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We’ve compiled a list of 25 summer side dish recipes, PLUS included suggestions of our favorite main dishes to pair them with. These recipes will keep your house cool (no oven necessary) and include everything from baked beans and corn on the cob to fresh grain salads and potato dishes.
During the summer, we’re all about keeping things laid-back and cool. Whether it’s a family dinner on a weeknight or an outdoor barbecue with neighbors and friends, no one wants to turn on the oven when it’s already roasting outside.
These side dishes that are perfect for summer, featuring seasonal produce and timeless summer classics.
Updated June 2025: To save you even more planning, I’ve also included recommendations for the entree recipes we love to serve with these side dishes. Enjoy!
1
Instant Pot Quick Potato Salad
This Instant Pot Potato Salad Recipe is SO easy because it cooks the hard-boiled eggs and potatoes together in the pressure cooker at the same time! Try it with Make-Ahead BBQ Chicken Legs for a classic summer pairing.
This chilled Instant Pot Pasta Salad is made with fresh cucumber, tomatoes, and parmesan, dressed with Italian dressing, and makes a great make-ahead barbecue side dish. We love to make this with grilled or sous vide steak.
Once you try making corn on the cob in a pressure cooker, you'll never go back to trying it on the stovetop. It cooks up quicker with much less mess! We love this one paired with Potato Salad and Memphis-Style Ribs.
These Air Fryer Green Beans have a simple panko coating and cook up crunchy and golden brown. We love it to serve it in place of French fries when we make our Easy Pressure Cooker Pulled Pork sandwiches!
For your next outdoor barbecue, use dried navy beans to make this easy Instant Pot Baked Beans recipe, featuring a classic sticky sauce of molasses, ketchup, and seasonings. Serve them with Country-Style Barbecue Pork Ribs.
Cook these red potatoes quick in the electric pressure cooker, then coat in melted butter, garlic and herbs, and Parmesan cheese, and crisp them to perfection in your oven. Pair these crispy potatoes with Instant Pot Beef and Cheddar Sandwiches.
This Mexican-inspired Instant Pot Rice is bright and perfect for summer. Serve it with any of your Taco Tuesday favorites, including the classic Ground Beef Tacos.
Fluffy white rice, bright lime juice, and cilantro make this side dish better than Chipotle! It’s the perfect Mexican side dish to pair with our easy Fish Tacos.
Easy Shortcut Spanish Rice in an Instant Pot is a five-ingredient side dish to pair with all of your favorite Spanish or Mexican meals, including Instant Pot Asopado.
Bring tropical flavors to your weeknight dinners with this easy and creamy Instant Pot Coconut Rice, made with unsweetened coconut milk and jasmine rice. Pair it with Kalua Pork for a Hawaiian-themed dinner.
14
Thai Edamame Quinoa Salad
Quinoa soaks up the bright, zesty Thai flavors in this satisfying grain and veggie salad. It's delicious with Thai-style fish made in the Instant Pot.
This quinoa salad from Two Peas and Their Pod has refreshing Greek flavors and is full of hearty beans. It makes a nice side dish with our Greek Beef Tacos
Creamy, traditional Egg Salad—made in an egg loaf in the Instant Pot—make a crunchy, tangy, and satisfying side dish with mayonnaise, sour cream, and fresh chives. Pair this side with Babyback Ribs (a make-ahead recipe).
This salad is creamy, crunchy and has a hit of vinegar for brightness. It just makes sense to serve it with German-style rolls!
18
Wisconsin Mac and Cheese
This copycat mac and cheese recipe is SO easy to make in your Instant Pot, and it is a perfect side for all ages! It's one of the sides I like to serve with Smoky Beef Brisket when I'm feeding a crowd.
This is a simple and hearty veggie side dish for the Instant Pot. You can use any of your favorite seasonal vegetables. Serve it with our lemony Greek Souvlaki.
Sundried Tomato Polenta is surprisingly easy and mostly hands-off, flavored with sweet-tart sun-dried tomatoes. This side packs a lot of flavor, so we like to serve it with a more neutral meat like our Mediterranean Fish.
Yes, you can make sot, spongey cornbread without turning on the oven! This our go-to recipe on hot summer days. It's great with Instant Pot Short Ribs.
This light bean salad is a fast and easy side dish when you cook the beans in a pressure cooker. We love it as one of the sides we serve with Easy Pressure Cooker Pulled Pork
When you're rushing home on a summer night, keep things easy with this easy from-frozen air fryer method. They pair great with any of our sandwich recipes, including French Dips.
While this asparagus is traditionally a "spring veggie," we see it year-round at the stores near us, and it's too good to only eat a few months of the year. We like this with any grilled meat or pasta like our one-pot ravioli.
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Hi…Pleased and proud to say that I am following your social media accounts and Newsletter since more than 3 years..all the above recipes are now posted to all my social media accounts including my Blog on Tumblr..Best wishes
I absolutely love this site. I bought a Tramotina pressure cooker on Black Friday for when we live in Florida and came back to MN and bought a Cuisinart. The recipes work with both and probably would work with my old non electric pressure cookers as well. I would probably never have tried cooking cheesecake in a pressure cooker, so Thanks for the inspriation
I am a newbie to the pressure cooker wonders. I have many failed attempts so far. To the point I want to just use it for canning. I have a Pressure Cooker XL and it is nice and new with buttons 🙂 Should be easy but for some reason, my meat has been dry. The only thing I’ve done well is rice. I am glad to have found your recipes and am looking forward to using them.
P.S. May want to spell check your top box, just one word I saw, but I found you on Pinterest. 🙂
Hi Kate – if your meat is dry, then you’ve cooked it too long. Try using cuts of meat that aren’t as lean, which are more forgiving with longer cook times. Pork shoulder (pork butt or picnic) is fantastic in the pressure cooker. Chicken breasts and lean pork chops can be more tricky. But don’t give up, but for you know it, you’ll have the hang of it.
Hi,
Love both of your blogs! I love my electric pressure cooker and use it a lot but I didn’t realize until recently how much I loved it until we gutted our kitchen for a remodel. During the remodeling process I had a makeshift kitchen down in my finished basement and the most versatile item I had to cook with was my pressure cooker. I made scrambled eggs in it,homemade rice a roni,used it for browning sausages,cooked oatmeal in it and also made chicken wings in it,etc,etc.. If I had my choice of only one appliance for cooking in less desirable circumstances,my electric pressure cooker would win hands down!
What a godsend our pressure cooker is! We bought an 8-quart stainless steel Presto pc in April, and I am an eager, avid convert! I can’t believe how lamb shanks, lamb stew, the toughest, gnarliest chuck roast can all come out so fork-tender! Vegetables are a snap in the pc. GAH! I just want to shout out to the world that pc’s are nothing to be afraid of. The benefits you and Laura extoll, my family and I have seen and tasted for ourselves!
To second Carol, our apt. gets extremely hot in the summer with the oven in full use. Do you know what cooking appliance will be the workhorse? Yes, our pc! I’m converting all my oven-based recipes to our pc. (As for pernil, I know I’ll use the pc for it, but maybe we’ll have to get a blowtorch to get the crispy effect.)
I for one am going to be using my electric pressure cooker a lot this summer. Thank you both for sharing all this great information and the wonderful recipes. We have no AC in the house, so anything I can do to keep the heat from building up in here is A-OK with me! 🙂
Make better-tasting meals in a fraction of the time with an electric pressure cooker! At Pressure Cooking Today, we post quick, easy, and delicious recipes that your family will ask you to make again and again!
Pingback: Pressure Cooker (Instant Pot) Corn on the Cob
Do you have a link for
Pressure Cooker (Instant Pot) Cheesy Potatoes Au Gratin
?
Hi Jack – I’ve updated the post with the link – thanks! https://www.pressurecookingtoday.com/cheesy-potatoes-au-gratin/
Hi…Pleased and proud to say that I am following your social media accounts and Newsletter since more than 3 years..all the above recipes are now posted to all my social media accounts including my Blog on Tumblr..Best wishes
Thanks so much!
I absolutely love this site. I bought a Tramotina pressure cooker on Black Friday for when we live in Florida and came back to MN and bought a Cuisinart. The recipes work with both and probably would work with my old non electric pressure cookers as well. I would probably never have tried cooking cheesecake in a pressure cooker, so Thanks for the inspriation
Thanks so much Patty for taking the time to let me know how much you love my site! Cheesecake in the pressure cooker is my favorite. Enjoy 🙂
I am a newbie to the pressure cooker wonders. I have many failed attempts so far. To the point I want to just use it for canning. I have a Pressure Cooker XL and it is nice and new with buttons 🙂 Should be easy but for some reason, my meat has been dry. The only thing I’ve done well is rice. I am glad to have found your recipes and am looking forward to using them.
P.S. May want to spell check your top box, just one word I saw, but I found you on Pinterest. 🙂
Hi Kate – if your meat is dry, then you’ve cooked it too long. Try using cuts of meat that aren’t as lean, which are more forgiving with longer cook times. Pork shoulder (pork butt or picnic) is fantastic in the pressure cooker. Chicken breasts and lean pork chops can be more tricky. But don’t give up, but for you know it, you’ll have the hang of it.
What word is misspelled?
Cook Pasta directly in sauce INSTED…is spelled wrong.
Thanks for the info Debi. Unfortunately, the graphic is from Laura of Hip Pressure Cooking, so I can’t update the error.
Hi,
Love both of your blogs! I love my electric pressure cooker and use it a lot but I didn’t realize until recently how much I loved it until we gutted our kitchen for a remodel. During the remodeling process I had a makeshift kitchen down in my finished basement and the most versatile item I had to cook with was my pressure cooker. I made scrambled eggs in it,homemade rice a roni,used it for browning sausages,cooked oatmeal in it and also made chicken wings in it,etc,etc.. If I had my choice of only one appliance for cooking in less desirable circumstances,my electric pressure cooker would win hands down!
What a godsend our pressure cooker is! We bought an 8-quart stainless steel Presto pc in April, and I am an eager, avid convert! I can’t believe how lamb shanks, lamb stew, the toughest, gnarliest chuck roast can all come out so fork-tender! Vegetables are a snap in the pc. GAH! I just want to shout out to the world that pc’s are nothing to be afraid of. The benefits you and Laura extoll, my family and I have seen and tasted for ourselves!
To second Carol, our apt. gets extremely hot in the summer with the oven in full use. Do you know what cooking appliance will be the workhorse? Yes, our pc! I’m converting all my oven-based recipes to our pc. (As for pernil, I know I’ll use the pc for it, but maybe we’ll have to get a blowtorch to get the crispy effect.)
Thanks Jasmin! I’d love for you to share your favorite converted oven-based recipe with me 🙂
Hi, Barbara! When I get that pernil right, I’ll let you know ASAP. 😉
I for one am going to be using my electric pressure cooker a lot this summer. Thank you both for sharing all this great information and the wonderful recipes. We have no AC in the house, so anything I can do to keep the heat from building up in here is A-OK with me! 🙂
Thanks Carol! Hope you’re keeping cool 🙂