For the days you’re tired and hurried, here’s a 30-minute Instant Pot Pork Chops and Rice and Vegetables recipe that requires almost no effort. Tender pork chops, comforting soft rice, and veggies your kids might eat.
This is one of those easy recipes where you take rice, thin boneless pork chops, whatever vegetables you happen to have in your freezer. You add a little salt and pepper and water. You throw everything into your Instant Pot. You set it for 5 minutes, and walk away. Come back to a family-friendly dinner.
Really. It’s that simple
Comfort food that the whole family will love, with very little work, and if you’re feeding only yourself, great meal prep and freezer food.
Instant Pot Pork Chops and Rice with Vegetables
My kids love my plain pork chops with rice and they’ve always wanted to eat it plain.
But I’m a sneaky mom and when they were little, I’d add vegetables to it because that’s what Moms do.
Although my older one, Mark, was great with veggies, the younger one, Alex, needs them sneaked into him.
Sure he’d pick around the veggies, but I hoped he’d miss one every once in a while and hey presto! Veggies snuck into an unsuspecting kid!
The good news is that you can use whatever veggies will go over well in your household.
For this batch, I used julienned carrots, and frozen mixed vegetables. As long as you use vegetables that are not super starchy (like potatoes!) you can use whatever other frozen vegetables you have.
The reason NOT to use potatoes or other super starchy things, is that those vegetables ABSORB water to help the starch cook. You will likely not have enough water if you did that.
How To Make Pork Chops and Rice in your Instant Pot Pressure Cooker
- For this recipe, add oil, onions, rice, salt and pepper into the Instant Pot. You do not need to sauté anything. Yup, you read that right. The pressure cooker will take care of all the cooking for you.
2. Place pork chops on top of the rice. Pour in water and push down the rice to ensure it’s covered by the water.
3. Add whatever vegetables you intended to use. DO NOT STIR. You want these vegetables on top so that they won’t overcook.
4. Set the Instant Pot or electric pressure cooker to 5 minutes. At the end of the cook time, let it rest undisturbed for 10 minutes. This is important cook time for the ingredients, so do not rush it.
5. Ready to serve! The pork chops will be well-cooked. The rice will be soft and therefore well loved by kids and grown ups alike.
Tips & Tricks for this Instant Pot Pork Chops & Rice with Vegetables Recipe.
- Use thin pork chops so they cook with the rice. You can use boneless pork chops as well.
- Do not exceed the quantity of vegetables called for, as you will have way too much water and mushy rice if you do that.
- This recipe makes very soft rice so use the longest grain rice you can find and don’t add extra water.
- The pork chops and vegetables will release plenty of water.
- Be sure the rice is well covered with water; push it down if you need to.
- If you double the recipe. use only 1 3/4 cups of water.
So the next time you’re looking for a quick, yet family friendly dinner to cook up, make this Instant Pot Pork Chops and Rice with Vegetables! Your family is sure to love how it tastes and you’re sure to love how little effort is involved in making it!
? Did you make this recipe? Don’t forget to give it a star rating below! Just click on the stars in the recipe card to rate.
Ingredients
- 1 tablespoon oil
- 1 cup onion, chopped
- 1 cup Basmati Rice rinsed
- 1 tsp Salt
- 1 tsp Ground Black Pepper
- 4 pork chops, thin cut
- 3/4 cup water
- 1/2 cup mixed vegetables, frozen
- 1 carrot julienned
Instructions
- Place all ingredients into the inner liner of your pressure cooker in the order listed. Oil and onions at the bottom, rice with salt and pepper on top of that, pork chops on the rice, pour water and strew about the vegetables on top.
- Be absolutely sure that the rice is sitting under the water otherwise it will not cook. If you use potatoes or other starchy vegetables, you may need to add water. If you don’t rinse your rice, you may need to add a little extra water.
- Cook at High Pressure for 5 minutes, and allow it to release pressure naturally for 10 minutes. Release any remaining pressure, and serve.
Video
Notes
- Use thin pork chops so they cook with the rice.
- Do not exceed the quantities of vegetables called for, as you will have way too much water and mushy rice if you do that.
- This recipe makes a very soft rice so use the longest grain rice you can find and don’t add extra water.
- The pork chops and vegetables will release plenty of water.
- Be sure the rice is well covered with water; push it down if you need to. If you don’t your rice will not cook.
Nutrition
Don’t forget to check out my Instant Pot Fast & Easy Cookbook!
This book is full of all kinds of boldly flavored and internationally-themed recipes—Mexican, Thai, Moroccan, and more—with Instant Pot Fast & Easy, fully authorized by Instant Pot. Just like you have come to expect, my recipes will work perfectly every time, and of course, taste great too.
Linda
We all love this recipe, especially my daughter. She wants to do the same style with chicken.
I love your recipes!
Gill
My pork was too dry any suggestions?
Peter Ruscoe
I have to wonder what size of Instant Pot you used. If it was the “mini pot” I could see this working, but for 6 or 8 quart, the water isn’t enough to build up pressure. I had to add almost another cup (after the first attempt failed) and THEN it cooked correctly.
Peter Ruscoe
Ah, I note you say “set to high pressure.” Not all Instant Pots give you a choice – mine doesn’t. Still, that doesn’t explain why it never came up to pressure at all until I added more water.
URVASHI PITRE
So is it doesn’t give a choice then by default it’s set to high pressure. I suspect you had something stuck at the bottom of the pot that kept it from coming to pressure
URVASHI PITRE
8 quarts might pose an issue esp if it’s a newer one. I do make it in a 6 quart successfully though. Glad it worked for you
Leanne
I made this tonight and was very yummy! Kids approved!
I followed the layering steps as stated. I did use rinsed instant brown rice, because that is what I had on hand. I substituted water with chicken broth. Increased cooking time to 7 Mins. It came out great! Rice was creamy and moist. No issues with burning while cooking. I will be making again!
Angie
I love the taste of this recipe but I can. It get my pot to come to pressures I even tried adding a full cup of water. Plus I always have some rice to burn to the bottom of the pot. Not sure what is happening.
URVASHI PITRE
I wonder if I just replied to you on the IP community?
Mary F
I also had the BURN message come up twice during pressure cooking which delayed the cook time while I checked the contents. My husband and I think that the slightly scorched food on the bottom just added needed flavor. The pork chops (with bone) tasted too bland. I might try a pork chop rub with this recipe the next time and I will ignore the BURN message.
Jennifer Mackenzie
It was great !!
Pauly P in NC
More water is defiantly required.
Burn warning came up just after HP reached.
Full cup at least
URVASHI PITRE
As you may see from many comments both here, on the instant pot community, and on my Facebook page, many people make this successfully exactly as written.
I’d invite you to watch the video I created on the 5 reasons why your food burns in the instant pot.
Sandy
We did as instructed, but the rice was undercooked. Did not have frozen veggies so we used fresher carrots. We put it at high pressure for another 3 minutes, it’s better but need more cooking. We put it for another 4 minutes. Meat and carrots are pork are perfect but the rice? Still not fully cooked. I took the carrots and pork out. Decided to cook rice for another 3 minutes. Rice is good now but guess what? It’s burnt at the bottom!! Guess need to add more oil or water.
URVASHI PITRE
Did you push the rice down to be covered by the cooking liquid? If you don’t, it can’t absorb the liquid it needs.
Fresh carrots also absorb water in a way that frozen ones don’t (they release water). Depending on the size/thickness of the carrots they could have sucked up some of that water.
When you added another 4 minutes did you add more water? Without it the rice wouldn’t have any way to cook due to the high starch content.