I Ate Only Instant Pot Meals For a Week — Here's What I Learned

The best part of my experiment was how put-together I felt going into the week. For the first time in a while, I didn't have to scramble to make food to take to work in the morning. I could just grab one of the preportioned containers from my fridge and head to the train. Easy peasy.

As for the taste? Honestly, both the chili and the curry were pretty damn good. For my sanity's sake, I opted to bring the chili to work on Monday and eat the curry for dinner that evening. I reversed my order the following day.

And for as much of a pain in the ass making eggs in an Instant Pot was, when I went to peel off the shell, they were cooked well. I had two eggs for breakfast with some fruit on Monday and two pieces of sweet potato with mashed avocado on Tuesday, and yep, those little meals held me over till lunch time.

As fate would have it, the sinus infection and cold combination that I had been battling for a week came back in full force when I woke up on Wednesday morning. Although I was feeling a little lethargic after work, I knew making some chicken soup would be completely worth it. Despite the fact I still had leftovers, I cut up the package of soup veggies I got at the supermarket and threw them into my Instant Pot with some chicken and spices and waited a half hour for my soup to come to life. Although I wasn't planning on cooking again this early in the week, my body thanked me for all of that healing chicken goodness.

Now that I had a third meal in my rotation, the next two days were a breeze. I also came to terms with the fact that there's no better feeling in the world than sitting at your desk and realizing you don't have to cook an entire dinner from scratch that evening.

Although I wasn't sick of any of the big batch meals I cooked up, I had another issue: my Instant Pot was in desperate need of a cleaning. Obviously, I had scrubbed the metal insert where the food actually cooks between uses, but the outside of the machine itself was looking a little dingy. On Friday night, I washed down the machine with soap and water and used a Q-tip to get some of the gunk out of the lid's lip. Yuck. If I could do it again, I was definitely invest in some Instant Pot liners ($3 for 6) to make cleaning my appliance a whole lot easier.

By the time the weekend rolled around, I was officially sick of chicken curry. While the recipe I used was amazing, I needed a little variety. Even though I told my fiancé I wasn't crazy about making the enchilada casserole off the bat, I definitely needed a change.

On Saturday night we cooked together, and dividing the work between two people made things go a lot faster. As much as I hate to admit it, the casserole ended up tasting delicious, despite how it looked to the naked eye. We added a little sour cream, avocado, and a Mexican cheese blend to the finished product. Talk about an affordable and a kid-friendly recipe!