25 Instant Pot Chinese Recipes That Are Better Than Takeout (2024)

FAQs

How to make homemade Chinese food taste like takeout? ›

Chow mein is not only one of the most popular dishes in China, but it has also become a signature dish at Chinese restaurants all around the world. With stir-fried noodles, and your choice of sauteed tofu, vegetables, or meat, Chow mein has become an easy and reliable meal to be savored and enjoyed.

“Instant pot recipes are absolutely healthy as long as what you put in the recipe is healthy,” she says. The shorter cooking time may also result in the greater preservation of vitamins and minerals when compared to other longer types of cooking.

In our recipes, we generally use light soy sauce and add sugar plus other seasonings rather than bottled seasoned soy sauce. That said, some like to keep seasoned soy sauce in the pantry because it's convenient and quick. Some also have MSG for a little extra kick of savoriness.

When it comes to taste, Chinese cuisine incorporates sweet, sour, spicy, salty, and bitter elements. Many ingredients help to achieve this. For instance, vinegar can add to the dish's sourness, while soy sauce can be used to add a hint of sweetness and more saltiness.

You might have heard about the world's most delicious dishes, but have you ever come across the “world's hardest dish”? If you're willing to indulge into a unique culinary experience, “Suodui”, a Chinese dish might be right up your alley. China is known for its rich culinary history.

Foods containing dairy, like milk, cream, or yogurt, should not be pressure-cooked. The high heat and pressure can cause dairy products to curdle or separate, ruining the texture, taste and flavour of the dish. Cooking fried foods is a strict no no, when it comes to pressure cookers.

Do professional chefs use Instant Pot? ›

Despite its popularity in professional kitchens, a pressure cooker is rarely featured on cooking shows. But that doesn't mean celebrity chefs don't appreciate their value. In fact, many renowned chefs have sung the praises of pressure cookers.

Con– The Instant Pot uses steam under pressure to cook food and not everything is meant to be cooked in the Instant Pot. I attempted a crustless quiche which turned out well but it was too wet and moist to my liking and I prefer to cook it in the oven with dry heat.

If you are interested primarily in slow cooking, you should buy a dedicated slow cooker. They're more reliable with a range of slow-cooker recipes than an Instant Pot. We found Instant Pot multicookers specifically could not successfully slow-cook dense, high-volume recipes such as beef stew or pot roast.

Pressure-cooked meat-based dishes show a significant reduction in unsaturated fat contents, but it appears that iron is not lost. In addition to making foods like grains and legumes more digestible, pressure cooking does not create any of the unhealthy chemicals associated with baking and grilling methods.

Regular soy sauce will give the noodles a flavor boost, and dark soy sauce will give it a nice brown color. Depending on your preference, you can also add other ingredients like sesame oil and oyster sauce. Some people also like to add chicken stock or MSG to bring out an umami flavor.

Chinese chefs often use three types of cardamom: black, green, and white. Curry powder features in some dishes. And, in addition to ginger and turmeric, Chinese restaurants sometimes use ginger and turmeric's relative, galangal (via The Woks of Life). And don't forget the MSG to add deeper, umami flavors to your food.

A blend of cinnamon, cloves, Sichuan peppercorns, fennel and star anise, these five spices give the sour, bitter, pungent, sweet and salty flavors found in Chinese cooking.

Monosodium Glutamate (MSG) is a flavor enhancer that has been widely used for roughly 100 years ( 1 ). In addition to being naturally present in certain foods, it's a common food additive in Chinese recipes, canned vegetables and soups, and other processed goods.