Instant Pot Colcannon

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Instant Pot Colcannon. How to cook your favourite Irish cabbage and potatoes, using the instant pot pressure cooker.

Known as colcannon, irish mash or cabbage and potatoes, its ideal for St Patrick’s Day or for a yummy side dish to serve with your next batch of Irish stew.

Originally shared in 2017, this colcannon update includes new ideas and new photos. We hope you like the update!

Colcannon

Do you have a favourite comfort food? If you were to ask our eldest son Kyle what his is, he would say either his mum’s lasagne or his mums mashed potatoes.

If I do either of these, he is in food heaven, becomes obsessed about the leftovers and becomes upset if anyone wants to share it with him!

Then I get the usual comments that I don’t make it often enough.

I remember once, his grandma served him mashed potatoes from a box, and he was totally heartbroken and 10 years on, I don’t think he has forgiven her yet!

But thanks to the instant pot, its so fast and easy to make mashed potatoes and even better you can make colcannon.

It’s a great way to throw hidden veggies into your kids mashed potatoes and like in our house, our kids will fight over the last portion.

I recommend whether its Irish day, or not that you add this to your Sunday side dish rotation.

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What Is Colcannon?

Colcannon is the best ever cabbage and potato recipe. Its where instant pot steamed cabbage and instant pot mashed potatoes come together to become the best mash you have ever tried.

Colcannon is an Irish mashed potatoes recipe that is loaded with cabbage and leeks.

Because it is loaded with veggies, it is perfect for serving to kids with those hidden veggies.

St Patrick’s Day Mashed Potatoes

If you are looking for something easy to make to celebrate St Paddy’s Day, then there is nothing more simple than St Patrick’s Day Mashed Potatoes.

You can load cabbage, potatoes, and leeks into your instant pot pressure cooker, then mash them like you would with regular mash and then serve them with your mains.

Irish Stew & Colcannon

My favourite way to enjoy irish potatoes is with a traditional irish stew. Into bowls I will add my slow cooker irish lamb stew and my colcannon.

You can time it perfectly, so that you load the instant pot up with your Irish mash, when the slow cooker is down to its last 15 minutes.

Then you can serve the stew and mash together for the perfect lunch or dinner. And also use a little of your colcannon potatoes to thicken your irish stew.

Plus, irish stew and mash reheats perfectly together in the air fryer or the microwave.

Instant Pot Cabbage & Potatoes

I get many people come to me that are sceptical about the instant pot and whether it is worth the money or not.

Well, that was me too. I never understood the excitement until I cooked things like instant pot cabbage and potatoes.

The way you can dump cabbage and potatoes into the instant pot, add some stock and then like something out of a Mary Poppins movie, you have perfect cabbage mash 10 minutes later.

And because you are not boiling potatoes the mash tastes a million times better.

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Ingredients For Irish Potatoes

Potatoes – You can use any potatoes you like when making colcannon mashed potatoes. Though avoid overly starchy potatoes as they will not produce a colcannon mash that is as creamy.

Cabbage – When making mashed potatoes with cabbage, you can use any cabbage. I find for the best results to use a savoy cabbage, but its all about personal choice.

Leeks – Even though we know it as a cabbage and potato recipe, colcannon is traditionally cooked with potatoes, cabbage, and leeks. Its 80% cabbage and potatoes, so 2 leftover leeks will work fine in this recipe. But of course, with leeks, they always need a clean to remove the gritty texture before pressure cooking.

Stock – For the perfect flavour to your colcannon potatoes, I recommend you use stock and not just water in the instant pot. You can keep it vegetarian with vegetable stock or use chicken stock as a replacement. Or why not try our instant pot vegetable stock?

Seasonings – Then for your Irish mash seasoning, I recommend keeping it simple with salt, pepper, and parsley.

Then for the kitchen gadgets that we have used in this instant pot colcannon it has just been our Instant Pot. We have this one and its my favourite and great for a quick dump and start sides.

Plus, we recommend you head over to our instant pot recipes category as we have many electric pressure cooker recipes and have been using instant pots for 5 years.

How To Make Colcannon?

• Prep. Peel and dice your white potatoes. Shred your cabbage. Chop your leeks into bite sized chunks. Clean your leeks.
• Load. Throw your potatoes, cabbage and leeks into the instant pot. Add liquid and stock.
• Cook. Pressure cook, then drain any excess liquid and mash your colcannon. Season well and add butter before serving.

And I am sure you can see now how easy it is to pressure cook colcannon and why it has become one of my favourite simple side dishes.

Colcannon Irish Mash Tips & Tricks

• Add seasoning last. Pressure cooking can reduce flavour and by adding them last, it was save wasting your seasoning.

• Because the cabbage is shredded, it will then add texture to the mashed potatoes but children wont notice making it a fantastic hidden vegetable.

• It may seem like we add a lot of cabbage, but note cabbage shrinks A LOT!

Interesting Instant Pot Trick – Make our instant pot veggie stock and freeze it into cubes. You can then add these frozen cubes to the instant pot. As the instant pot goes to pressure, it will defrost them for you, giving you a fantastic flavoursome recipe.

What about leftover colcannon? Turn it into the best air fryer bubble and squeak. Bubble and squeak is amazing and is made from leftover cabbage and mash. You can also freeze your colcannon is little portions and use it as a thickener for stews and casseroles.

What To Serve With Colcannon?

Irish colcannon is just perfect served with an Irish stew. Or any similar casserole featuring slow cooked lamb.

I recommend you try our slow cooker lamb stew and dumplings or go more authentic with our slow cooker irish stew which is cooked with Guinness.  

More Easy Instant Pot Side Dishes

• Instant Pot Frozen Broccoli
• Instant Pot Frozen Corn On The Cob
• Instant Pot Butternut Squash
• Instant Pot Brown Rice

Your colcannon instant pot recipe is below, note you can print it out with or without photos, adjust servings, or click between metric and imperial depending on where you are in the world.

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