Recipe Overview
Why you’ll love it: Instant Pot sweet potatoes come out silky smooth every time. Pressure cooking sweet potatoes may be the best (and easiest) way yet!
How long it takes: 40 minutes total
Equipment you’ll need: Instant Pot/pressure cooker, wire trivet
Servings: make as many as you like (within reason!)
I eat a lot of sweet potatoes. I mean, A LOT. Roasted, in a hash, sweet potato toast, mashed, pureed, noodled, baked, turned into chips, basically any way I can. On special occasions, I love to make scalloped sweet potatoes with bacon and Gruyère. If you don’t believe me, take a look at my list of 25 easy sweet potato recipes!
I admit, I sometimes resort to the microwave to cook sweet potatoes. Stab them with a fork, wrap them in paper towel, and they’re ready in about 5 minutes. However, that method does tend to dry them out. Enter the Instant Pot! I’ve found that a pressure cooker makes the most perfect sweet potatoes. This is definitely my new go-to method, and I think it’s going to be yours, too.
About Instant Pot Sweet Potatoes
Soft and creamy. Instant Pot sweet potatoes are steamed which causes the flesh to become velvety smooth and creamy. The skin becomes very soft. Instant Pot sweet potatoes differ from baked sweet potatoes which tend to be a bit drier with a tougher skin.
An easy cooking method. This post is more of a how-to than an actual recipe. Once you’ve learned how to use your Instant Pot to cook sweet potatoes, it will be a cooking method you turn to over and over again.
Perfect for food prepping. Instant Pots can be a food prepper’s dream. Just get that Instant Pot working on food for the whole week. You can stock your fridge with boiled eggs, cooked shredded chicken, and now creamy cooked sweet potatoes. Dinner will be a snap! Prep Instant Pot white rice and freeze it in serving size bags. It’s so handy. Works for brown rice, too, or quinoa!
Ingredient Notes
- Sweet Potatoes: Look for medium-sized sweet potatoes that are about two inches in diameter. After testing this recipe several times, we came to the conclusion that larger potatoes just don’t cook as evenly. They tend to stay hard in the middle even if you increase the cooking time. The recipe is written for four sweet potatoes; you can cook fewer or more potatoes as you wish.
- Instant Pot/Pressure Cooker/Multicooker: I use a 6-quart Instant Pot.
A Sweet Little Scrub Brush
Buy a good brush to scrub the outside of your potatoes. I love this one – it has soft and firm bristles and it’s dishwasher safe. I also love the way it fits in your hand.
How To Make Instant Pot Sweet Potatoes
Prep the potatoes. Scrub the sweet potatoes well and trim if necessary. I usually trim the wrinkly ends off.
Add water. Pour one cup of water into the bottom of the pot. Don’t skip the water! Water is necessary to create steam; the steam builds up, and pressurizes the cooker.
Add the sweet potatoes. Place the wire trivet into the pot and arrange the sweet potatoes on the trivet.
Cook. Lock the lid in place and set the Instant Pot to Pressure Cook (or Manual – High Pressure, depending on your model). Set the cook time for 15 minutes. It will take approximately 10 minutes to pressurize.
Natural release. After the 15 minute timer goes off, allow the pressure to release naturally. That means you don’t do anything for fifteen minutes. When fifteen minutes have passed, release any remaining pressure; carefully remove the lid.
The sweet potatoes should be perfectly well-done, silky smooth and delicious! The skin will be very soft and is totally edible. Now you know how to make perfect sweet potatoes!
Serve. Enjoy the sweet potatoes just the way they are or top them with a nice-sized chunk of homemade garlic butter. You can eat the soft peeling or remove it. I like to enhance the sweet potatoes with a sprinkle of cinnamon sugar. Keep reading for more suggestions.
How To Use Cooked Sweet Potatoes
Stuffed sweet potatoes
Cut a slit in the middle of the potato and open it up. Add any sort of filling you like: chili with all the toppings, scrambled eggs with avocado, black beans and tomato salsa, bacon, salmon, shredded chicken, whatever! Recently we’ve been loving these quick-cooking fried chicken bites.
Mashed sweet potatoes
Scoop the sweet potatoes out of the skins and mash it. Add seasonings like chili powder, curry powder, or taco seasoning. A drizzle of hot honey is so good! Top them with a sprinkle of savory granola, toasted pine nuts, or roasted pumpkin seeds (pepitas). Try vanilla bean mashed sweet potatoes.
More ideas
Use these cooked sweet potatoes to make a creamy sweet potato casserole with marshmallows, sweet potato bread pudding, or twice baked sweet potatoes.
Cooked sweet potatoes can be stored in the refrigerator for up to 5 days. They will keep in the freezer for up to 12 months in a freezer safe container. Thaw overnight in the refrigerator before reheating.
To reheat, microwave until heated through.
More Instant Pot Basics
Instant Pot Sweet Potatoes – perfect every time!
Ingredients
- 4 medium-sized sweet potatoes (10 to 12 oz. each), approximately 2 inches in diameter (see note)
- 1 cup water
Instructions
- Scrub sweet potatoes and trim if necessary. Pour water into Instant Pot. Place wire trivet in the bottom of the Instant Pot and place sweet potatoes on top of the trivet.4 medium-sized sweet potatoes (10 to 12 oz. each), approximately 2 inches in diameter, 1 cup water
- Secure the lid and turn valve to seal, if necessary on your model.
- Select Pressure Cook (or Manual on High) for 15 minutes. It will take about 10 minutes to come to pressure.
- Allow pressure to release naturally (do nothing after the timer goes off) for 15 minutes.
- Release remaining pressure, remove lid, and serve.
Notes
- Selecting sweet potatoes: After numerous tests, we found that sweet potatoes with a diameter much larger than 2 inches cook less evenly, even if you add extra time. Try to find sweet potatoes that are fairly similar in size, about 2 inches in diameter.
- Adjusting yield: You can cook fewer sweet potatoes or add more. Cooking time is the same but it will take less/more time for the Instant Pot to come to pressure.
- Storage: Cooked sweet potatoes can be stored in the fridge for up to 5 days in an airtight container or frozen for up to a year.
Video
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
Did You Make This?Share a comment and rating below! I love hearing what you think!
I made my sweet potatoes for the first time in my instapot, they were perfect! Will never cook them again in the microwave or oven. Easy peasy.
So happy to hear that! Thanks for taking the time to come back and leave a comment!
burn notice on an 8 quart might be because an 8 quart requires 1.5 cups of water not 1 cup. Alternately, there’s something wrong with the IP.
Great insight – thank you!
I tried this tonight (twice) in my 8-quart instant pot and got the “burn” message both times. I’m not new to the instant pot, but the 8-quart size is new for me…almost every time I use it, I get this message. I thought there was no way I would get it with these sweet potatoes cause its just water on the bottom and a steam basket (so nothing touching the bottom directly). So frustrating. Not sure what I’m doing wrong and why its different than my 6-quart in this regard.
Any suggestions?
That’s so strange! I have never gotten a burn message with my Instant Pot and agree with you, no idea why this would cause one. Are there any burned remnants from previous recipes you’ve cooked?
Wander if you got a bad pot!
Is it the same amount of time for 3 sweet potatoes?
Yes! :) Hope you love them!
Just a comment about sweet potatoes that stay hard in the center. I have found that storing sweet potatoes in the fridge will sometimes result in hard centers even when cooked in the conventional oven or microwave. I always store mine at room temperature now and the problem has never occurred again. I heard this mentioned on Food TV one time as well. Good luck.
Interesting! Thanks for sharing!
I grow my own yams and they vary in size from 4oz to over 1 1/2 pounds. For me, a medium yam is about a pound. I just cooked the 4-8 oz yams for 15 minutes according to the recipe. They were perfect and creamy. Thanks for the Instant pot recipe! It’s tough to do timing when the food varies in size so much.
Thanks for the comment and helpful tips! It is tough to get accurate timing on something that varies so much!
What steamer basket do you use and/or recommend?
I use the one that came with my Instant Pot. This one looks great too, though!
I cooked two whole 1 pound of sweet potatoes on high pressure. They were not fork tender all the way thru after 30 minutes. Cooked a additional 10 minutes and then a 10 minute natural release. The sweet potatoes were then tender all the way thru. This has been hotly debated on the on the Facebook InstantPot Community. Cooking times vary wildly from 7 to 45 minutes. I am just guessing (no proof yet) this is happening because grocery stores are selling yams labeled as sweet potatoes. There are yams that look almost exactly like sweet potatoes. Also possible, sweet potatoes grown in one region verse. another could take longer to cook. My suggestion is check for doneness after 10 minutes then check every 15 minutes until done. Option 2: peel and dice sweet potatoes. It should take less time to cook. I hope this helps.
Good tips, thank you!
What Americans call “yams” vs “sweet potatoes” are exactly the same thing–SWEET POTATOES. Differences in size, color, texture, etc. and even cooking times are simply differences in varieties. TRUE yams, on the other hand, are a totally different thing, a tuber native to Africa totally unrelated to sweet potatoes. The confusion comes from enslaved people discovering sweet potatoes in America which look somewhat similar to what they recognized from their homeland, so they called them “yams”. The confusion has endured and the terms have become interchangeable. But whether they’re labeled as one or the other is irrelevant. They’re the same thing . . . unless you’re in Africa.
My 3 medium size sweet potatoes did NOT cook through using this recipe…15 minutes high pressure, 15 minutes natural de-pressurizing. I live at 7000 feet elevation. I wonder if it takes longer at high altitude, and…how much longer?Sarah
I’m not sure — I don’t have any experience with high altitude cooking….maybe someone else will weigh in with their suggestions. Were the potatoes thicker and shorter? Sometimes that can affect cooking time.
At 7000 feet you need to add 25% to your cooking times. Starting at 3000 ft add 5 percent and then 5 more for every thousand feet.
I don’t think it takes longer at 7,000 ft as the ip goes to 15 lbs of pressure… same as pressure reached for an ip at sea level… (and it works by causing water to come to boil at higher level than the standard 212 degrees f at sea level).
Add 1 Tbsp of chipotle powder and 1/4 cup of maple syrup. Really spices them up.
Sounds tasty!
Easy peasy. Thank you!
You’re welcome! Glad you liked it!