Easy Instant Pot Crash Hot Potatoes

Welcome to the December 11, 2016 edition of Sunday Scratchups: Your weekly recipe from scratch around grocery store matchups, coupons, and sales. Up this week: Instant Pot Crash Hot Potatoes. Small red or Yukon Gold potatoes have been on sale at several local stores, making it a great week for this recipe — and potatoes are so generally affordable that these Instant pot smashed potatoes are a great comfort food recipe for almost any time of year.

(They’ll turn out flatter and crispier if you start with smaller potatoes than I had here, but you get more of the creamy potato-y inside with the slightly larger ones, so either way is fine!)

I’ve been making Crash Hot Potatoes for years since seeing a recipe from The Pioneer Woman way back in the day, but prefer to jazz ours up with a little garlic & Parmesan. This hybrid Instant Pot cooking + conventional browning recipe turns out perfectly cooked and crispy potatoes for an easy & delicious side dish.

Note: If you don’t have an Instant Pot, you can simply boil your potatoes in salted water until fork tender and then proceed with the rest of the recipe — but I will say that the Instant Pot really kicks these up a notch and produces the creamiest, most perfectly cooked version of crash potatoes I’ve ever tasted! Give it a try and let me know if you can taste the difference in the electric pressure cooker version as well.

Instant Pot Crash Hot Potatoes

Ingredients

1.5 lbs small Yukon Gold potatoes
1 cup water
2 Tbsp olive oil
2 Tbsp shredded Parmesan
1 Tbsp minced garlic
1/2 tsp Kosher salt
1/2 tsp dried rosemary

Directions

Wash potatoes and pierce each with a fork. Pour one cup of water into the bottom of your Instant Pot insert, then arrange potatoes in a single layer on the trivet.

Close the Instant Pot lid and set the valve to sealing. Hit the manual button and adjust the time down to 9 minutes (should be on “high pressure”), then hit the manual button a second time to start. Note: You might adjust this time up a little for larger potatoes, or down a little if you’re working with baby potatoes.

While the potatoes are pressure cooking, preheat your oven to 450 degrees and spray a sheet pan with cooking spray. (You can instead drizzle it with olive oil, if you prefer to avoid spray.) Also mix together olive oil, Parmesan, and spices in a small bowl.

When the time is up, do a quick release on the Instant Pot. (I like to use a long wooden spoon to turn the valve to venting — so try that if you’re a pressure cooker wuss such as myself, lol.)

Place the potatoes on prepared baking sheet and slightly “smash” each, first one way and then criss-cross with a potato masher. Don’t smash them to pieces here; just flatten them out a bit.

Spread garlic-Parmesan mixture over the top of each potato, then bake at 450 degrees for 20-25 minutes until nicely browned.

Serve hot! Or: CRASH hot, as it were… 😉

I’m still settling into cooking with the Instant Pot, but one of my favorite things to use it for is potatoes. Something about pressure cooking really does wonders for their texture, and it’s so much easier than dealing with a big pot of boiling water. Even if you’ve made Crash Hot Potatoes before, you might notice a definite improvement in mouthfeel with this Instant Pot Crash Hot Potatoes recipe — and the garlic-Parmesan-rosemary topping hits all the right savory comfort food notes.

All the boys here went nuts for this recipe, so give Instant Pot Crash Hot Potatoes a try the next time you are looking for an easy and delicious starchy side. This recipe is naturally gluten free.

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Instant Pot Crash Hot Potatoes

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This hybrid Instant Pot cooking + conventional browning recipe turns out perfectly cooked and crispy potatoes for an easy & delicious side dish. Cooking time includes time for pot to come to pressure.

Course Side Dish

Total Time 45 minutes minutes

Servings 4

Author Rachel Singer

Ingredients

• 1.5 lbs small Yukon Gold potatoes
• 1 cup water
• 2 Tbsp olive oil
• 2 Tbsp shredded Parmesan
• 1 Tbsp minced garlic
• 1/2 tsp Kosher salt
• 1/2 tsp dried rosemary

Instructions

• Wash potatoes and pierce each with a fork.
• Pour one cup of water into the bottom of your Instant Pot insert, then arrange potatoes in a single layer on the trivet.
• Close the Instant Pot lid and set the valve to sealing.
• Hit the manual button and adjust the time down to 9 minutes (should be on "high pressure"), then hit the manual button a second time to start. (Note: You might adjust this time up a little for larger potatoes, or down a little if you're working with baby potatoes.)
• While the potatoes are pressure cooking, preheat your oven to 450 degrees and spray a sheet pan with cooking spray. (You can instead drizzle it with olive oil, if you prefer to avoid spray.)
• Also mix together olive oil, Parmesan, and spices in a small bowl.
• When the time is up, do a quick release on the Instant Pot. (I like to use a long wooden spoon to turn the valve to venting -- so try that if you're a pressure cooker wuss such as myself, lol.)
• Place the potatoes on prepared baking sheet and slightly "smash" each, first one way and then criss-cross with a potato masher. Don't smash them to pieces here; just flatten them out a bit.
• Spread garlic-Parmesan mixture over the top of each potato, then bake at 450 degrees for 20-25 minutes until nicely browned.
• Serve hot! Or: CRASH hot, as it were... 😉

Notes

These will turn out flatter and crispier if you start with smaller potatoes than I had here, but you get more of the creamy potato-y inside with the slightly larger ones, so either way is fine!

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