Favorite Summer Side Dishes for the Pressure Cooker
Summer is a great time to use your pressure cooker! The pressure cooker makes short work of side dishes, and you can get a warm dish on the table without heating up your house using the oven. These Favorite Summer Side Dishes for the Pressure Cooker are sure to be a hit at your 4th of July BBQ, neighborhood potluck, or family reunion!
SUMMER NIGHTS ARE HERE! In Utah, we’re lucky enough to live at a high altitude so things generally cool off in the evenings. There’s few things I look forward to more than having the family over for a summer barbecue, and no barbecue is anticipated more than our annual 4th of July celebration. Today, I’m sharing some of my favorite summer side dishes to make for a big BBQ get-together.
To make it easy for you, I’ve paired some of these sides with my three favorite grilling recipes. Be sure and stop by Barbara Bakes to check them out!
Favorite Summer Side Dishes for the Pressure Cooker (Instant Pot)
Grilled Baby Back Ribs & Potato Salad
At our house, we celebrate the 4th of July with parades and activities in the morning, and then all the kids and their families come over for a big batch of my Make-Ahead Baby Back Ribs. At this point, for my family, it’s not the 4th without the ribs! And I love that I can pressure cook them in advance and finish them on the grill at dinner time. When I serve up ribs, I like to serve them with a spread of fresh fruit, rolls, a tossed green salad, and, of course, a big batch of my potato salad.
My Quick & Easy Pressure Cooker Potato Salad recipe is a classic potato salad recipe that only takes 4 minutes to cook in the pressure cooker—and it cooks the eggs and potatoes at the same time. If you love potato salad, you’ll love this recipe!
Pork Tenderloin & Cilantro Lime Rice
This Spicy Grilled Pork Tenderloin is a crowd-pleaser! I love serving pork tenderloin because it cooks up quick and easy, and is so tender, juicy and delicious.. The secret is a not-too-hot blend of spices that you rub on the meat before grilling. It’s great paired with a Mexican Corn Salad, chips and fresh salsa, and my pressure cooker Cilantro Lime Rice.
Chipotle’s Cilantro Lime Rice is a perfect side dish! The lime and cilantro give this rice a bright, fresh flavor. It’s easily doubled or tripled with no change in the cook time!
Grilled Steak Kabobs, Baked Beans & Cornbread
I love making steak kabobs when I’m feeding a crowd because they cook up quick, and I can stretch the meat a little farther. (I typically get 8 kabobs out of 6 steaks.) Pair them with my pressure cooker baked beans and cornbread to help sop up the last of the syrupy beans.
My Pressure Cooker (Instant Pot) Baked Beans are the perfect addition to a summer BBQ. The sticky-sweet navy beans and bacon are a barbeque classic!
Did you know you can “bake” cornbread in the pressure cooker? This Pressure Cooker Cornbread is a great option in the summer when you don’t want to heat up the house using the oven.
Other Favorite Summer Side Dish Recipes
This Amish Macaroni Salad features creamy mayonnaise and a sweet/sour base provided by the sugar and vinegar. It’s easy, and you can make it the night before to free up time and space in your pressure cooker.
I can’t think of many things better than fresh cherries in the summer. They’re a hit in this surprising, fresh-tasting Pressure Cooker Farro Cherry Salad. (And it doesn’t hurt that it looks beautiful on the table!)
I serve Lemon Rice whenever I’m grilling Greek Pork Souvlaki. For my daughter, souvlaki just isn’t complete without the lemon rice. We like it extra lemony at our house, so we frequently add lemon zest and extra lemon juice.
Saffron Almond Rice Pilaf is rice pilaf dressed up with sliced almonds and a pinch of saffron. It features a beautiful color and great contrasting textures. It’s perfect with a grilled pork chop or steak and fresh veggies. This side dish makes a weekly appearance at our house in the summer.
While this Spicy Brown Rice Black Bean Salad can stand on its own, it also makes a great side or appetizer! When I serve it with these Southwest Chipotle Sliders, I’ll serve it hot and sub the tabasco sauce for the same amount of the adobo sauce we use in the sliders.
Easy-to-make Rice Pilaf with Carrots, Peas and Parsley is a colorful addition to any meal.
If you’re in the mood for a twist on a classic, try this fun BLT Potato Salad with bacon, sun-dried tomatoes, and parsley.
Sometimes your family just wants a warm side-dish. (My daughter’s a little funny about cold food.) These saucy-cheesy potatoes au gratin are her very favorite side to any meat.
So these are all of my family’s favorite summer side dishes! What’s your favorite summer side dish?
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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 🙂