add sea salt and butter…I added a couple of dashes of sea salt, but skipped the butter. It just didn’t feel right, hahaha.
Then, the scary part came: turning my Instant Pot on! Even though I did a 2 minute test to make sure it worked, I was nervous. I also got a little confused, because all of the Instant Pot recipes said to hit the Manual button. My Instant Pot doesn’t have a Manual button!
After doing a few minutes of research, I realized I just had to press the Pressure Cooker button and set the time on my model. So, I made sure the valve and lid were closed, pressed the Pressure Cooker button, set it for 5 minutes and waited for some magic to happen…
After the IP beeped to let me know it was ready, I was anxious to see the results. Cautiously, I opened the steam valve to let out the steam. As the steam released, both my son and I smelled the sweet applesauce and got excited. When I opened the lid, it expectedly looked a little lumpy, so I blended it for about 30 seconds with my hand mixer.
My son hesitated, but I know it’s because we’re used to the grocery store kind, that is a lot lighter in color. It’s super hot right after it’s done, but I spooned out a little sample and let it cool on the spoon as I put the rest in containers in the fridge. It was so good and sweet! I was worried it wouldn’t come out to our level of sweetness (unfortunately, my family still looks for a high level of sweetness!), but it was perfect. I think the ripe apples with the raw honey helped. My son wanted more, but we had to wait for it to cool down some. A couple of hours later, we all had a delicious bowl of chilled applesauce!
I’ve made chili, hard boiled eggs and chicken noodle soup since! This Instant Pot might be my new best friend…
- 10-12 apples (your choice in variety), peeled, cored and cut into 1-inch slices
- 1/4 cup raw honey
- 1 tsp cinnamon
- 1/2 cup water
- 1-2 dashes of sea salt
- Put all ingredients in Instant Pot and stir.
- Press Pressure Cooker (or manual), and set the time for 5 minutes. (make sure the valve is closed!)
- When done and steam is released, use hand mixer or immersion blender to blend to the texture of your preference.
- Keep refrigerated.