Boozy Creations For Your Instant Pot

There are so many things you can do with your Instant Pot, it can be tough to single out just what recipes you're going to try next. There's breakfast, lunch, dinner, and dessert, of course, but there's also another category we absolutely have to talk about: booze.

We don't necessarily mean making booze, but we do mean infusing beer and liquors into some of your favorite dishes. We're also talking about taking some of your favorite cocktails — some that might normally take hours or even days to make — and switching it up so they're something you can make in a matter of minutes whenever the mood strikes. Sounds too good to be true, right? It's not, so let's talk about how you can incorporate some of your favorite beers and booze into your Instant Pot meals.

But first, a word of warning. Since you're going to be cooking with alcohol, take some extra precautions when you're doing your pressure releases. Make sure you're in a ventilated area, and that there are no open flames nearby. You're probably going to be releasing some alcohol vapor, so just be aware!

Pulled pork might get all the attention, but how about some pulled chicken? Serve it up on a roll, on tacos, or over rice, and it might just be a new favorite.

Start with thawed chicken breasts, and put them raw into your Instant Pot. In a separate bowl, mix up equal parts bourbon, ketchup, water, soy sauce, and brown sugar. If you'd like an extra dash of sweetness, add honey to taste. (You can also add in spices and seasonings, like cayenne, red pepper flakes, garlic, and onion.) Pour your mixture over your chicken breasts, cook for 15 minutes on high, then open and shred your chicken. If the sauce is still thin, switch to the saute setting and simmer until it's thickened to the consistency you're looking for. Leave it on the thin side for rice, make it thicker for sandwiches, and feel free to adjust the amount of bourbon, honey, and other spices so it's as sweet or as boozy as you like.

Limoncello is essentially lemon and vodka, and normally, it can take weeks for all that lemon flavor to infuse into the vodka. The Instant Pot does it in just 30 minutes, and all you need to do is take your lemons, and cut off the peel (avoid the white part, as that'll impart a weird bitterness if it sneaks in). Fill a few canning jars with vodka, put in as much of the peel as you'd like, screw on the caps on set them on the metal rack in your Instant Pot. Next, let the Instant Pot run on a 30-minute manual pressure cycle and a full natural release. At the end, you'll have your base for limoncello! Once it cools, add some simple syrup to sweeten it up (and you do keep some of that in the fridge, right?) and best of all, it'll last for months either in the fridge or freezer.

While we're talking limoncello, let's talk cocktails. Try mixing it with a dash of bourbon and some orange bitters for a sort of limoncello sour, or add it to your gin and tonic for a delicious twist on an old favorite. What's more perfect for those hot summer evenings?

Try beer cheese soup once, and you'll find it's something you'll want to add to your regular rotation. It's not just great for lunch or dinner on a chilly day, it's also perfect to dish up and eat on the couch with a side of pretzels for dipping. It's easy and it's versatile, too — there's no right or wrong beer to use, and you can definitely experiment with the cheese.

Start by sauteing carrots, celery, and onions in the bottom of your Instant Pot. Add your seasonings as you stir — try mustard powder, onion, and garlic — and once your onions have cooked through, add chicken stock, a dash of Worcestershire sauce, a few tablespoons of butter, and a bottle of beer. Close, cook for six minutes on high, then wait through a natural pressure release. Now, it's time to add the cheese, a bit at a time. Let it melt, and keep stirring to thicken the soup. Once it's the consistency you're looking for, serve it up right away.

Cranberry sauce can be the most questionable part of any Thanksgiving dinner — you know, the dish that people take just to be polite. But get creative with it, and you might find guests going back for seconds.

The Instant Pot basics are easy. Just add your cranberries, orange juice, orange zest, a bit of cinnamon, and a dash of salt, then cook for six minutes and release for 10. Once that's done, open and stir on saute for a few more minutes until the cranberries break down and the sauce thickens to the consistency you're looking for.

This is where the fun begins, too. Add some apple brandy for an extra kick, and you definitely don't need to stop there. Stir in some orange liqueur, some grenadine, some red wine, or even some bourbon for a cranberry sauce that just might have people asking for the recipe along with seconds and thirds.

If you think of turkey as being just for Thanksgiving, this simple idea will definitely change your mind. There are a few different ways you can do this, so let's talk dark meat first. A few pounds of turkey thighs can be cooked from raw in about 45 minutes. If you opt to go this way, add your thighs and fill the rest of the way with a dark port beer, and — depending on what kind of beer you choose — you can compliment that with brown sugar, molasses, mustard paste, tomato paste, and salt and pepper to taste. Once they come out, the meat will all but fall off the bone.

Alternately, you can do the same thing with white meat. Just pick up a turkey breast, fill the same way, and cook. The only thing you'll need to be careful of is monitoring cooking times, as it's going to vary based on the size of your breast. Use a meat thermometer to make sure the inside is up to temp before you shred, then serve on a roll with some of the sauce, or use them for tacos.

A traditional coq au vin is made with a rooster, but it you can't find one of those at the grocery store, you can use a small chicken or something like a Cornish game hen — as long as the bird will fit into your Instant Pot, you're good to go!

You can start by marinating your bird, but it's not necessary. When you're ready to cook, saute a few tablespoons of butter until it's bubbling, then put your bird in. Let it saute for a bit — the goal is to crisp up the skin — then add your carrots, shallots, rosemary, and garlic. Add your broth — a mix of wine, chicken or vegetable stock, and seasonings to taste — to the pot, then start by cooking on high pressure for 25 minutes and set for a 30-minute pressure release. Here's where it gets a little tricky. That's just a general sort of guideline for a bird that's around three pounds, but if you go much bigger than that, you'll need to add about 6 minutes per pound to the cook time. It's not exact — check the internal temp of your chicken before you serve.