Chef Marianne's Guide to Healthy Crockpot and Instant Pot Cooking

Listen below, or subscribe to our podcasts through Apple Podcast or Spotify.

Join our Dishing Up Nutrition Facebook Community!
A private, supportive space to ask questions, share ideas, and get bonus content from our nutrition team.

Similar Podcast Episodes

• Meal Prep Made Easy: Must Have Kitchen Gadgets
• Healthy Kitchen Shortcuts to Get Dinner on the Table Fast
• Cooking For One? Tips, Tricks, & Meal Ideas

Similar Articles

• 11 Slow Cooker Tips for Healthy Eating
• 7 Freezer Cooking Tips to Save Time and Reduce Waste

Transcript

Leah: Welcome to Dishing Up Nutrition, brought to you by Nutritional Weight and Wellness. I'm Leah Kleinschrodt, Registered and Licensed Dietitian with Nutritional Weight & Wellness, and we have a special episode for you all today because I'm joined by a special guest, our resident chef, Marianne Jurayj, here to share her expertise on making homemade healthy meals doable for every day.

I mean, we all want healthy home-cooked meals on the table, but between work and family and errands and everything else competing for our time, cooking from scratch every single night can just feel like a tall order. So that's where the Crockpot and the Instant Pot can become two of the hardest working tools in your kitchen.

So today, Chef Marianne will talk about how to use these time-saving appliances to make real food meals that are flavorful, nourishing, and surprisingly easy. We'll share Chef Marianne’s best tips for preparing meals, building great flavor, avoiding some common cooking mistakes when using these appliances, and turning simple ingredients into meals that the whole family will actually want to eat.

So whether your Crockpot is already a weeknight staple or your Instant Pot is still sitting in the cupboard because you're a little intimidated by it, this episode will give you plenty of practical ideas to make healthy cooking easier. So welcome, Marianne. Thanks for joining me. It's been a while since I've seen your smiling face, so I'm excited to have you here.

And I think we'll just start off with give us a little bit of background on your role here at Nutritional Weight & Wellness, and just talk about, you know, you're involved a lot with our cooking classes, so you teach a lot of those. Tell us a little bit more about those and just kind of tell us more about you.

Marianne: Yeah. Thanks so much, Leah. It's always fun to be here, and this is going to be a fun subject.

Leah: Yes.

Marianne: Thanks for having me. Well, I have had the pleasure of being sort of the resident chef for Nutritional Weight & Wellness for about six years now, I think, and that can mean answering cooking questions that we often get online.

Maybe I develop a few recipes, and of course we have these fantastic cooking classes we do each month. They're virtual. Tons of fun. In fact we have one on October 14th about all things meat. So we will roast and sauté and braise, which, braising by the way, is a very Instant Pot, slow cooker thing to do.

Sign Up for a Cooking Class! 

Yeah. And we're going to look at buying meat, the best way to store it, whether it's raw or after you've cooked it. So this is a great fundamental class that you can sign up for on the website weightandwellness.com. And some of our other classes, we do veggies, which is also a fundamental class. We've got soups and stews and burgers and tacos. And we even have a sweets class that we do, that won't spike your blood sugar, and that's just to name a few.

Leah: Yeah. Yeah. We try to keep it very seasonal, right? And very appropriate for the time of year, keeping that in mind as well. Yes. And I will say, like I, when I counsel with clients or I'm teaching classes, other, like other classes with Nutritional Weight & Wellness, I, I often hear feedback, like, that these classes are very affordable.

They love your knowledge base. I mean, who, who has access to a chef's brain on like a, even a monthly basis? So it's always so fun, I think, for, for clients and students and stuff to be able to kind of pick your brain. The moderator is in there too, kind of helping to explain things and just try to level up some of that knowledge base a little bit more.

And I think people like the opportunity to be able to ask questions during the class. I hear that a lot too. And so even if people take away like one or two little things that they can do in the kitchen next time, or one or two little tips, or one new recipe, like it's worth the time, it's worth the effort to kind of sit through and, and just do a little bit of learning. So that's some of the feedback that I get. It's, which is always fun.

Marianne: Yeah, that's great. I love that. And it's so fun to t- they're fun to teach. I mean, we and we all teach each other, you know, the comments that come in and we all learn a little something. It's a craft that we can always build on.

Leah: Yeah. I've heard you say that before too, just like honing your craft because it's like we can, whatever skill set we come into this class with, there's something else that we could either do differently, there's something else we could learn, there's something else we could level up on. So it is, it's a class for all, which again, is like, it's so great.

Advantages to having a Crockpot or Instant Pot (& some examples of food to cook in them!)

So we're lucky to have you in our corner with that. We're going to start talking a little bit more, okay, what are the nitty-gritty of using a Crockpot and an Instant Pot in your own home. So I think, Marianne, what, let's start us off with, you know, what are the advantages to having a Crockpot or an Instant Pot available at home?

What advantages do they give us for preparing meals? And I think maybe give us some examples of the types of dishes that you prepare, whether it's an everyday meal or whether it's for special occasions.

Marianne: Yeah. Oh, wow. Well, great questions. I mean it's, it's interesting, I actually use both often, and they both can be really great time savers, but in very different ways. I feel like you can't necessarily replace one with the other. I think, and they definitely have advantages, say, over your oven and cooktop as far as being efficient.

In fact, your slow cooker uses about the same energy as a 100 watt light bulb. Think about that. So they also don't heat up your kitchen, so even though we're moving into a cooler season, keep this equipment in mind when you don't want to heat up your kitchen.

It's kind of nice, so- the slow cooker is a great hands-off tool. It frees you up to do other things. You can throw together a soup or a stew, or put that roast in, set it on low for eight hours, and you can safely run errands, go to work, take the kids to soccer practice. It really allows you to go about your day and come home to a wonderful meal and fantastic smells.

So the pressure cooker on the other hand or multi-cooker. I mean, the Instant Pot is a brand name, but multi-cooker, I know there's a few brands in the game here. It's a little bit more of a jack of all trades. You can, like your slow cooker, you can cook a tough cut of meat, but you can do it in the fraction of the time. What else do I do? I batch cook my like my wild rice or my brown rice. I like to do that in my Instant Pot.

Leah: Yes.

Marianne: But you can even make yogurt in your Instant Pot. Do you have an Instant Pot, Leah?

Leah: I do.

Marianne: Yeah. It has a sauté feature which is nice, which your slow cooker doesn't have, so you can brown things, and it also has a keep warm setting so that... But this is when I use it during the holidays.

I love to keep my mashed potatoes warm, either in my Instant Pot or my slow cooker. It sort of frees up that real estate of your cooktop or your oven that is prime, and it just takes it out of the way so that you can either serve, take your insert out of your slow cooker and you could serve it that way. But it just, it's just one less burner that's being used, and I think it's just a great way to keep things warm during the holidays.

Leah: It's, yeah, like you said, especially if your household tends to be the place that people flock to, which I'm sure yours is. I, I think you've mentioned that on previous shows.

That prime real estate inside the oven and on the stovetop, it's like great, like, yeah, let's use all the tools in our toolbox here to kind of keep those things free when we really need to get in there. Yeah, and I mean, I have both a slow cooker and an Instant Pot.

I, I admit, I definitely am the person that the Instant Pot, my husband bought one for me years ago, and it, I was that person who was intimidated by it, and it sat on the side for longer than I care to admit before I broke it out and, like, just started experimenting with some recipes.

And I think I love, like you said, that you can sauté some things in there first and then dump everything else in, pressure cook it. I found that to be really helpful. For, I think, I, I think maybe not so controversial in our, in our field here, our realm, but, like, I think some people have strong feelings about this.

I make bone broth in my Instant Pot, something that typically takes a longer period of time. You can really shorten that cook time there. You know, and slow cookers in general, that's been in my repertoire for a long time. So again, chilis, beef stew.

We've got a great recipe on our website for Cream Cheese Crockpot Chicken. That one is like an, it's an oldie, but it's a goodie, and I would hear people rave about that one. It is on our website. I'd hear people rave about that one when I would teach classes. Lots of different, what I'm hearing from you, Marianne, is, like, that between these two items, we can have really a very wide array of recipes or ways to cook meat and ways to, like, kind of prepare really delicious food.

And I think, too, I'll even say I've seen this, haven't necessarily tried it. Have you tried breakfast items in either the Instant Pot or the slow cooker? Like doing a, a, like an egg bake or some kind of casserole in the slow cooker?

Marianne: So I have not, although I've seen lots of recipes for that. I baked eggs in ramekins inside my Instant Pot. You just crack eggs into, you know, like a little...

You could even do it in a cup, like a coffee cup, and you just set them on the rack that you c- that comes with your Instant Pot. And, and you know, it, we know how, how Instant Pot recipes are very specific. But it was a great, they were very tasty eggs. Obviously you can also do hard-boiled eggs in your Instant Pot.

Leah: Yeah.

Marianne: It's sort of the five, five, five. You set the timer for five, you slow release for five, and then you do five minutes in an, a, an ice bath, and you will have perfectly cooked hard-boiled eggs.

Leah: Yeah. I've heard clients who've done that. They love that for as kind of a, a meal prep option for them. And I just wanted to point that out because we do tend to think about the Crockpot stuff as more dinner oriented, versus like this could actually apply to other meals also.

Marianne: Yeah. Yeah, exactly.

Instant Pot vs. slow cooker: which one should I use?

Leah: Yep. Okay, so let's say you have both options for the slow cooker and the Instant Pot. How do you choose which one to prepare different foods with, like, is there an algorithm in your head? Are there guidelines, a framework that you can kind of talk us through that you like?

Marianne: Yeah. Oh, wow, okay. So, it, you know what? It, it absolutely comes down to time. That's what it's all about-the difference between these two apparatus. Now they both use wet heat. So for the Instant Pot, it's under pressure. And the slow cooker, it's kind of like a steamy convection. The, the, the you've always got water at the bottom of both of them, and in, a slow cooker, the steam comes up, comes to the lid, and then falls back down on your food. So it, that's kind of the, I call it the steamy convection. So that's how your slow cooker works.

So let's use an example. Let's say we want to make, like a southwest flavored pulled pork because we want to have tacos. So- Both the slow cooker and the Instant Pot can do this.

Now, for the pressure cooker, well, I was going to say, th- they're going to do them in different ways, but, if you plan ahead, which is the key word here, if you plan ahead and you have some time in the morning, I would brown my thawed, keyword thawed here, pork shoulder in a skillet, probably my cast iron skillet, because I like to brown meat before I braise it.

I feel It adds a complex flavor. Do you have to? There's lots of recipes that don't. But that's my little chef tip. It will give you another level of flavor. So anyway, maybe in a little avocado oil, salt and pepper.

I would throw it into the slow cooker with some broth, maybe one of your favorite salsas, like a clean salsa. Throw that in there. Maybe some cumin, a little oregano, and leave it on low for eight hours, and you are going to be ready for tacos by dinner time. So that, that's your slow cooker version. You can go about your day and come home to it.

Now, the Instant Pot version Little different. Now the nice thing is I can brown that pork shoulder on the sauté setting, so I don't have to use a different pan. And then I would add the salsa, the broth, the seasonings. I would switch it to the pressure cooking setting, seal the lid, and we could be eating tacos in 90 minutes.

That's the difference, eight hours, 90 minutes. The other difference is you can actually cook things from frozen in your Instant Pot, which you cannot do in your slow cooker. I mean, you could, but the Minnesota Department of Health strongly advises against it in your slow cooker.

It just, takes way too long to get that meat up to a safe temperature, which is above 140 degrees. So think about having, you know, a pork shoulder that is frozen solid. It will take a long time to come up to temperature, and then you want it to cook long enough to be nice and tender and fall off the bone. It just won't happen in your slow cooker.

So those are your two scenarios with, with that, with a, with a pork shoulder. But likewise, you can throw, you could throw a whole squash into a slow cooker on high, cup of water, it will be done in three or four hours. You could do the same thing in a pressure cooker and it'll be done in 40 minutes. Both useful but different ways.

Leah: Yes. Yep. Okay, so time, biggest deciding factor there. And still both require a little bit of forethought, a, a little bit of, of okay, here's what we're doing for dinner, or something along those lines.

But it like, then you can choose based on, again, are, do you work from home, and can it be something that you do only can, that you can only do in 90 minutes? Or is it like, like you said, put it in the Crockpot, go about your day. You're going to leave the house for a while, come back, and eight hours, 10 hours later, like now the meal will be ready. Any disadvantages that you can think of or anything else that like discerns one or the other?

Marianne: Well, I mean, I think the thawing factor is a big deal. I think a lot, if you're anything like me, it's I'm thinking, "Oh my gosh, dinner tonight, and I forgot to thaw out whatever it was that I meant to do." So that- that's the advantage of your Instant Pot is- even pieces of fish, you can take, some frozen cod or salmon.

You set it right on the little rack at the bottom of your Instant Pot. It only take-- You set the timer for, like, two minutes. It's something crazy like that, and it comes out flaky. It's beautiful. So it does take that out of it, but you can't leave it.

You will have to pay attention to that Instant Pot, where your slow cooker is, if you did plan ahead, you can just let it go, and it's, you know, it is a totally hands-off thing.

Leah: That's a really good point too of like I think a- and even for the best of us that try to have a plan ahead of, ahead of time, that if you don't have something for... We all have those days where you get to 3:00 or 4:00 PM and you're like, "Ah, I really wish like this meat was thawed out." That's where the Instant Pot can really come in handy.

Best cuts of meat for slow cooking

Okay, so one question we had from a listener was what are the best cuts of meat for slow cooking? And do you look at things like fat content for both flavor and nutrition? So this one's again, like let's transition more, put on our slow cooker hat.

What are the best cuts of meat or what are we thinking about as we're picking that out? You mentioned a pork shoulder as one example that would, that would really could work in either one, but anything else that you're thinking.

Marianne: Yeah, yeah, yeah. And yes to flavor and yes to nutrition. So that is the name of the game. Now, the great thing about your slow cooker, not only is it efficient in that it's, it's the wattage of a light bulb, it also takes a really inexpensive cut of meat and makes it absolutely delicious.

It will break down, it slowly breaks down, you know, those, that connective tissue of that meat and just falls off the bone. It's lovely. So that makes it very economical. Yes, like to do a, a pork shoulder. A rump roast is beautiful. I love to do short ribs in a slow cooker with maybe a little bit of tomato sauce is lovely.

But think of those really tough cuts of meat. Not to say that you can't do chicken, you certainly can. You can do wings and legs, drummies and all of that. But think about those, those really tough cuts of meat that are less expensive in the grocery store.

If, hopefully you'll find grass-fed, pasture-raised, all of those good things. If they are grass-fed, they might be leaner, so make sure, if they have that nice layer of fat, sort of a fat cap, you want to keep that on. It is going to melt into the meat as you cook it.

And it makes it luscious, it keeps it from drying out. It's a lovely thing. Very important, keep the lid on your slow cooker. I know we're all tempted to lift up that lid and see how we're doing, especially in the first two hours. Don't do it. Just you know, trust the process, let the magic happen.

Because when you do that you, you release a lot of the steam as that steam convection we need, and you are lowering the temperature of your slow cooker. So try not to do that. That is one of the things that we, I think a lot of us tend to, tend to jump to. And, and so the liquid and the spices can take that meat in so many directions. Use a really good quality broth. You could do like a tamari or coconut aminos, or a fish sauce, and now you've got kind of Asian flavors.

Or you could do Italian seasoning, Greek oregano, and now you've got more of a Mediterranean dish. So if you have the time, let the slow cooker do its magic and that meat will be mouthwateringly tender.

Leah: Yes. I love that. Is there, again, we, you've mentioned a lot of roast ideas. I'm glad you mentioned the short ribs because I have short ribs in my freezer that I just don't know what to do with, so now I'm definitely going to look up some slow cooker recipes for that.

Is there a minimum amount of liquid that people want to think about putting in a slow cooker? I'm sure it's very dependent recipe-wise, but like, if a if they just, again, we've talked about roasts. Is there a certain amount of liquid or just like a kind of a gauge that you would use for that?

Marianne: Yeah. So it depends on the size of your slow cooker. Most people probably have like a six quart. That's pretty average. Some people might have those smaller ones, but for the most part, you want to have, so we're not boiling our meat, we are braising our meat, which is cooking things in a small amount of liquid.

So you want at least, a cup, but you, but that might include your tomato sauce, your, some of your vegetables that you put in with the meat. Maybe you put in an onion or celery or what- if you're making a stew. Those will also release some moisture.

So, it, because it's a wet heat method, certainly at least a, a cup. You also want your instant pot to be, I've seen, you know, some rules where you kind of want it to be at least half full all the time. You wouldn't want it less than that. It just doesn't quite do the job. You're more likely to burn.

The, the, liquid is more likely to evaporate. But obviously if you're making a soup, the whole thing is liquid, which is which is different. You also don't want to fill it too close to the top because you do want a certain amount of air so that you have that convection response.

Leah: Yep. I've made that mistake before too, of overfilling my slow cooker, and then you end up with a bit of a mess afterwards.

Marianne: Yep.

Leah: Yes. Very good. Marianne, we do have to take a quick break. We will come back on the other side. You planted it perfectly. We've talked mostly about meat so far, but we're going to talk about some other things that you can do in the slow cooker and the Instant Pot besides meat. So stay tuned. We'll be right back.

We are back with Dishing Up Nutrition, and we have Chef Marianne here today taking us through using our Crockpot and our Instant Pot to the best of our ability when we're at home creating healthy, balanced, delicious meals. And so far, we've talked a lot about how to use these tools to get meat cooked and to have that as part of your meal.

Ideas of how to use these appliances than just meat (overviewing veggie ideas!)

But Marianne, I want to transition over, because you had just started mentioning this before we went to break, that there, you can do other side dishes, you can do vegetables, like, there's other foods that work well in the Crockpot and the Instant Pot besides meat. So take us through, you know, how do we use these cooking tools to prepare veggies? What are your go-tos, and just like what are some tips and tricks for that?

Marianne: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So earlier, I did mention the squash earlier, that you can throw a whole squash into your Instant Pot or your, slow cooker and it's beautiful. You don't have to struggle with trying to cut that squash in half and seed it because it just cuts beautifully once you've, taken it out and it's just... I feel like I do not cook squash any other way now. This is just the way I do it. It's, it's lovely.

Marianne: Delicata squash, your beautiful, you know, curry squash, butternut, acorn squash, all of those, beautiful in your slow cooker or your Instant Pot. They also do a nice job, both of them, at cooking sort of your dense root veggies, your potatoes, sweet and white, your beets, parsnips, carrots.

Think about all those, your rutabagas. In fact, with my beets, I give them a good scrub. I don't even peel them. I can put them in my Instant Pot, with some water, and they're done in, I want to say 30 minutes. Do it in your slow cooker on high for three or four hours, and you just stick a knife in, and if it goes in easily, you have won the game.

I mean, they are so lovely. You can cut up your beets and now you can have them in salads. I, I happen to love beets. They are delicious. And like your potatoes, your parsnips, a lot of those vegetables, cook them ahead of time. Now you have them as a side dish.

And put them in your fridge and you can, you know, cut them up and use them. Like I did potatoes in the Instant Pot yesterday, and then I cut them up and made a little bit of a breakfast hash with Brussels sprouts and eggs and today. So I kind of think that way if I'm, if I'm cooking these, cook more than you think you're going to need because you'll probably use them.

You can throw them into a soup or a stew, which is lovely. Anytime we can, we can throw those in, it's a good idea. My Instant Pot is not great with, like, high water content vegetables like your zucchini, your eggplant. It's, that high pressure is, if you want them to sort of melt into something, it's fine, but they're a little more delicate for that kind of thing.

You could do cauliflower. I've done a whole head of cauliflower in my Instant Pot and my slow cooker actually, and it's amazing. Broccoli, green beans, they all work pretty well at different times in either your slow cooker or your pressure cooker.

And, if in your pressure cooker you would do a quick release, you wouldn't do sort of that slow, you want to get those vegetables out. I've done stuffed peppers in a slow cooker with tomato sauce. That is delish. And they don't, you know, it doesn't dry out. It's a nice wet heat, so you get these lovely, delicious flavors that sort of meld together.

What you're never going to get from your Instant Pot or your slow cooker are crisp, crispy vegetables. It, it's a wet heat, so they're going to be sort of stew-like. You're not going to get the little, charred edges that you might get if you're roasting. So it's a little bit different there, but, just delicious in a different way.

Leah: Yeah. That's a great summary right there. Delicious in a different way, or if you really are looking for something with, like, that little bit of char, the little bit of crisp, you're just going to need a different tool from your toolbox. But these are great for, like you said, this, that moist heat.

And I know I talked, to a lot of my clients actually, like for my clients who have compromised gut function or they're just really struggling digestion-wise, some of these slow-cooked meats or slow-cooked vegetables or just, like, things that are really well-cooked, like, actually work a little bit better.

We don't have to burden the digestive system with them so much. We absorb more of those nutrients. So again, like, those can be great tools at the right times for the right person, and it's great to have the tools when you need them.

Marianne: Yeah.

Set yourself up for success using these appliances

Leah: Yeah. Okay, so some people listening might be new to the Crockpot or like me, like a little intimidated by the Instant Pot and pressure cooking. Maybe they've had some fails in the past, so it's hard to kind of want to dip your toe back in the water.

Is there anything that you can think of that just like maybe the top one or two common mistakes people often make, or just like that might save someone the pain of having to scrape something out of the bottom of their Instant Pot or just like kind of like be successful that first time or two where they're getting to know these appliances?

Marianne: Yeah. It i- I've heard that too. So many people have said, "Oh, I got an Instant Pot, and I just haven't taken out of the box yet because I just don't know what to do with it." So many people have done that, and it really is amazing. So- It looks more complicated than it is. I'm going to be honest with you.

Leah: Absolutely. Yeah.

Marianne: Too many, too many buttons. I mean, i- and I think the... And I kind of, I- mine is probably five years old. They've actually learned from that a little bit, so the newer models have less buttons. I think they were listening to people who are not taking them out of the box.

So they, they do have less buttons, and I'm going to tell you, the only three buttons you're ever most likely going to use, and certainly can start with on your Instant Pot, is the sauté button, the pressure cooking button, and the keep warm button.

Those three-the only things that you need to know. And I say that because all the other buttons, there's like a rice button, a meat button, which seems very arbitrary, a porridge button, just sort of odd buttons. All they are pre, like factory set times of pressure cooking. So it's, they're all pressure cooking, but they just set a different time.

Leah: So like your microwave- where you- have those different buttons of like, here's your, your reheat, your pizza one your whatever. Your popcorn button. That kind of thing. Yeah, okay.

Marianne: Just the, the three... 99% of the Instant Pot recipes that you will find uses the pressure cooking button. And I highly suggest when you're using the, the Instant Pot, you have to follow an Instant Pot recipe. You can't just take a, a recipe that you have that, that you've used from the cooktop or the oven and translate it to an Instant Pot, because it's a very different form of cooking.

So follow your Instant Pot recipe to a T. Someone has done all the legwork and perfected it for you so that it kind of takes the mystery out of it, which y- you know me, I mean, I've said it a million times, I'm not really a recipe follower. I'm often, you know, a little of this, a little of that.

But my Instant Pot is where I absolutely follow it to a T. So that should take some of the intimidation out of it. And there is a slow cooker feature on your Instant Pot, and I'm going to be honest with you, it just doesn't work well because the pressure cooker only has a heating element on the bottom.

Your slow cooker heats all the way around. It's got that lovely ceramic insert. Your Instant Pot has a stainless steel insert, and it only heats on the bottom. It just doesn't slow cook well. So I wish I could say that you could ditch your slow cooker and only have your Instant Pot, but that's not true.

It, you keep, hang onto that slow cooker because it does what it does well. It's important to heat your food all the way around. So, understanding, you know, your, your, with your Instant Pot recipes, there's a release valve at the top that's very important.

We're cooking under pressure. Some recipes call for a slow release. It just allows the pressure to release all on its own, and sometimes you press that button and steam spews out the top, which can be intimidating for people. So just as long as you're prepared for it, and know that it's coming, I think that can be a little intimidating, but it's no big deal.

They've done a really good job of the technology on Instant Pot. You seal that top, and, it's got a lot of fail-safe type... It, it'll tell you when the lid isn't on. It's got a little sing-song thing, and so all of those things keep the pressure cooking part really safe, if that's the intimidating part for anyone.

And, like I said earlier, you have to make sure that you have enough liquid in each one because neither one will work without it, and it will tell you that it's not working either by burning at the bottom or giving you a little burn notice on your Instant Pot indicator.

Leah: Sure. Yeah, I think that for me, that was part of it, was just unfamiliarity, questioning the safety of it, so that's good to hear. And I love your tip, too, of just, like, just follow the recipe. Like, it's, this isn't... I, I am also kind of some, that cook. Not that I'm a cook at your level, but I'm the cook that like, a little of this, a little of that, a dollop of this, that kind of thing.

So my husband will be very happy to hear that. He's the recipe follower, so that he's the one that will, like, absolutely to the T just pick that Instant Pot recipe, follow it to a T. Someone's taken most of that guesswork out of it for you, that just- Mm ... it ensures that you have a more successful experience, like, that first time, whether it's the first time or it's the, like, 100th time that you're doing it.

Does pressure or slow cooking destroy nutrients?

Okay, so one question that I get asked, not super often, but it comes up often enough that I wanted to bring it up here, is that does slow cooking or pressure cooking destroy nutrients? Are we losing out on some nutrition, or are there benefits to it? Like, what's your take?

Marianne: I've actually thought about that a lot. I mean, maybe being around so many nutritionists and trying to get the most... You know, if I'm going to, I'm going to go to the trouble of making this delicious meal, I want it to also be, be nutritious and hold onto all those nutrients.

So, time and temperature is always what affects the nutrient loss, and pressure cooking, it looks like is pretty good at preserving nutrients because the cook time is shorter; doesn't use a ton of water. And so like minerals such as calcium, iron, magnesium, potassium, and zinc, those are heat stable.

Our fat-soluble vitamins like A, D, E, and K, because we are cooking with good fats, are also relatively stable. It's probably the vitamin C and the B vitamins that get lost with the heat, but that shorter cooking time can limit those losses.

Leah: Yeah. Okay, that's helpful. And yeah, in terms of slow cooking, and actually before I even go into that, I, I did an “Ask a Nutritionist” on this very question a couple of years ago about like, yeah, like what, when we cook something, do we need to worry about losing nutrients or like how do we preserve nutrients the best?

So I like what you said, it's like it's kind of time and temperature are big factors there. And I found the same thing you did, is that, you know, it's the vitamin C, it's the B vitamins that we tend to lose those a little bit more with cooking. But in that show I also said like with cooking there's, there is that trade-off.

Like we might have some nutrients that we lose, especially like if it is into the liquid or like lose a little bit from the heat, but there's also nutrients that become more available. There's actually, we actually digest these foods a little bit more when we cook them, and so in that sense we absorb more, we get more out of that food when we do cook them.

So it's like it's a little bit of a trade-off. So we kind of just like say, it's like we can eat some raw foods if we really want to, but like cooking, there's advantages, there's a lot of advantages to cooking, and so it's like I, I wouldn't worry too much about like losing a lot of nutrients out of there.

And then with the slow cooker, you mentioned too, again, depends on the recipe. We always have a liquid in there to keep that, whether it's the meat or whether it's a soup or something like that, keeping things moist. Even if we lose some of those B vitamins or vitamin C into the liquid, if it's a recipe where you're eating that liquid, again, like a soup, a bone broth, like that's the idea behind bone broth, right?

Marianne: Yeah, exactly...

Leah: Leaching those nutrients out of a bone or out of like that that tougher meat. W- when you consume that, then we're not losing those nutrients. It goes into the liquid, but then you're consuming that liquid or you're consuming the sauce or, you know, whatever that kind of like that moist part of that meal is.

Marianne: Yeah, and what a delicious way to get your vitamins.

Leah: Absolutely. Yeah, I could think... Yeah, I could definitely think of worse ways, but that's, you know... So again, like it's a question that comes up every now and again, but I think I would encourage people, like let's not overthink it too much.

Like there are some, there are some nutrients that we might lose out on a little bit more between the Instant Pot or the slow cooker, but actually it unleashes more nutrients that otherwise it might be tougher, especially, like I said, I work with a lot of clients that have compromised guts, that might be more difficult to get out of that food if we hadn't cooked them down, used our Instant Pot, cooked them in the slow cooker, that kind of thing.

Marianne: Yeah. Totally agree. Totally agree.

Leah: Absolutely. Well, you know, this, this mostly wraps up our conversation for today. Marianne, is there anything else you wanted to leave our listeners with, or last thoughts that you had?

Marianne: You know what? If you put me on a deserted island and I could only have the Instant Pot or the slow cooker- I would take the Instant Pot.

Leah: Okay. Explain.

Marianne: I mean, that, that's my... I'm going to explain it because, A, I can brown the meat. Browning meat and that Maillard reaction with denaturing that protein is really important to me. Not only with that, with being able to sauté garlic and onions first, and then have them cook. It's that complexity of flavor that I absolutely love.

Sometimes I prefer the texture of the meat when it comes out of a slow cooker over a pressure cooker, but I'm, I, you know, it's a bit of a trade-off. I'm willing to take that, if I can have it browned and... So there's my deserted island pick- ... is the Instant Pot over the slow cooker.

Leah: Okay. Very good. You heard it here, folks. So. I love it. Well, Marianne, thank you so much for being a part of the conversation today. And for listeners out there, if you're interested in taking one of Marianne’s virtual cooking classes, remember there is a class coming up. It's on Wednesday, October 14th.

All the different ways of preparing meat. And if you can't make it live, if you're already busy, you've got something on your calendar for October 14th, you can still sign up for the class, but it will be sent to you as a recording. So you won't have that live interactive part, but you can still get all that great information out of the class and watch the videos and get inspired.

You can learn more about this and sign up by visiting our website, which is weightandwellness.com, or you can give one of our offices a call at [651] 699-3438.

Sign Up For a Cooking Class!

And our goal at Nutritional Weight & Wellness is to teach each and every person the power of eating real food. It's a simple, yet powerful message. Thanks for listening, and have a great day.