A little “What’s Cooking Wednesday” for you tonight.
Instant Pot Macaroni and Cheese
as featured in Slow Food Fast by Bob Warden.
Instant Pot Macaroni and Cheese
Ingredients:
Pasta
2 cups of elbow macaroni pasta
1 1/4 Cup water
2 Tb butter or margarine
1 Tb Parmesan cheese
2 tsp chicken bullion base
Cheese
2 cups shredded sharp cheddar cheese
2 ounces cream cheese
1 teaspoon mustard
Instructions:
Put all pasta ingredients in Instant pot ( Electric pressure cooker) and stir. Set to eight minutes and manual release when complete.
Add in cheese ingredients and stir in until creamy. Serve immediately.
I made a few edits (see how I change the recipe below) and will make a few more next time I make it.
In my opinion this recipe is definitely best served immediately, and hot. So tasty! From what I can tell, at least with how I made the sauce, it would not make the best reheated leftovers. And I would say that if you don’t like mustard flavor go light on the mustard or leave it out entirely. I happen to like the unique flavor it gave the dish.
Here are the changes I made this time. (There are also a few things I will change to make it better for next time.) Overall it was a hit! See real time reactions in the video.
I misread some notes that my friend provided to me when she shared this recipe with me. And so I used 16 ounces of pasta and only 1 1/4 cups water. So… When I opened my Instant pot after eight minutes of cooking there were some noodles that were still crunchy/hard. I added in another one and 1 1/4 cups water (2 1/2 cups water total to get my noodles cooked) with my cheese mixture and cooked for an additional three minutes. I have found there have been other times with my Instant pot the pasta/dish was not completely done and rather than freak out and feel like the recipe was a flop, which is easy to do with the instant pot, I found that in this case just adding some extra water (1 1/4 cup more) and re-cooking for some additional time solved the problem. I’ve had similar things happen with previous instant pot recipes and I found that extra cooking time is often the answer. Don’t be too nervous about cooking it longer. It’s hard to dry things out in a pressure cooker.
After talking to my friend I should’ve used 2 cups of water from the beginning with my 16 ounces of pasta. The recipe calls for 2 cups of pasta which when using a conversion table equal 16 ounces, however there’s no way that only a cup and a quarter of water does the trick. So increase the water to 2 cups at least.
Since it seems I may have increased the pasta (somewhat accidentally) I also should have increased the amount of cheddar and cream cheese I used. This should have a been a given, but I honestly didn’t realize I had increased the pasta by much. This is something I will do next time because 16 ounces of pasta is about right to feed our family. If I had anything personally to complain about with this recipe is just that I would’ve liked it a bit cheesier… so I’ll increase the cheddar and cream cheese next time just out of personal preferrnce.
You can check out tonight’s crazy cooking escapades along with my kiddos reactions to dinner in this video. Feel free to post your questions or other Instant pot recipes you love in the comments!
