Did you get a new Instant Pot
while they were on sale?
Here’s a wonderful and easy breakfast for you to make, Instant Pot Apple Spice Steel Cut Oats. I’ve been seeing questions about cooking smaller amount in your 6 quart IP and I’m here to tell you that you can totally do it.
This recipe makes 2 large servings or 3 small ones. If you have a large family or are hosting a brunch, you can double or even triple the recipe.
In case you’re wondering where you can get that beautiful heathered napkin, it’s from Beautiful Ingredient. She makes amazing handmade napkins, potholders, and more. They are on my Christmas wish list, and I bet they are perfect for someone you know.
One of the things I love about my Instant Pot is that you can set a timer and have your oats ready to put in a thermos right before you leave in the morning.
I don’t often do it with cut apples because they brown. But you can either dip them in lemon juice or choose to add fresh apple or applesauce after the cooking is done.
You use the timer button to do this. But first, select your cooking button, which will be manual, then set the cooking time to 3 minutes. After that, you can press the timer button and adjust with the + and – buttons.
If you notice the comments on my Instant Pot Pumpkin Coffeecake Steel-cut Oatmeal, you’ll notice that quite a few people don’t like their oats cooked for 3 minutes. They find them too hard, but I like them chewy.
Troubleshooting your oats:
You can always cook them for longer or try some of my slow cooker oatmeal recipes. They cook up very soft in the slow cooker. Some would even say mushy.
If there is extra liquid once the cooking time is up and the oats are the way you like them, switch to off, back on, and select saute. Keep stirring as if the pot was on the stove, and you can cook off any remaining liquid.
You can see more details about this in the video in the post or here.
Have an Ultra model Instant Pot?
I do find that an Ultra will put up a burn notice easier than the other models. If that happens to you, you may need to use a pot in pot method to make a smaller serving of oats.
More Recipes to Try
- Creamy Tomato Soup with Slow Cooker & Stove Top Instructions!
- Online Instant Pot Class – All About Soups!
- Pumpkin Cranberry Dog Cookies
- 14 Vegan Savory Oat Recipes
- Vegan Pear and Cranberry Instant Pot Cake
Instant Pot Apple Spice Steel Cut Oats for 2
Ingredients
- 1/2 cup steel cut oats
- 1 medium apple peeled and chopped small
- 1 1/2 cups water
- 1 tsp ground cinnamon
- 1/4 tsp allspice
- 1/8 tsp nutmeg
- sweetener of choice to taste
Instructions
- Add the oats, apple, water, and spices to your Instant Pot. Put your lid on and make sure the vent is closed. Plug it in and select the manual setting and set to cook on high pressure for 3 minutes. The Instant Pot timer will begin counting down the time once it gets up to pressure.
- Allow the pressure to release naturally. You’ll know when it’s ready because the round silver pressure gauge will drop down. This will take about 5 minutes.
- Open and mix in your choice of sweetener. Serve topped with your favorite nondairy milk. I like to use unsweetened vanilla.
- Note: if you don’t like your oats chewy, then you can cook them longer.
Nutrition
em rogers says
love it but would have to buy the pressure cooker; love this one; much better control
on the pressure.
the recipe is wonderful
Anna Wright says
I always like tasty foods, but health conscious too, I think this would be great for breakfast.
I planned to have in every morning! thanks for blogging!
A j says
Way way way too much cinnamon.
Poor hubby isn’t happy with me this morning lol.
Will do 4 minutes and half amount of spices next time.
Tori says
Ew. Maybe he should just be thankful that you cook for him.
Carolyn Christensen says
Amen:)
Vanessa says
Sounds like a jerk. He probably complains about a lot of things. 🙁 So sorry you have to reside with him and serve him oatmeal.
carol says
What I have on hand is the “instant” steel cut oats, so how many minutes for that?
Kathy Hester says
You may want to look at this article: . Instant Steel-cut oats cook faster than regular steel-cut oats, but take more time than rolled oats.
Personally I haven’t tried them in the IP yet, but I’ll update this comment once I get a chance to try it.
Di Hig says
From what I have read, instant steel cut oats take 3 minutes and regular steel oats take 15 minutes.
Shelly says
3 minutes was not enough cooking time. The flavor was good but I had to cook for an additional time.
Jan says
I cook my steel cut oats 3 595 min in the IP. 15 would be too long for me.
Jan says
ops. Should say 3-5 min!
Kathy Sparrgrove says
That’s a big difference – 3 minutes or 15 minutes!
I want mine soft. Should I do 15?
Kathy Hester says
I actually cook mine 3 minutes every time. I have found some people prefer to cook them longer. Maybe start at 7 or 10 minutes. You can always cook more if they aren’t the way you like them.
Noelle says
This was a major hit for for my family! I thought the spices were right on. I added 4 teaspoons of coconut sugar as sweetener for a double batch. I didn’t add any milk after and topped with a squirt of whipped cream. The kids (ages 7, 4, and 1) devoured it. I cooked for 4 minutes on high pressure with quick release after about 5 minutes.
Noelle says
Meant to give 5 stars..not sure how only 2 showed up!
Kim says
This recipe is AMAZING. I cooked my oats for 5 minutes and let the pressure come down for 7. I still had a little bit of liquid left (probably because I halved the recipe), so I popped my bowl in the microwave for a minute to reduce that down quickly and was left with the most amazing oatmeal I’ve ever had. The flavors are spot on (and way better than the Quaker packets, I might add). I recommend 100% pure oatmeal as a sweetener.
Michelle McKrola says
This was fabulous. I only added cinnamon and did not compensate for not adding the other spices. I cooked using your time recommendations and let it natural release. I also used a green apple and left the peels on.
Payton says
This horrible I tried to make it but it didn’t work I mean it smelled delicious but when I tried it it literally tasted like NOTHING!this was a big party foul and know I am stuck with a lump of nothing LITERALLY.
Beth Cullinan says
Do you usually add salt to your oatmeal? That is what it may need for you to enjoy it.
RD says
LITERALLY tasted like nothing? A lump of nothing LITERALLY? Please, for your sake and everyone else’s, look up the definition of literally.
Judi Bryan says
OMG! Turned out so yummy!!! I followed the directions exactly not wanting to “experiment” with the basics. It was perfect. I’m an oatmeal fan, and generally add a big handful of baby spinach, chopped, along with a fresh banana to my oatmeal, so I did the same with this (adding the spinach after the cooking was done and just mixing it in and letting it steam down for a minute or so, then adding the banana. It’s like eating a really decadent dessert!!! Thanks for sharing!!!
Janet Darms says
I followed this exactly except that I left it in pan after the natural release was finished and it was burnt onto the bottom of the pan. What did I do wrong?
Kathy Hester says
Could you have left it in the pan for a long time after the NPR? It will still keep cooking even on warm. If you need that time, perhaps add some extra liquid next time.
Pamela Emberland says
I regularly buy GF quick oats and rolled oats, but have never seen gluten free steel cut oats. Are they available?
Kathy Hester says
They are. I know that Bob’s Red Mill makes one.
OH Hokie says
I double the recipe and refrigerate the leftovers. My husband and I have a quick, healthy breakfast ready to go for a few days. The spices are spot on, I don’t peel the apples, and we don’t add sweeteners…delicious!
christi jones says
I really liked this recipe, although I did half the spices and I’m really glad I did because they would have been too strong otherwise. I added a bit of brown sugar when it was all done. The texture of the oats were just how I like them and the apples were done, but not mushy.
The only real complaint I have is with your website itself. If I view this page from my ipad or iphone the video ads mess everything up. I’ll be strolling down, but the second I take my finger off the screen to read more of the blog, the page shoots back up to one of the video ads. This made viewing the recipe impossible because every time I reached the recipe portion it would shoot back up to a stupid video. I ended up having to screen shot the recipe just to read it while I was cooking. Super annoying. So unless I’m on my computer (like I am now) your site is unusable for me.
Kathy Hester says
My ad people were trying out something with mobile video and I’ve turned that off. That should fix it, but let me know if it doesn’t.
Bethanne says
Hi Karen,
I have the 3-quart Instant Pot that does NOT have the “Manual” Button. I’m brand new to using my Instant-Pot, but your recipe looks amazing. Can you tell me which setting to use, and how long in the absence of having the Manual Button?
Kathy Hester says
You will use the pressure cook button on the 3 quart and cook for the same amount of time.
jennifer says
followed exactly – my pot immediately went to “BURN” even on the warm up … perhaps too little food for 6qt IP??
Kathy Hester says
I’m not sure what may have happened, but I cook it in my 6-quart with no issues.
Janice says
Mine went to burn before pressure too. I turned it off immediately and some was stuck to the bottom but it was still edible and delicious too. I am going to try putting the ingredients in a pyrex dish with a couple cups of water in the pot to see how it works then.
Janice says
update: I used a pyrex bowl that fit nicely in my IP, added the ingredients, placed 1 1/2 cups of water in the IP and put the bowl on the trivet. It turned out beautifully!
Hope says
I’ve even cooked mine in my 8 qt IP & never had a problem. Now I have a 3 qt. IP, so I’m using that today.
Stasia says
Just made this in my new instant pot. Followed the instructions, adding 3 cut up medjool dates, turmeric and a bit of pepper. Cooked for 3 minutes. The oats came out fine except there is some sticking/browning at the bottom of the pot . This happened last night when I cooked rice. Should I grease with a bit of olive oil before use?
Kathy Hester says
What size IP do you have? Also I’m wondering if the dates may have helped cause it. But you can always add a little oil.
Trease says
This recipe was the first time I used my Instant Pot and omg it was SO good!!
Nancy says
Very good. The natural pressure release took 14 minutes, but I had it a on “keep warm”. Second time using my new instant pot. Thinking I needed to press “cancel”.
Thank you for educating us!
Kathy Hester says
It doesn’t really change it that much.
Vicki says
Mine burned in the warmup stage. Recipe says to cook on high pressure, maybe I should have used mulitgsetting. Oatmeal that wasn’t burned was yummy.
Kathy Hester says
I use high pressure on my older Duo 6 quart with no issues. What model are you using?
Jenni says
I love cinnamon. Huzzah!
Traci says
I made this recipe this morning. I made it just as written , except I did not have any all spice. It was so delicious and easy!!My mornings are very chaotic, and I was not able to babysit the steel cut oats on the stove, and this recipe solved that problem. Thank you!!! This is a keeper!
Linda says
I made this in my off brand pressure cooker this morning with no spices and used almond milk in place of water, it turned out awesome and needed no other sweetener.
Kellie says
The spice amounts are spot on. Love this recipe! I did increase the cook time to 5 minutes, though, and used unsweetened almond milk instead of water. I also added the teasp of vanilla as suggested. Plan on making it again soon!
Sherry says
Great flavor, followed the recipe to a T (@high altitude) and it was perfect. My 15 year old loved it as well, he used sugar to sweeten and I used splends.
Janet Ortega says
Hi Kathy,
I’ve tried several steel cut recipes but all had lots of sugar in one form or another so your recipe intrigued me. Loved it and almost didn’t have to use Stevia sweetener. I used apples without peeling and found it to be great. The spices are perfect and I added 2 tsps of Hawaiian vanilla (I made it from vanilla beans I bought in Hawaii).
Katrina says
I love this recipe! Thank you!