Cooking Quinoa Instant Pot Method

Quinoa Instant Pot method is so incredibly easy and cooks up this beautiful healthy grain with no fuss. Here’s how to make perfectly fluffy quinoa in your instant pot.

Quinoa instant pot recipe makes perfectly cooked quinoa. Every time. Pressure cooking is a great way to avoid pot watching while you are free to attend other meal prep tasks in the kitchen…or put your feet up for a few minutes. 🙂

More Ways to Use Your Instant Pot:

Looking for more ways to save time in the kitchen and cook from scratch?

Try our Instant Pot Greek Yogurt and Instant pot Hard Boiled Eggs. Learn how to make Instant pot pinto beans (similar for all dried beans) for soups, stews and chilis.

Use your instant pot to make life in the kitchen easier, healthier and cheaper.

Even bone broth can be made in a fraction of the time boiling bones on the stove takes with this handy kitchen tool.

Find ALL of our instant pot recipes in our Instant pot Section.

Instant Pot Quinoa Recipe:

NOTE: ALL colors of quinoa cook exactly the same in this recipe. We used a color blend so you can see perfect quinoa of every type.

White quinoa, red and black are all the same to the instant pot. They are all very good for you too with a ton of protein and a great fiber content.

Choose your favorite color or blend them together for a lively side dish.

Ingredients and Tools

Cooking quinoa is not difficult even on the stove top but it needs watching and will burn if over cooked or be crunchy if not cooked properly.

Using the instant pot for cooking quinoa is failsafe and quick. So quick in fact you really need to cook it while you are working in the kitchen.

It just takes one minute of cooking time and ten minutes to natural release. Quick release and serve!

• Quinoa
• water
• cooking oil
• instant pot (or any electric pressure cooker)
• Fine mesh strainer
• running water for rinsing

Rinsing Quinoa:

Quinoa in its natural state is coated with Saponin. Saponins are safe to eat but can add a bitter or soapy flavor you may not appreciate in your cooked grain.

• Rinse quinoa in a fine mesh strainer to wash off the dust and saponin coating.
• Pour the quinoa in your strainer and set it under running water for several minutes.
• Agitate the strainer under the water to help quicken this process.

Quinoa is often pre rinsed these days so you can skip the rinse step. If you do NOT rinse the quinoa add another 1/2 Cup water to the pot.

More ideas…

1. You can replace the water in this recipe with your favorite vegetable or meat broth for added flavor. It will cook exactly the same.
2. Feel free to add in diced onions, peppers, pease or corn (or other small vegetables) into the instant pot to make this recipe complement your entreé.
3. If you are planning a quinoa rice blend I suggest you follow our Brown rice quinoa blend stove top recipe. Rice takes a LOT longer to cook than quinoa so you need a different method.

Your Printable Recipe Card:

Below find your Printable Recipe card. The process pictures are for your education in this recipe. They will not print. That is to save you paper and ink. Enjoy!

At the bottom of the recipe card is our video recipe demonstration.