Instant Pot Green Beans and Potatoes: In only 5 minutes, this flavorful side dish is ready to serve alongside your favorite steak, chicken, ham or protein of choice!
One of our favorite side dish recipes to date, and an EASY one at that, along with our SUPER popular green bean casserole with cheese and bacon! With only a 5-minute cooking time in the Instant Pot, fresh green beans and red potatoes combined with some of our favorite spices and condiments pack a punch that any potluck or family dinner would be lucky to have on the table.
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More Instant Pot Side Dishes You’ll Love:
We know you’ll also love Instant Pot mashed potatoes, Instant Pot Spaghetti Squash, Instant Pot Sweet Potatoes, and Amish Potato Salad in the Instant Pot!
Having green beans and potatoes is a HUGE hit during the summer months when your garden or the produce stand is in full force.
However, don’t limit this side dish to just a few months out of the year. The grocery store should always have fresh green beans and red (or new) potatoes so you can whip this up.
Key Ingredients
Fresh Green Beans: Can you use canned green beans? I’m sure you can, but I wouldn’t go to the trouble of pressuring them in the Instant Pot. Save them and use these tricks to make canned green beans taste better, and check out these crack green beans!
You could simply pressure just the potatoes with the spices and butter/bacon grease and then cook/warm the canned green beans in the microwave or on the stovetop and combine afterward.
Red Potatoes: Can you use baking, Idaho, russet, or new potatoes instead?
Sure. I don’t see why not. I’d just make sure to cut the potatoes into 1-inch cubes before pressuring.
Also, I only use about 4 large red potatoes when I make this dish, but you could add a couple more and have more of an even potato-to-green bean ratio if you like. I prefer to have more green beans than potatoes to encourage more greens in my family.
TIP: Use any leftover potatoes to make these fried potatoes and onions to go along with your favorite main dish tomorrow night.
Add Protein:
What I absolutely LOVE about this recipe is that you can easily add chicken and make it a rounded-out dinner!
Chicken: However, instead of cooking the chicken, green beans and potatoes all together in the instant pot, I prefer to cook my salt and pepper chicken bites and then add that in to the green beans and potatoes later!
Ham: Looking for a way to use that leftover ham from Easter? Well if you’re not wanting to make the ham casserole recipe, then this is another perfect way to use it up!
If the ham is cooked, feel free to add that in to the Instant Pot with the green beans and potatoes to allow the ham flavor to soak in to the other ingredients!
How to Make Green Beans and Potatoes in the Instant Pot
Make sure to see the FULL, printable recipe card toward the bottom this post for easy reference!
Chicken Broth
If you’ve had the chance to make my Kielbasa and Cabbage in the Instant Pot, then you know my new love for the chicken broth base I’ve been using lately in my recipes.
This recipe is NO different and I use this powder/water combination to create the chicken broth that adds a lovely flavor to my recipes.
However, using homemade chicken broth, store-bought broth in a container/can is just fine too!
You’ll want to use 2 cups of chicken broth and pour it in to the bottom of the Instant Pot pot.
Potatoes Cut in to 1-Inch Cubes
Wash and cut your potatoes in to 1-inch cubes. Place the potatoes in to the Instant Pot, in to the chicken broth.
Fresh Green Beans
If your green beans are not washed, go ahead and wash them before cooking.
If using garden-fresh green beans, I do take the time to pinch off the ends before washing/cooking. However, if I’m using green beans from the store, the ends are usually off and I can just throw them in as is.
Place the green beans on top of the potatoes inside of the Instant Pot.
Butter and Bacon Grease – Optional
Although completely optional, if you’re not avoiding ingredients like butter and/or bacon grease… I HIGHLY recommend adding it for some “umph” and extra flavor.
Because who doesn’t love butter and bacon?
I use about 4 tablespoons of salted butter and place the 4 pieces on top of the green beans.
Frozen Bacon Grease
When making bacon for breakfast, I like to save the grease and freeze it in a freezer-safe container for recipes like these! It comes in VERY handy for that bacon flavor when you may not have the bacon.
Or, feel free to cook bacon and add the cooked bacon to the green beans and potatoes before cooking! TIP: If adding bacon to this recipe, place the cooked bacon on top of everything, so when it heats, the grease will drop down in to the beans and potatoes! Yumm-O!
Spices:
Use salt and pepper as desired, just keep in mind that sometimes chicken broth, butter and bacon grease may already have salt added.
Also note that you can always add salt later, but you can’t take it away. So I’ll usually add salt and pepper and then taste afterward to see if it needs a little more.
Adding poultry seasoning is definitely something that you can do without in this recipe, but it adds such a nice touch of flavor. So if you do have it, sprinkle about a teaspoon on with the salt and pepper!
Serve!
Ideally, you want to serve this dish right away after it finishes cooking. Reheating and letting it sit can result in soggy green beans.
However, if you’re heading to a potluck or family dinner, making this in the morning and keeping it on warm works just fine, and I’ve done this several times!
Enjoy!
What to Serve Green Beans and Potatoes with:
The beauty of this recipe is that it can be served with just about anything! But here are a few of my favorite recipes to serve this as a side dish with…
- The BEST Steak Recipe in the Oven
- Easy Hamburgers in the Oven
- Roasted Pork Tenderloin
- Baked BBQ Pork Steaks
- Creole Roasted Turkey
- Grilled Shrimp with Easy Marinade
- Grilled Deer Steak
- Easy Fried Chicken
- Chipotle Apple Butter Ribs
- The BEST Beef Tenderloin
- Sweet and Smokey Grilled Pork Chops
If you have an Instant Pot, check out these recipes too!
- Instant Pot Pot Roast – Using a frozen roast too!
- Instant Pot Hard Boiled Eggs
- Cheeseburger Macaroni in the Instant Pot
- Instant Pot Chicken and Dumplings
Recipe
Instant Pot Green Beans and Potatoes
Equipment
- instant pot
Ingredients
- 2 cups chicken broth
- 4 large red potatoes
- 36 oz. fresh green beans I use 3 12 oz. bags
- 1 teaspoon poultry seasoning
- 4 tablespoon butter
- 2 tablespoon bacon grease if desired: see notes in blog post
- salt to taste
- pepper to taste
Instructions
- Cut potatoes in to about 1-inch cubes
- Pour chicken broth in to Instant Pot and then add in the potatoes
- Next, pour all of the green beans on top of the potatoes.
- Place butter, bacon grease and spice on top.
- Secure the lid on to the Instant Pot and turn the nozzle to the sealed position.
- On manula high pressure, turn the timer to 5 minutes.
- When the timer is up, manually release the pressure.
- Once the valve has fallen, it is safe to remove the lid.
- GENTLY stir the green beans and potatoes to mix the seasonings evenly. (Gently mix being careful not to destroy the soft and fragile potatoes.)
- Serve!
Nutrition
Nutritional information is based on third-party calculations and should be considered estimates. Actual nutritional content will vary with brands used, measuring methods, portion sizes and more.
Did you just get an Instant Pot, or thinking of getting one?
Using an Instant Pot can be very intimidating at first. Here’s the video of my unboxing and first use. If I can do it, you can do it!
Did You Make This?
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Tami Rossignol says
Woops forgot to add the stars!
Tami Rossignol says
Loved this recipe but we are vegan, so I substituted the broth for the Better than Bouillon brand. I did one cup veggie and one cup smoked Chipotle both. I also sautéed a sweet onion first in the pot with only two tablespoons vegan butter. Then I did the rest of the recipe as written! I paired this with the Beyond Meat brat spicy hot Italian sausage which I grilled. Truly was fabulous. We have left overs and I plan to save the broth for soup!
Jessica says
Oh this all sounds lovely Tami! Thank you so much for sharing how you made this recipe, vegan! I’m sure it will help others as well, and thank you for taking the time to leave a review!
Carol says
My husband and I were both feeling a bit yucky yesterday. I had green beans from our garden and Yukon gold potatoes from our neighbors garden to cook. Other than not using poultry seasoning, I followed the recipe exactly. This recipe was fast, easy and delicious! I am looking forward to the leftovers for lunch. You knocked this one out of the park.
Jessica says
Oh Carol, I’m so glad that you liked this recipe for green beans an potatoes! Thank you so much for taking the time to share that, especially since you’re not feeling well. I hope you feel better soon!
Dana says
This is a great recipe. I use smoked sausage and add some sliced mushrooms…makes for an easy meal. Thanks for sharing!
Jessica says
So glad you loved this green beans and potatoes recipe Dana! Thank you for sharing!
Jennifer Jones says
Made these with a 32 oz frozen bag of “flat” Italian style beans. Used 6 potatoes. 3 cups of broth. 4 Tbs butter and seasonings.
Cooked for 6 minutes. They are delicious! Took a while to pressurize with the cold frozen beans. But turned out great!
Jessica says
Oh Jennifer, thank you so much for sharing what you did and how you made this recipe! I’m sure this will be very helpful to others who may want to use frozen beans! Thrilled that it was delicious too!
Debra Stair says
Used this recipe tonight with fresh green beans, delicious. So very easy to make, tasted as good as all day cooking….did add fresh butter to top/melt when finished pressure cooking. Would definitely recommend, especially if in a rush.
Jessica says
Oh that’s wonderful Debra! So glad that you liked this recipe, and I totally agree… this is a great green bean recipe for something quick and easy! Thank you for sharing!
Amanda Stewart says
This recipe has become a standard on Sunday night for us, we’re a family of three and so it leaves us with good leftovers for the week! I’ve only used about 1lb of green beans so 1/3 the entire recipe. Everything comes out delicious and tender, with amazing flavor! Cook time is exactly the same. Thank you for this one! Pairs great with an instant pot rotisserie as well, but makes for a few hour affair with that 😉
Shirley Cooper says
I’m frying up a few strips of bacon to chop up and put in my green beans and baby potatoes cut in half then into fourths. Go by the rest of your recipe. Think it will be nice!!
Jessica says
That sounds delish!! Thank you for sharing!!
Gauri says
Would this work with frozen green beans as well?
Jessica says
Hi there! I haven’t tried that yet. I’m sure it would… the times may just need adjusted a bit!
Megan says
Looks yummy! I have a similar recipe for the crockpot (altho I’m sure it could be converted to an instapot recipe) that uses fresh red potatoes and green beans, chicken breasts, and Italian dressing. So easy and makes a full meal!
Jessica says
Oh heavens… that sounds AMAZING! I may have to try this. Thank you Megan!