Instant Pot Creamed Beets

These Instant Pot creamed beets make a perfect side dish (especially for Thanksgiving or Christmas) and can also be served as a vegetarian main dish. Similarly to creamed spinach, this recipe features cooked diced beets (we used the Instant Pot for that), softened onions, garlic, and heavy cream and it’s all topped off with a little sharp feta and chives. This dish is vegetarian, gluten-free and can be made dairy-free and vegan if you like.

Forget creamed spinach! This season we’re all about making Instant Pot creamed beets. The pressure cooker is perfect for making this dish from scratch using fresh, raw beets. It’s a nutritious side dish that can be served with your weeknight dinner, Sunday roast, or added to your festive menu plan.

Cooking beets in Instant Pot

While you could use canned beets for this recipe, we love the idea of preparing our own beets with the Instant Pot. Using the pressure cooker allows you to steam the beets in a shorter time compared to stove-top and locks in more nutrients than boiling the beets.

If you boil any vegetable, a lot of the nutrients escape into the cooking water but cooking the beets on top of a trivet means that all those nutrients stay inside the root.

How to make Instant Pot creamed beets

If you’ve never cooked the beets in the Instant Pot, make sure to check out our detailed how-to post here. Full recipe and ingredients are below but here are some basic steps and how-to pics.

The first step is to trim the stems and leaves, which you can save for a soup, juice, stew or salad. 

Place the beets on top of the trivet with some water on the bottom. Cook on HIGH pressure for about 15 minutes with natural pressure release or 20 minutes with quick release. This is for medium-sized beets and will give you semi-soft beets with a little crunch in the middle. Again, see our Instant Pot beets cooking guide for timing variations.

Once the beets are cooked, cool them and peel using gloves or under running cold water. For this recipe, we diced the beets into small cubes but you could also grate them, which works well in a creamed dish.

We finish the dish in the Instant Pot as well. Using the Sauté function, we cook off the onions with a little butter and garlic, add a few spices and seasonings and then stir the beets together with cream and lemon juice. Super simple yet so delicious!

How amazing is the color of these creamed beets? Seriously, it’s such a beautiful dish and is always a crowd-pleaser. You can use coconut cream or another dairy-free cream to make a vegan version of this dish.

What to serve creamed beets with

We think that creamed beets should ideally be served as a side dish. However, it could also be an amazing plant-based main served alongside brown or white rice, quinoa or couscous.

As a side dish, creamed beets go really well lamb roast, grilled chicken or beef, meatloaf or as a side on a festive table. It’s particularly fabulous for Thanksgiving. 

You can add creamed beets to burgers and leftovers are delicious in wraps and sandwiches. 

MORE INSTANT POT BEETROOT RECIPES

Instant Pot Beet Risotto With Thyme & Goat’s Cheese

Instant Pot Beet Soup (Borscht)

Instant Pot Beet Salad from Yang’s Nourishing Kitchen

Instant Pot Creamed Beets

• Author: Instant Pot Eats
• Prep Time: 15 minutes
• Cook Time: 40 minutes
• Total Time: 55 minutes
• Yield: 4-6
• Category: Side
• Method: Instant Pot
• Cuisine: European

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Description

Forget spinach! This season, we’re all about creamed beets. Using the pressure cooker, you can prepare the most delicious, gorgeous looking side. This dish of Instant Pot creamed beets would be a great addition to your Thanksgiving, Christmas or other festive table.

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Ingredients

4-5 raw medium beets, unpeeled, stems cut off

1 red onion, finely diced

1 tablespoon olive oil

2 cloves garlic, finely diced

1 teaspoon butter

1/3 cup heavy cream

Juice of 1/2 lemon

1 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon pepper

1/4 teaspoon nutmeg

Garnish: chopped chives and feta cheese

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Instructions

1. Turn the Instant Pot on and place a trivet inside the pot. Add a cup of water and place the beets inside over the trivet. Pop the lid on and set to HIGH pressure for 20 minutes. Once the timer goes off, allow the pressure to release naturally. With the pressure build up and release, the cooking time should be 35 minutes or so.
3. Remove cooked beets from the pot and allow them to cool enough to handle. Peel under running water or while wearing kitchen gloves to avoid stains.
4. Once peeeled, grate the beets or cut them into small cubes or strips. If using a cutting board, I suggest putting a piece of parchment paper over the top to avoid staining the surface.
5. Back to our Instant Pot. Rinse the inner pot and wipe it clean. Place back inside the pot and set to Sauté. Add the onions and olive oil, and cook for 3-4 minutes until softened. Add the garlic, salt, pepper, nutmeg, butter  and the chopped beets. Stir through for 1- minutes.
6. Turn off the Instant Pot, add the cream and lemon juice. Stir through the beets and serve with some crumbled feta cheese and chives over the top.

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Notes

For a vegan and dairy-free version, replace butter with a little more olive oil and use thickened coconut cream or a vegan cream instead of regular cream. Top with crushed almonds or other nus and seeds.

Nutritional breakdown is for 1/2 cup of creamed beets served as s side.