Instant Pot Soft Boiled Eggs

It’s been exactly one month since I first learned about the Instant Pot. I’m not sure how it escaped my attention, since it seems now that it’s been rather a big deal for quite some time. If I did hear or read about them before that, it just must not have been the ‘right’ time so it didn’t make much of an impression. Or it may have been that like many people, I harbored a vague fear of pressure cookers, stemming from childhood stories about how they would ‘blow up’ if not used properly.

I know it was a month, since it was a Twitter thread that introduced me to the idea, mentioning how one could prepare good, home-cooked meals with less time and effort. Naturally, I was intrigued. Although our desire for good, home-cooked food has not changed, finding the time – and energy – for cooking was becoming more difficult with recent changes in my job and our family circumstance.

I did some googling, liked what I read, discovered a local store had them in stock and after 3 online discount offers and a mere 3 hours after I read the original tweet, I was unpacking one of my own.

I decided to start with something simple, and follow directions and recipes carefully until I had more of a feel for the device and how it worked before I started trying to adapt my own recipes.

You can’t find a food much simpler than eggs. Although most posters I’ve read about seem to gush about perfectly cooked hard boiled eggs in the Instant Pot, I’ve never had trouble with those. It was soft-boiled that was tricky for me. Our eggs are never the same size, and living at high altitude, it was difficult to get the consistency that we prefer. Too often we ended up with runny white and fully cooked yolk instead of the other way around.

I don’t think I’ve ever done so much research to produce so simple a meal. But being totally new to pressure cooking – and slightly intimidated by the whole thing – it seemed necessary. Whether necessary or not, it was worth it for perfectly cooked soft-boiled eggs.

Soft Boiled Eggs for Three

3 medium-large eggs

1 cup water

trivet or steamer basket

Space the eggs on the trivet or steamer basket. Add one cup water in the bottom of the inner pot. Cook on low pressure for three minutes.

Allow pressure to release naturally for three minutes. Release remaining pressure, open lid and carefully remove eggs.