In case you’ve been hiding in a dark cave during 2020 (and I wouldn’t blame you), by now you’ve heard about the Instant Pot, or you own one. It’s a compact pressure cooker that can also sauté and slow cook. It’s a very quick and easy way to cook stews and meat on the bone, and it’s also a great shortcut for slower-cooking vegetables like winter squash.
This is a red kuri squash in an Instant Pot. This squash is the most beautiful color in the whole world. I would like my shirt and my eyes to be this color. I would like my pickup truck and my sheets and my cat to be this color.
Choose the Right Kind of Squash
The best squashes to cook in an Instant pot are kabocha, red kuri, tetsu, turban, and hubbard. These squashes have a dryer, dense flesh. Their flavor and texture will hold up, or be enhanced, by this high pressure steam treatment. Squashes like butternut, acorn, delicata, and any summer squash will become diluted and mushy in an instant pot.
Some winter squashes are hard to peel or cut. There’s a variety called ‘seminole pumpkin’ which I’ve never cooked myself. According to one of my favorite seed catalogs, Fedco Seeds, seminole pumpkin is so hard you’ve got to crack it like a coconut. So, one great thing about the Instant Pot method is that it allows you to cook your squash first and peel and seed it later, once everything is soft.
As in this photo of a pressure-cooked red kuri squash, the peel and a thin outer layer of attached flesh comes right off with the lightest touch. Then, cut the squash in half and scoop out the seeds. You’ve now got a perfectly delicious pumpkin puree, ready for your recipes.
With an Instant Pot, it’s important to keep in mind that you are essentially stewing or steaming whatever’s in it. You are making steam that is hotter than the boiling point and using pressure to push that hot steam into your food. So, you’ve got to choose foods—in this case squash—that get a nice boost to texture and flavor from this treatment. If it were beef, you’d put stew meat, or short ribs, or oxtail in an instant pot, but certainly not an expensive steak!
Jump to RecipeThe Problem With Other Instant Pot Squash Recipes
Okay food bloggers, admit it: you’ve been googling other people’s recipes, trying it once just like that in order to take pictures, and calling it done. I know this is true because the first four instant pot squash recipes I found all said to pressure cook the squash for 20 minutes. This is too long. This is batshit crazy. Instant Pot’s own cook time chart says to cook whole sweet potatoes for 5-8 minutes, and a sweet potato takes just as long, or longer to bake than a winter squash. The chart doesn’t speak about whole squash, but it does say to cook large pieces of pumpkin for 8-10 minutes.
So, try ten minutes for a large kabocha that is almost as big across as the pot. Eight minutes for something smaller like the red kuri in these photos.
How to Use Instant Pot Squash
If you’ve got a recipe that requires firm chunks of cooked squash, this isn’t the way to go. Pressure cooking takes the firmest, densest squashes like kabocha and makes them soft, mashable, and ready for dessert recipes, as a replacement for butternut in any soup recipe, or just as a very tasty mashed squash side dish. Instant Pot squash would work well in my cheesy pumpkin grits, providing the maximum amount of fall flavor.
If you are experimenting with recipes that ask for pre-cooked squash in pieces, use my roasted slices or baked halved squash master recipes instead. Soon, I’ll be sharing a master recipe for steamed squash that is first peeled, seeded, and cubed. This a great way to cook kabocha, hubbard, or red kuri (the firm, dense squashes) if you don’t have an instant pot, and a great way to pre-cook squash for a dish like Thai or Indian pumpkin curry.
Instant Pot Squash
Equipment
- Instant Pot
Ingredients
- 1 Squash Kabocha, Red Kuri, or Hubbard
- 1 cup Water
Instructions
- Wash the squash.
- Put water and the trivet in the instant pot, then the squash.
- Seal the lid, close the valve, and set to pressure cook. 10 minutes for a larger kabocha squash, 8 minutes for a smaller red kuri or a chunk of hubbard squash.
- Once cooking is done, release pressure. Remove the squash and let cool until easily handled.
- Pull the peel off of the squash.
- Cut squash in half and remove seeds.
- Mash or puree squash to serve as a side dish, or to use in your favorite soup, pie, or dessert bar recipe in place of canned pumpkin.