Extremely Easy and Affordable Instant Pot Macaroni and Cheese Recipe - How to Use an Instant Pot

Hey , everyone .

Welcome back to six sister stuff today .

I'm gonna show you how to use an instant pot .

So my name is Kristen and every Monday , I share an instant pot recipe with you guys .

So if you are new to the instant pot , make sure that you subscribe .

So you don't miss any of the recipes .

I'm sure a lot of you got an instant pot for Christmas and you're a little intimidated .

You're not sure how to use it .

Now , when I first got my instant pot , it sat in the box for about three months because I'll be honest , I was terrified .

I did not know how to use it and I just didn't , didn't even want to go there .

So I thought this video would be very helpful to show you how to use the instant pot .

And then those that have been around for a little while .

I'm also going to make a delicious macaroni and cheese .

So , all right .

So first I'm gonna teach you how to use the instant pot .

So this instant pot is called the instant pot Luxe .

There's also a duo that I use to show you how to use that too , but I'm just gonna show you they're , they're so similar that it will make sense just showing you how to do it .

So , the first thing you do with your instant pot is that you want to make sure that you have the silver pot in your pot .

If you don't have that silver pot and you just dump your food in , you will ruin your instant pot .

So always make sure that this silver pot is in your pot .

Next , we're gonna talk about the lid a little bit .

The lid is you could , you could hear the little dinging sound as I took this off .

If you put the lid on correctly , you'll hear that little time .

There we go .

That's what you wanna hear .

That means your lid is on correctly .

Now , in order to pressurize any of your food , you want to make sure that this little knob is turned to ceiling .

If this knob is on ceiling , that means it will pressurize if it's on bing , all the pressure will come out of your instant pot .

So as you're cooking ceiling , not bing , now I get a , a lot of questions about .

There's so many functions , there's so many buttons , I'm so intimidated and confused .

I'll be honest , I really just use the manual button or if you have a different model , the pressure cook button , those are the most common buttons that I use .

I also use a yogurt button , but unless I'm making yogurt or making bread , I just use the manual or pressure cook .

So when you're cooking something , you're going to push the manual button and then there's a negative sign and a plus sign .

So depending on how long you want to cook it for .

So I'm gonna go up , let's say eight minutes .

If I'm cooking it for eight minutes , I'm gonna let it sit there after I've done the plus and wait a few seconds and then it's gonna say on that means you've done it right .

That's literally all you have to do and you can walk away .

Now , if you need to go down , of course , you can do the negative and that will make your number go down .

Now , the only other thing is that when you're cooking with your instant pot , just remember , it does take some time to pressurize .

Don't be intimidated by that .

It will take almost 10 to 15 minutes to pressurize .

So I have a lot of people that start it , they push it says on and then they're , they're texting me and they're trying to call me and contact me to let me know that it's taking too long to pressurize .

It's not working .

It's OK .

10 to 15 minutes to pressurize that is completely normal .

It's just how the instant pot works .

It takes a long time to get the water flowing , right .

So I'm gonna show you how to make an easy Mac and cheese recipe .

We're gonna show you some of the function buttons and you're just gonna see how easy it really is .

So you want to make sure your lid is off your instant pot because obviously you need to use the pot .

And with , we're making macaroni and cheese of creamy macaroni and cheese .

So we're gonna start with £1 of elbow macaroni .

Then we're gonna do four cups of chicken broth .

Now , I love to get these containers because I know that there are four cups in here and I don't have to measure anything .

So we're gonna pour it all in .

Ok .

Now the secret when making pasta is that you wanna make sure .

Yes I am using my finger .

You wanna make sure that all the noodles are covered in liquid .

If you don't have enough liquid , then you need to add more liquid to it .

You just wanna make sure all the noodles are covered or you're gonna have some hard noodles with your pasta .

All right .

This is all that we have to do .

We're gonna put the lid on now .

Mhm .

Ok .

We're putting the lid on .

Can you hear that ?

That means you're doing it right .

Then you're gonna turn this little knob to ceiling .

Now the other instant pots have a different looking knob .

They both have ceiling and venting so make sure that it's on ceiling .

Ok .

Once it's on ceiling , then we're gonna come over here and we're gonna push the manual button or the pressure cook button and we're gonna go down to just four minutes pasta only takes four minutes to cook .

So once you push the buttons , then you're gonna wait for it to stay on .

Once it says on , you're good to go .

Now , the difference between making like , let's say macaroni and cheese in the instant pot compared to on your stove top is that you literally can set your timer to four minutes and walk away .

Now , you think of all the steps you have to do when you do it on the stove top , you have to heat your water .

You have to make sure it doesn't boil over .

Then you have to put your noodles in .

You have to wait about seven minutes for your noodles to cook and you are just at the stove top the whole entire time with the instant pot .

I can go clean up the kitchen .

I can go put away the laundry .

I can do a lot of other things while it's cooking .

So this is why I love the instant pot so much .

All right , we're gonna let this cook and then I'll come back and I'll finish making the rest of macaroni and cheese .

So once it's all done cooking , you're gonna have it , say ll means that it is done .

You'll usually hear a little sound that it is done .

It beeps at you and then it's gonna start counting up .

So you'll know how many minutes it's been done .

So usually with pasta and other things I like to do something called a quick release .

A quick release is when you turn it to venting , right when it's done cooking .

Now , if you see some instructions that say natural release , that means you're just gonna leave it just as it is and let it release the pressure on its own natural release .

But with pasta and because I wanna make this really quick , we're gonna turn it to quick release , which is turning it to venting .

So all the steam will come out you OK ?

So once that's all done , there's a little pin that will drop .

That means that you can open your lid safely .

Uh And if you can see the pasta is cooked perfectly , now there is a little bit of liquid at the bottom and that is just fine because we're gonna use that liquid for the macro me and cheese .

So just kind of mix your noodles around a little bit .

There might be a little bit stuck together , but that's not hard .

Once you start mixing , they'll come apart .

OK ?

So now we're gonna push the saute button .

The saute button is the other button that I use all the time .

So you can brown your onions or you can brown your meat , stuff like that .

But we're gonna use the saute button today to make everything warm .

So first we're gonna push the cancel and then we're gonna push the saute button .

There you go .

Ok .

Now it's time to add the good stuff with the mac and cheese .

So we're first gonna add half a cup of milk and I'm just gonna eyeball this a little bit and then about a teaspoon of Dijon mustard .

You don't have to add the Dijon .

I just like , it just gives it a little bit of a kick and then just a dash of hot sauce .

You can use your favorite hot sauce , whatever hot sauce you like or if you don't like hot sauce , you don't even have to add the hot sauce .

I just like the extra flavor that it gives it .

And then last we're gonna add just two tablespoons of butter .

So I'm just gonna mix these things in there right now .

So we're gonna let the butter melt and mix in the mustard and everything else .

It's starting to smell good .

Alright , so once the butter is all melted now we're just gonna add two cups of cheddar cheese .

I like to use sharp cheddar cheese , but you can use any kind of cheddar cheese that you want .

Now , if you shred your own cheddar cheese that will make it mix a little bit easier , but I'm kind of lazy and I like to buy a pre shredded so I don't even have to worry about that stuff .

I'm a more of dump everything in and go kind of person .

Alright .

Once your cheese is melted and everything is melted and mixed together , go ahead and push the cancel button .

You don't want to keep sauteing or it will burn the bottom of your pan .

It will burn the noodles .

So we're turning it off and so you'll just have nice hot mac and cheese ready to serve .

Now , if you want to make this a little bit earlier in the day , you can always push um the cancel button again .

It is also the keep warm button and you can just let it sit here for an hour or two .

I would put the lid back on and let it sit until you're ready to eat .

Right ?

Oh man , these noodles smell so good .

I can smell just the little bit of Dijon mustard in there .

It's my favorite .

Now , I was thinking that you could easily do if you have the other box , mac and cheese , you could easily make just the Kraft macaroni and cheese too because it's literally the same thing .

You're just cooking your noodles and adding everything else when you're done .

So my question for you is if you're new to the instant pot , have you used it yet ?

And if you haven't , why haven't you ?

So put that down below in the comments .

I'm curious to see who has used their pot and who hasn't .

That's all I have for you today .

Now , don't forget if you're new and you want to use your instant pot more .

Subscribe to the channel .

So you won't miss any of our instant pot videos .

All right .

See you later .

Bye .