Easy Instant Pot Baby Potatoes

Instant Pot baby potatoes steamed in the pressure cooker until soft and fluffy are a delicious easy side dish that takes minutes to make. This simple potato recipe is one of the easiest Instant Pot recipes you’ll ever make!

There’s virtually no prep work with this easy recipe. And you get fork-tender, perfectly cooked little potatoes with a creamy texture every time!

I’ve been making these baby potatoes in my Instant Pot pressure cooker for a few years now. It’s one of my family’s favorite side dishes, besides Instant Pot jasmine rice.

These gorgeous little spuds are on the menu frequently because they’re such a great side dish. And these perfect potatoes go with just about any main dish!

Even though we love oven roasted potatoes and air fryer baby potatoes, you can cook potatoes in a fraction of the time in your pressure cooker.

Ingredients

This Instant Pot potatoes recipe is a 2 ingredient recipe. You should be able to find what you need to make baby potatoes in the Instant Pot in your local grocery store or farmers market:

• Baby potatoes — creamer potatoes, baby gold potatoes, Dutch yellow potatoes or baby red potatoes
• Water

You can season the potatoes with sea salt, black pepper, garlic powder, onion powder or your favorite seasonings after pressure cooking.

How do you boil potatoes in the Instant Pot? Technically, you don’t — unless you’re adding them to soup or stew. For this recipe, the Instant Pot boiled potatoes are actually steamed in a steamer basket.

How to Make Baby Potatoes Steamed in the Instant Pot

I use a bag of baby potatoes. The skins are thin, so you don’t even need to peel them or cut them.

First, rinse the baby gold potatoes under cold water in a colander. Remove any sprouts that may be growing on the potatoes.

Note — If your potatoes have a lot of sprouts or are turning green, it’s best not to use them.

Shake excess water off of the potatoes or pat dry with a paper towel.

Add one cup water to the bottom of the Instant Pot if you’re using a 6 quart. For an 8 quart, add 1.5 cups water or the amount recommended by the manufacturer.

Place the trivet into the bottom of the inner pot of the Instant Pot. Then, place potatoes into a stainless steel steamer basket or silicone basket, and place the steamer basket on top of the trivet.

If your steamer basket has legs, you can place the basket directly in the pot.

Mine does not, so I place the trivet into the pot and add the steamer basket on top of the trivet.

You still add water, but the potatoes don’t actually sit in the water. And this prevents them from getting too soft and mushy.

Cooking Time

For fork-tender potatoes you only need to cook them for 10 minutes on high pressure.

Keep in mind, these are baby yellow potatoes with thin skins. The size of the potatoes will affect the cook time.

Russet potatoes, sweet potatoes or Yukon gold potatoes or other large potatoes all have different cook times.

If you plan to make Instant Pot mashed potatoes, you can cook the baby potatoes for 12 minutes or longer.

After the potatoes are done cooking, and the pressure valve drops, do a quick release.

If you do a natural pressure release, these small potatoes will be too soft.

Carefully remove the steamer basket out of the pressure cooker. Then, place steamed potatoes into a serving bowl.

This part is optional, but I like to add a couple of tablespoons of butter to the bowl.

We love steamed baby potatoes with melted butter and a dash of salt!

Then, I toss the cooked potatoes in the butter until they’re all coated with buttah!

Next, I sprinkle a little sea salt and parsley on top of potatoes, and they’re ready to eat. Yum.

Variations

If you want the texture of roasted potatoes in the Instant Pot, you can discard water and place the cooked spuds back into the Instant Pot. Use the saute setting to brown the potatoes.

Or, use the air crisp setting if you have the Instant Pot Duo Crisp lid or any pressure cooker with an air crisp or air fryer setting.

You can also make steamed potatoes in the Instant Pot without steamer basket. Just place them directly on the trivet, and follow the same directions and cook time.

You can make potato salad with baby potatoes. Follow this recipe for Instant Pot potato salad, and use baby potatoes instead of the larger red potatoes.

How to Store and Reheat

Store leftover potatoes in an airtight container in your refrigerator. They should keep for 3 to 4 days.

The best way to reheat steamed baby potatoes is in your microwave for a quick side dish or small main course. They’re delicious for lunch!

Recipe first posted in 2018 and updated in 2021.

I hope you enjoy these easy Instant Pot baby potatoes steamed as much as my whole family does!

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