How to Cook Instant Pot Sweet Potatoes

Follow this method for cooking Instant Pot sweet potatoes and get perfectly fluffy and delicious sweet potatoes every time!

Do you find yourself intimidated by your Instant Pot? Perhaps not sure how to use it, or what to cook in it? Instant Pot sweet potatoes are one of the easiest things to start with, and are the first thing I learned to use my Instant Pot for!

Let's start at the beginning.

What is an Instant Pot

Is it a pressure cooker? A slow cooker? A steamer? A yogurt maker? A warmer?

Answer: it's all of these and then some.

It can be intimidating at first. One pot with anywhere from six to nine kitchen tools or appliances that it is replacing. That's a lot for anyone to keep up with!

It has multiple functions, lots of buttons, and doesn't come with a whole ton of instructions on exactly how all of these things are supposed to work. So, like the rest of us, you turn to the internet to figure out how to use it, amiright?

The thing is, you can use it in multiple ways, so there's no one right answer. When I first started cooking in it, I decided to start out with basics. Sweet potatoes, chicken breasts, and eggs.

And for six months, those were the only three things I cooked in my Instant Pot. (Not joking.)

If your Instant Pot is still in the box, check out this post on how to finally start using it once and for all.

How to set up Instant Pot sweet potatoes

First things first - not all sweet potatoes are grown equally. (As you can see from my jumbo on the far left, and middle minis.)

Ideally, you want to make sure all the potatoes you're cooking are roughly the same size. Sometimes I get lazy and just throw them all in, which is fine - they still cook.

Just know they will cook at different rates. You'll want to choose your time based on the largest sweet potatoes in the batch, because no one likes undercooked sweet potatoes.

You'll want to keep the rack in the pot. This keeps the potatoes from sitting in the liquid. You want them to steam, but not turn into a mushy mess of watery mashed potatoes. So make sure you keep the rack in there, and arrange the potatoes on it.

You can stack potatoes if they won't fit in a single layer. You'll need to increase cooking time depending on how many layers/potatoes you have, but other than that, everything else remains the same.

How to cook Instant Pot sweet potatoes

Once you've got your potatoes set up, just follow a few easy steps:

1. Add water.

This is key. You need the water in the pot to steam the potatoes. No water = no steaming. Dry, not delicious potatoes. No bueno.

2. Make sure the lid is set to Sealing not Venting.

If you have the lid set to venting, it won't ever reach proper pressure. If it doesn't reach pressure, your sweet potatoes won't cook. No bueno.

3. Use the 'Steam' function. Make sure pressure is set to High.

Low pressure function is used for things more delicate than sweet potatoes. (Like eggs.) Hardy, thick, sturdy, starchy, frozen, meat - if any of these describe the item you are trying to cook in the Instant Pot, High is the right answer.

4. Set your timer.

The amount of time depends on the size of the sweet potatoes. Think about it like this - increase by a minute or two for each step up in sweet potato size.

My go-to time is 14 minutes for a batch of average sized sweet potatoes. Most of my sweet potatoes that fit this bill tend to be about as long as my hand. For anything that gets really fat (see far left potato in image above) I add a couple of minutes. The thicker it is, the more time it needs.

5. Allow time for natural release.

There are two ways to open an Instant Pot after cooking - natural and manual.

Natural release means the pot depressurizes all on its own, which takes time. Manual release means you flip that valve on top from Sealing >Venting, and all the steam pours out the top until it's depressurized enough to open.

Give your Instant Pot sweet potatoes about 10 minutes or so to naturally release. If you pop open the pot right when it's done; it's unlikely the potatoes will be cooked through.

You can leave them for much longer than 10 minutes as well. I've cooked mine and left the house for a couple of hours and come back and eaten them hot when I returned.

The Instant Pot sweet potato hack

Now, here is my favorite hack for instant pot sweet potatoes. If you set the timer, and then you give them their 10 minutes of natural release, and then you open the lid, and poke them with a knife, and the knife doesn't glide through...

then what?

Then, put the lid back on, lock it, and leave it on keep warm. Give them 10-20 more minutes to hang out in there and your problem will be solved.

If I cook a batch of sweet potatoes in my Instant Pot, and they are different sizes, this hack comes in handy.

I open it up, take out any of the smaller ones that are done, and then close it back up to let the fattys steam a little bit longer.

No need for sizing sweet potatoes, or cooking in different batches. Just a little patience and creative thinking will get the job done. Fluffy, Instant Pot sweet potatoes, of varying sizes, cooked and ready for your favorite sweet potato recipe. Which brings me to...

Instant Pot sweet potato recipes

There's so many things you can do with steamed Instant Pot sweet potatoes. Here are a few of my favorites!

Want more Instant Pot recipes? Try out my Sesame Orange Chicken or my Pumpkin Turkey Chili!

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