How Does Pressure Cooking Affect Food?

Some evidence suggests that pressure-cooking food helps to maintain ascorbic acid, beta-carotene, vitamin C, and antioxidants better than other cooking methods ( 7 , 28 , 9 ). Pressure cooking may also help you better absorb essential nutrients, protein, and starches ( 8 ). It may also reduce anti-nutrients ( 2 ).

Why Should Potatoes Not Be Cooked in a Pressure Cooker?

A review found that Sous Vide boiling is the preferred cooking method to maintain folate and other nutritional components in potatoes ( 2 ). Sous Vide boiling is a slow, low-temperature style of boiling potatoes. That said, they stated that boiling does not seem to result in a significant reduction in folate. There was no comparison to pressure cooking, but we can assume that it would have similar effects to boiling. So feel free to cook your potatoes in your pressure cooker.

Why Cook Noodles Separately?

Cooking ramen noodles separately lets you control the texture, taste, and doneness before adding them to a soup or other ingredients. For example, you may prefer al dente noodles, while others enjoy soft-cooked, slurpy noodles.

What Do You Mean By Al Dente?

Merriam-Webster defines al dente as cooking noodles or pasta until it reaches a firm texture ( 1 ). In other words, cooking noodles al dente will leave you with a firmer but cooked texture in your soup that makes it feel like it has a slight bite to it.