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!
Is it possible to “keep warm” for a long time after natural release or do they need to be pulled out soon after the release?
I haven’t tested it, but it should be fine. They may get pretty soft, but I think they’d be alright. How long is a “long time?”
This may be a dumb questions but do I need to poke holes in them with a fork using this method? Never cooked sweet potatoes in the instant pot. but whenever I cook regular potatoes this way I poke them.
I don’t poke holes in them when I cook them with this method.
What is the “Pot” c a pressure cooker?
This recipe is made in an Instant Pot which is a brand of electric pressure cooker. The recipe will work in any electric pressure cooker. I hope that helps!
Made this recipe and the the potatoes were too firm.
Sorry to hear that, Emily! Did you have your valve turned to seal? Was your rubber ring in place? It could be that your potatoes were just extra large. As you can imagine, larger potatoes take longer to cook so this recipe is definitely a jumping off point more than anything else.
Looking very delicious and very healthy. I will definitely try this recipe and I will definitely let you know. Thank you for sharing this post.
Thanks! I hope you love them!
I just found your recipe this evening as I bought a few sweet potatoes to make…for my dogs… :) One of them has chylothorax, and needs a low fat diet and sweet potatoes are a good addition for him. So… love my IP, in fact have used it today for boiled eggs and shredded chicken. I had a huge sweet potato, and put it in for 15 minutes. After it had started, I read the reviews and thought I wouldn’t have a good result because the potato was big and I didn’t think I gave it enough time. So I let it go for 35 minutes on natural release, and when I took it out, it was PERFECT! So.., one strategy is to go for the 15 minutes, and let it release longer the larger the sweet potato. This is a wonderful way to get creamy sweet potatoes with almost no effort.. thanks for the recipe!
Thanks for taking the time to come back and leave such a helpful comment, Jennifer! I’m glad you liked this recipe!
I had 3 larger sized sweet potatoes and I used this recipe but increased the time to 18 minutes. They were cooked perfect. I took the skins off, added some maple syrup, cinnamon and butter and then blended them to smooth them out. My picky 7.5 year old twins both loved them! Love that we have leftovers too!
I’m so glad! Thank you for taking the time to come back and leave a comment! I’m craving sweet potatoes now…
Tried 2 sets of sweet potatoes in the instapot. The first one I used the egg tray. Cooked perfectly, although I forgot to take them out until they had been sitting for 30 minutes after cooking. 2nd set, a little bigger, used the steamer on top of the tray. This did not work well. Even more time and they were still hard on the inside. So, I think the egg tray is your best bet!
My sweet potatoes are going into sweet potato biscuits. YUM
Sweet potato biscuits sound fantastic!!! Thanks for taking the time to come back and leave a comment with your experience!
Thanks for the recipe, Rachel. We just had them at Easter dinner. My Mom was impressed (and she thinks she might need a pressure cooker herself, now). Excellent and easy.
I love that! I’m so glad they were a hit. Thanks for taking the time to come back and leave a comment!
Everyone needs an instant pot.
I agree wholeheartedly!
I dont have the steamer basket. Is there an alternative way?
Do you have the trivet insert that the Instant Pot comes with? That’s what I use.
This worked beautifully! I cooked four small sweet potatoes and two medium regular potatoes in my instant pot following your instructions and they came out perfect! Thank you!
So glad to hear that! Thank you for taking the time to come back and leave a comment!