Instant Pot Diaries: Creamy Garlic Parmesan Pasta

I got an Instant Pot for Christmas and feel like I’m still learning my way around it. What I’ve found is that a pressure cooker is hella intimidating when you have no idea what you’re doing, but once you’re past the learning curve, you’ll wonder how you fared without it. Especially when you can make pasta in less than 10 minutes!

So this recipe started with me looking up some quick Instant Pot recipes. I found this one for a lemon-garlic pasta, which are three of my favorite things to cook with. I didn’t have all the ingredients, but I don’t let that stop me anymore when I cook. I instead experiment with substitutes. That’s how I landed on this slight alteration of the original recipe below.

INSTANT POT CREAMY GARLIC PARMESAN PASTA

•  8 oz linguine or spaghetti
•  2 tablespoons olive oil
•  3 cloves garlic, minced
•  2 1/4 cups water and 1 tbs of butter (substitute for chicken broth)
•  1 teaspoon garlic powder
•  2 tablespoons lemon juice
•  1 teaspoon salt or to taste
•  3 dashes ground black pepper
•  1 cup evaporated milk (sub for the heavy whipping cream in the original recipe)
•  1/4 cup shredded Parmesan cheese, plus more for topping
•  1 cup chopped cherry tomatoes (I didn’t have parsley to garnish!)

1. Break the pasta in half, set aside.
2. Set your Instant Pot to Saute mode and add the olive oil. Once it’s heated, toss in the garlic and stir it to the side. After about 10 seconds, add the water/butter combo, garlic powder, lemon juice, salt, pepper, and pasta. Give it a stir then cover.
3. Set the Instant Pot to Manual or Pressure Cook (depends what model you have) for 8 minutes. After it’s done, click the Quick Release or Vent. When you’re done venting, open up the cover, and add the evaporated milk, and parmesan.
4. If the sauce is too runny, you can put it back on saute mode, or if you’re like me, you add a few tablespoons of a starch like arrowroot to thicken up the sauce (optional!).
5. I added a little more lemon juice, salt and pepper to taste.
6. Since I didn’t have parsley like the original recipe calls for, I looked for a garnish and found some cherry tomatoes in my fridge. I sliced them in half, gave it a quick saute with olive oil and garlic powder until it browned, and then topped the pasta with that.

KALE & MUSHROOM SALAD

I usually pair a pasta with a salad. I generally prefer warm foods, and this salad is just sautéed mosh-posh of things I love, but once I started making it, my husband literally alwayssss requests it.

This is practically a permanent side dish to our dinners and there’s no real recipe. I usually just chop onions and mushroom, and sauté it in a pan with olive oil and minced garlic. When they’ve browned a little, I toss in kale, then season with salt and pepper. Here I added a few sun-dried tomatoes too because I thought it would add a nice flavor.

Enjoy!

x Shy