Instant Pot Baked Sweet Potatoes

The Instant Pot makes the BEST Baked Sweet Potatoes! Fluffy, creamy, and perfectly tender, these Instant Pot Sweet Potatoes may not be much faster than oven-baked, but they are SO MUCH better with much less clean up!

Instant Pot Sweet Potatoes make the perfect side dish for entrees like steak, baked salmon, or Instant Pot rotisserie chicken.

After I perfected a perfectly baked potato in my Instant Pot, I could not wait to try making tender baked sweet potatoes in the Instant Pot.

I was extremely disappointed at first.

With russet potatoes, I can have baked potatoes in less than 15 minutes of cook time. So I expected this to be true with sweet potatoes. After all, I can often bake a sweet potato in the oven quicker than a russet potato.

BUT in the Instant Pot, sweet potatoes take time to get their soft, velvety interior. DOUBLE the time a russet potato takes. In fact, it is almost the same amount of time it takes to make it in the oven.

However, after one bite of Instant Pot Baked Sweet Potatoes--I will NEVER prepare them any other way! They are fluffier, softer, and creamier than oven-baked and the clean-up is almost non-existent. No more scraping off caramelized juices from the sweet potatoes on baking sheets or worse yet, the bottom of the oven. 

Seriously, sweet potatoes in the Instant Pot are PERFECTION!

Key Tips for Instant Pot Baked Sweet Potatoes

The process of baking sweet potatoes in the pressure cooker is SUPER simple, but there are a few key tips to keep in mind!

• Select sweet potatoes that are similar in size. This way they will pressure cook in the same amount of time.
• Pierce sweet potatoes several times before cooking--this will prevent the rare occurrence of a sweet potato bursting in the Instant Pot.
• Always add cold water to the inner pot. You will need 1 cup of cold water for a 3 or 6-quart Instant pot and 1.5 cups of cold water for an 8-quart Instant pot. NEVER use warm water as this will change the amount of time it takes for the Instant Pot to come to pressure, which will change the cooking time!
• Always use the trivet to keep the sweet potatoes from sitting in the water--this will keep the sweet potatoes from becoming soggy.

How to "Bake" Sweet Potatoes in the Instant Pot

• Pour water over the bottom of the pot, and then place in your trivet that came with your instant pot. Remember to use cold/room temperature water and to adjust the amount of water according to the size of your pressure cooker. 

• Place anywhere from 2-8 scrubbed sweet potatoes on the trivet of your Instant Pot. It is okay if they are stacked on top of each other--this will not affect the cook time.

To make perfect sweet potatoes in the Instant Pot, you will need to cook on high pressure.

• Hit the Manual or Pressure Cooker button on your Instant Pot and be sure high pressure is lit up, if not hit pressure level to adjust until high pressure is lit up.
• Then use the plus or minus buttons to adjust the cooking time accordingly.
• Once cook time has elapsed, allow pressure to release naturally for 8-10 minutes, and then turn the valve to release any remaining pressure.
• And then serve baked sweet potatoes as desired.

Determining Cook Time

Just like regular potatoes, sweet potatoes come in all different shapes and sizes. And the sizes will determine the cooking time. First, be sure to select potatoes similar in size. Secondly, determine cook time for sweet potatoes based on the diameter (the width) of the sweet potatoes.

• 18 minutes on high pressure for small sweet potatoes (2 inches in width or diameter)
• 22 minutes on high pressure for medium sweet potatoes (2-3 inches in width or diameter)
• 27 minutes for extra-large sweet potatoes (3-4 inches in width or diameter)

Serving Suggestions

I love serving baked potatoes plain with a bit of salt and pepper and my kids love sweet potatoes with a bit of butter and cinnamon sugar.

But get creative with uses for baked sweet potatoes with the following ideas.

• Top with yogurt and nuts for a delicious Breakfast Sweet Potato.
• Use the flesh of the baked sweet potato to make Sweet Potato Casserole or Sweet Potato Oatmeal.
• Stuff the baked sweet potatoes with taco meat or pulled pork for a healthy main course.

If you tried out Instant Pot Sweet Potatoes, I would love for you to leave a comment below. 

This post was originally published in December 2017 but has been updated with a new video in January 2020.