{5 Minute} Pressure Cooker Salmon and Rice Pilaf
One Pot Meals are the best and with my Pressure Cooker Salmon and Rice Pilaf it only takes 5 minutes to cook everything all at once. A delicious and healthy dinner can’t get much easier!
Although I love to cook, I am truly most passionate about stupid-easy meals that taste delicious and are completely, undeniably healthy. My Pressure Cooker Salmon and Rice Pilaf fits that criteria to a T.
Of course to make the 5-mintue magic happen, you’re going to need a Pressure Cooker.
I love my pressure cookers to the moon & back, I use them everal times a week. (P.S. I’ve been a pressure cooking fool for over 20 years now, I’m not a newbie. The new electric must-cooker models are safe and easy to use.) For more of my delicious pressure cooker creations, click HERE
By starting with FROZEN salmon filets, uncooked rice and dehydrated vegetables, the entire dish needs just 5 minutes under pressure.
AND it’s just one dirty pot, Woot Woot!
While your salmon & rice pilaf is cooking, 5 minutes is more than enough time to toss together a salad to round our your meal.
Pressure Cooker Salmon and Rice Pilaf {5 Minute Meal}
Equipment
Ingredients
- 1/2 cup Jasmine Rice
- 1/4 cup dried vegetable soup mix (bulk)
- 1 cup Chicken Bone Broth or water
- 1 tablespoon Butter (or ghee)
- 1/4 teaspoon Sea Salt
- 1 pinch saffron
- 2 4-6 ounce wild caught salmon filet FROZEN
Instructions
- In your pressure cooker, add all ingredients except salmon.
- Place your steamer rack above the rice mixture and arrange your FROZEN salmon filets. Season salmon with salt and pepper.
- Cook under pressure for 5 minutes, then quick depressurize.
This recipe is great! I make it several times a month. It’s especially handy when you’re on the brink of ordering takeout. I haven’t had saffron on hand, but it’s still delicious. Thanks for the easy, quick, tasty recipe!
Typo on “everal times a week”. I’m also a blogger btw (not cooking niche I stink at cooking!) will try this for dinner tomorrow!
I have an Instant Pot. Would I need to adjust the time at all for making this recipe?
Some models take a really long time to heat/pressurize which requires extra liquid. To be safe add an extra 1/3 cup
This is one of my favorite recipes ever in the IP, hands down. It’s my go to when I want something fast, healthy and delicious and it’s the recipe I share with every new IP owner I encounter. I even sometimes omit the salmon and just use the rice recipe when I want a delicious and easy side dish. Perfect from start to finish!
Do you increase your cook time at all since you are using an instant pot?
This was delicious and easy. Will be making again. Thank you.
used veggie bullion with a cup of water, with dehydrated veggies and used normal long grained white rice and cooked seven min in my insta pot. my side was steamed broccoli and cauliflower
Will try this recipe very soon
This is delicious. I didn’t have dehydrated vegetables. I made chicken broth by heating 3/4 cup of water in the microwave for 30 seconds then mashing the bouillon cube and adding more water to make 1 cup. I added very little salt since the cube has a lot of sodium. After adding the salmon on the rack, I made a foil bowl on top and added a can of drained green b
eans. It was a perfect meal for two.
Hi! Thank you for lovely recipe – my family really enjoyed it! I have a question- can I substitute frozen salmon for frozen king prawns?
I have a similar recipe that uses salmon HERE
May I inquire as to how to quickly depressurize and what that means exactly? This recipe looks divine but I shall need assistance with the technical terms.
With pressure cooking there are 2 methods of depressurization, natural where you just leave it sit and naturally depressuize on it’s own and “quick” depressurize where you turn the valve to release the pressure quicker. Does that help?
Loved the recipe! Only wish we had more leftovers! If i doubled the rice how much liquid would i need would it totally screw up the recipe? Newbie here just got my instant pot!
Just double the ingredients BUT keep the cooking time the same – I always cook rice at the time time, no matter how much I make.
Thank you for posting this recipe! Mine turned out PERFECT. I’ve made it twice and salmon and rice were perfect each time. I did use bagged frozen peas and corn instead of the dehydrated veggies and it worked out fine. I skipped the saffron and used my own seasoning. This is a great base recipe, you could season the salmon and rice however you want. Next time I’ll double the recipe and I’ll have lunch meal prepped for the week!
I loved this recipe! So simple and quick. I didn’t have the soup mix so I added some spices and a little extra rice. I also pressure cooked for 7 minutes as I have an IP. Everything came out great. The salmon was cooked just a little more than I typically like it, but overall this is so easy and fast I didn’t mind that part at all. I will make this again and again!
Could I make this with brown rice, which we prefer? If so, how would I adjust the recipe? I know brown rice takes much longer than white rice. When I cook brown rice in my IP, I use 2 cups rice to 2.5 cups liquid, for about 12 minutes and natural pressure release.
Also, my salmon fillets also have skin on one side, as another reviewer posted that his did. Will this recipe still work? Thanks!
The extended cooking time for brown rice will over cook your salmon. You may want to try 2 separate pressurizations, like 6 + 6 min.
My salmon always has the skin
Had to bring 2 pressure 2 more times, 3 minutes each because rice still had water and salmon was still frozen the first time, raw the 2nd time. After that turned out great! Thinner ends of the salmon were a little tough but otherwise good. I didn’t use the soup mix, just a little chicken boullion in the water and used dill and Montreal chicken seasoning.
This is one of my favourite meals ever. I have cooked it so many times – as a quick dinner for two, as lunch prep, sometimes just the rice as a side dish, sometimes half the recipe when it’s only me… It is quick, easy, healthy, and it’s very convenient that it’s all storable ingeredients so I usually have them in my freezer/cupboard “just in case”.
Had for dinner tonight. Awesome recipe Thank you.
Our grocery store didn’t have saffron so I made it without. Not as pretty but very tasty. 5 min at high pressure and the rice was perfectly cooked. The salmon was also perfectly cooked and so flaky and tender.
My instant pot came up to pressure but then lost pressure before the time was up. As a result the rice was burnt and stuck to the bottom of the pan and the salmon wasn’t cooked through. I checked my manual for my 8-qt. model and it states that to reach and/or maintain pressure you need to add a minimum of 1 cup of liquid. So I am going to double the quantity ofd rice and stock and try again hoping for better results.
Erin- the recipe calls for 1 cup of liquid, sounds like your gasket was not seated correctly or that you did not have your pressure gauge engaged all the way – you had significant liquid loss causing the issue, my recipe was not to blame. What modifications did you make to my original recipe> what rice did you use? did you add butter/fat?
I had to improvise with what I had on hand. I had Morey’s Seasoned frozen salmon filets from Costco, Jasmati rice, chicken stock, and frozen mixed vegetables. I doubled the rice, veggies, and stock, but skipped all seasoning because the salmon had that. I used three salmon fillets. I have an instant pot so I went with 7 minutes QR. Perfection! Some rice stuck to the bottom, but it did not impact. Thank you for the inspiration!
This one is a keeper! Made it earlier today and plates were cleaned! I made some modifications (didn’t have a soup mix so I improvised) plus I added some frozen peas. Turned out great! Thank you for sharing this wonderful recipe!
Try a pot in pot system, I put the rice in one and the salmon in the other.
Just easier
Thanks for the idea Jay – more pots = more work for me but to each their own!
Fantastic quick lunch for my salmon loving husband. Thanks for the recipe.
I followed this recipe using my Instant Pot at manual high pressure for seven minutes. The fish came out well but the rice wasn’t thorough cooked, I imagine because I used brown rice instead of Jasmine. Is there any rule of thumb for how much longer to cook brown rice in an instant pot?
Brown Rice needs significantly longer cooking time – since I don’t eat brown rice I can’t help you with the timing. the extended cooking time will overcook the salmon.
I LOVE this recipe! So quick and so easy. Both, rice and salmon were cooked perfectly. I didn’t have the dried soup mix, but added 1/4 tsp of dried dill…de-lish! I had it for lunch, but you could totally serve this to dinner guests and they would never know it only took 5 minutes. I plan on making this over and over again
This was great. I used mushroom and onion soup mix- its the only dry soup I had on hand and I added fresh sliced mushrooms to the rice. Next time I will only do half a packet of soup, it was pretty salty (maybe it was the beef broth). The salmon was perfect. I will be making this again!
Thanks!!!
I’d like to give this recipe a try but my frozen salmon filets still have scales on one side. Will that still be ok with this recipe?
do you mean the skin? when fish are cleaned, typically their scales are removed
my salmon came out tough, where did i go wrong
Unfortunately I do not have the ability to tell you what you did wrong, without more information. Was your salmon raw/frozen? Did you use the quick depressurization method?
Frozen..They were kind of thin
This was a really tasty and quick meal! Thank you for sharing it! It’s a great way to use the frozen wild-caught salmon from Trader Joe’s.
Made it and loved it! Cooked 7 minutes in Instant Pot as another reviewer did. Perfect! I bought a packet of Knorr Vegetable Soup Mix for the dried. I have put off buyung saffron for a long time because of the price but I finally didfor this recipe. I’m so glad i did. I can see this dish being made often at my house.
I would love to try this with some fresh (not frozen) salmon fillets. Could adjustments be made to make this?
The beauty of this recipe is that the frozen salmon needs the exact same time as the rice. Using thawed or fresh salmon it may overcook.
I can’t wait to try this tonight!
Made this tonight with a few changes and it turned out great!!! This was actually our first meal in our new pressure cooker (never had one before!) We did 1 1/2 cups of white rice (so we did 3 cups of chicken broth), frozen stir fry mix, and 4 frozen salmon filets. We have an Instant Pot, so we cooked for 7 minutes instead of 5 and it turned out perfect!! Thanks for the recipe!
Thanks for this note. I wanted to increase the amount of rice.
Followed recipe to a T… Painfully salty ( and used a salt-free spice topping on the salmon instead of salt and pepper) , rice under-cooked, crunchy & borderline and burnt on the bottom, fish overcooked and dry. Where did I go wrong??
Obviously, you didn’t follow the recipe to a T, if it didn’t turn out. Were your salmon filets FROZEN, did you use jasmine rice or another variety? Did you QUICK depressurize?
This happened to me too! But my salmon was still raw in the middle 🙁 with burnt rice. And it was followed to the T!
I can assure you that you didn’t follow the recipe/ingredients to a T, I make this meal several times a month and I know for 100% sure that it works perfectly every single time I make it. I’m glad to help you trouble shoot… what type of rice did you use? what brand of pressure cooker did you use?
I didnt use Rice but this is the second tome cooking salmon and its not cooked thru. Help!
So you just cooked salmon, by itself in your pressure cooker?
You have the patience of a saint.
Which cooking function should I chose? I selected manual since you did not specify…hope it turns out! This is my first go at pressure cooking!
5 minutes is the same for all functions – I select 5 minutes rice but manual works great.
I am new to pressure cooker. Do I use the cup that comes with the cooker to measure rice and water?
I use a standard measuring cup.
Hi, I’m new to pressure cooking! What is the advantage of the dried soup mix vs. mixed frozen veggies? My local markets don’t seem to have the dried veggie soup mix (though I see I can order it online).
Dehydrated veggies are cut up super small (as you would expect in pilaf), take a longer cooking time and absorb water when rehydrating.
Check your local health food store. Most have the dehydrated vegetable soup mix in bulk.
What does your steamer rack look like? The only one that came with my pressure cooker has no leg,s so it would sit right on top of the rice mixture. Is that ok? Can’t wait to try this recipe!!! I think I will add some frozen peas and carrots to the rice mix.
Hey Cynthia – the rack really isn’t even necessary you can put the salmon right on top of the rice, its just really to keep it easier to lift the salmon and not have it coated in rice.
The dehydrated vegetables have carrots and peas already mixed in 🙂
Can we use boxed rice mix, like Rice a roni?
No, just plain rice
I love salmon and my pressure cooker. Have to try this recipe.