Delicious and tender, this pressure cooker gammon is a recipe keeper and perfect for gammon sandwiches, roast dinners, plus an amazing addition to your Christmas spread.
Gammon in the pressure cooker is also easy to mix and match with your favourite sides and the leftovers make a yummy soup!
Gammon In Pressure Cooker
If you have been a reader of Recipe This for a while, then you will know that I love gammon and its one of the meat staples in the Milner house. If you have been reading since pre-2021 you will also know we used to live in Portugal and gammon cost a lot there, and you could only get the smaller gammon joints.
So, when we moved back to the UK in the summer of 2021, we went a bit crazy, buying lots of gammon and cooking it whenever we could, across our different kitchen gadgets.
Our favourites included air fryer gammon dinner, slow cooker gammon in water and slow cooker gammon in coke.
But if you want gammon as tender as the slow cooker, but with the cooking time of the air fryer, then you MUST TRY gammon in pressure cooker. Which leads to a few more confusing points that I am going to be running through with you today.
Instant Pot Gammon
The first confusion is when I use the words “instant pot gammon” the problem here is that many of our UK readers don’t know what an instant pot is.
Whilst it has become very popular in the USA, especially when we were first got one in 2016, many Brits have never heard of it and always ask me what it is.
I often respond with the instant pot is a popular electric pressure cooker, just like the Crockpot is a popular slow cooker brand.
Then the Americans will be asking me what instant pot gammon is too. That is because in the USA it would be instant pot ham. So what I have done is create two separate recipes. Reheat ham in instant pot, is for our American readers. Because gammon is essentially instant pot uncooked ham when in the US its already cooked.
Then for our UK readers, we have renamed it pressure cooker gammon. That way if you don’t have an instant pot and have a different brand of pressure cooker, then this recipe is perfect for you.
You can do instant pot gammon, ninja foodi gammon joint, or even pressure king pro gammon.
Can You Cook Gammon In A Pressure Cooker?
Yes, you can cook gammon in the pressure cooker, and you will love it. Just like other roasting joints gammon cooks wonderfully under pressure and it is so quick to prepare too.
Best Way For Cooking Gammon In Pressure Cooker?
The best way to pressure cook gammon is to cook the gammon on a bed of vegetables or potatoes and veggies. Then you are lifting the gammon up, creating a stock at the same time and the gammon wont taste like it has been boiled, instead it will have more of a slow cooker taste and texture to it.
How Much Water To Put In A Pressure Cooker?
This can vary on size. But for a traditional 6 quart pressure cooker (the size of the instant pot we are using) we need 1 cup of water (240ml) for it to go to pressure. Though if you would like a stock from your vegetables we recommend doubling this to 480ml instead.
Gammon In Ninja Foodi
If you are cooking gammon in the Ninja Foodi, you can make your pressure cooker gammon joint even better.
Like you would if cooking air fryer gammon, the Ninja Foodi has both an air fryer button and pressure cooker. So when your gammon is done you can add a honey and mustard glaze and then cook it for an extra 5 minutes at 200c/400f for that amazing crust.
Cooking A Christmas Gammon Joint
At Christmas time you can also cook your gammon in a pressure cooker. Our Instant Pot or our Ninja Foodi are both big enough for a gammon joint. Plus, those big Christmas 2kg+ ones are perfect.
In fact, the gammon we are using is a Christmas 2kg/2.2lb one.
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Gammon Joint Pressure Cooker Ingredients
Gammon – We used one 2kg (2.2lb) gammon joint. You can of course do similar with an uncooked ham. You can choose smoked or unsmoked depending on how you like your gammon in instant pot.
Veggies – We also recommend pressure cooking gammon over a bed of veggies. We used baby carrots, swede, parsnips, and potato. You can mix and match though do stick to slower cooking root vegetables.
Oil. Then to kickstart the instant pot gammon joint we start first with some extra virgin olive oil for sauteing the instant pot with.
Seasoning. Then for lots of flavour we have used salt, pepper, parsley, oregano, and thyme.
Pineapple. Its all about the pineapple with gammon after all who doesn’t just love gammon and pineapple. To do this we have used pineapple juice instead of regular stock to flavour the instant pot.
Optional. Of course, if you love garlic and mustard over your gammon you can add these too and score your gammon but it’s a nice optional extra!
Can You Recommend An Instant Pot?
I often get asked which electric pressure cookers we recommend and which one we use. In 95% of our instant pot recipes, we use either this instant pot duo (we have both the 6qt and 8qt) or the Ninja Foodi air fryer and pressure cooker in 1. You can click on the links above and read up on them.
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 Cook Gammon In A Pressure Cooker?
- Prep. Start by prepping the root vegetables that are going to sit in the bottom of the pressure cooker. We peeled and diced potato, swede (rutabaga), and parsnip and also included some baby carrots.
- Sauté. Place the olive oil into the instant pot and sauté the root veggies with the seasonings until they have a bit of colour to them. Cancel the sauté.
- Deglaze. Next deglaze the instant pot with the pineapple juice and mix it all together well.
- Prep. Next remove the fat from the gammon (unless you wish to keep it) and then score the gammon. Smoother the gammon with the mustard, and garlic and oil and then place the gammon over the veggies.
- Cook. Place the lid down on the pressure cooker and set the valve to sealing. Pressure cook the gammon joint for 1 hour and follow this with a 10 minute natural pressure release. Then release any remaining pressure before removing the gammon from the instant pot.
- Rest. Then let the gammon rest in a serving dish and then this will also release excess liquid. Once it has rested you can carve the gammon and then serve.
Now that is how easy it is cooking a gammon joint in pressure cooker and how you can do the same.
Love gammon, then you will also love: air fryer gammon dinner, slow cooker gammon in coke, slow cooker gammon in water, slow cooker gammon in fanta, slow cooker gammon steaks or why not try slow cooker gammon shanks.
How Long To Pressure Cook Gammon?
The cooking time for pressure cooked gammon is an hour. But this doesn’t take into account the time it takes to go to pressure, and the 10 minutes natural pressure release that it needs. But compare this to at least 4 hours in the slow cooker or a similar cooking time in the air fryer, and I think it’s a great cooking time.
How long to cook 750g gammon joint In pressure cooker? If you would like to cook a much smaller gammon such as a 750g gammon joint, I would recommend 40 minutes.
What Goes With Gammon & Pineapple?
This instant pot gammon joint goes perfectly with some slices of pineapple along with some fried eggs. We made our fried eggs using the air fryer and made them from our first air fryer cookbook The Complete Air Fryer Cookbook (order it here).
We also recommend reserving some of those cooked veggies that you cooked with the gammon and serving them too.
Sam & Doms Top Tips For Success
This gammon pressure cooker recipe tastes so good because of the scoring of the meat. It then unlocks lots of flavour pockets where you can add garlic and some mustard.
Get Pressure Cooker Confident
It can be daunting when you first get an electric pressure cooker, you land on a recipe site and then think now what?
Well, we love helping new people to pressure cooking as we remember the struggle ourselves when got our first Instant Pot back in 2016. That is why we have put together these useful resources just for you.
Sign up for our 100% free instant pot mini course. It’s a 5 day free mini series delivered by email and teaches you the basics of pressure cooking. Get it here – its free!
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This is an updated post. We were originally shared how to cook gammon in the pressure cooker back in 2018.
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Pressure Cooker Gammon
Ingredients
Ingredients
- 2 kg Gammon Joint
- ½ Medium Swede/Rutabaga
- 225 g Baby Carrots
- 1 Medium Parsnip
- 1 Large White Potato
- 480 ml Pineapple Juice
- 1 Tbsp Extra Virgin Olive Oil
- 2 Tsp Dried Parsley
- 2 Tsp Dried Oregano
- 2 Tsp Dried Thyme
- Salt & Pepper
Mustard flavour pocket
- 2 Tsp Mustard
- 2 Tsp Garlic Puree
- 1 Tsp Extra Virgin Olive Oil
Instructions
- Start by peeling and chopping the potatoes and vegetables into chunks, though you can leave the baby carrots whole.
- Place the veggies into the instant pot, add a tablespoon of olive oil along with the dried seasonings and a generous sprinkling of salt and pepper. Mix well and then sauté until you have a lovely flavour on the veggies, and they have warmed through.
- Cancel the sauté, add the pineapple juice and then use the juice to deglaze the instant pot.
- Remove the fat from the gammon, then score the gammon to help enhance the flavour. Mix the garlic, mustard and remaining oil and then smother over the gammon making sure it goes into the little gaps you have created.
- Carefully place the scored and seasoned gammon into the instant pot over the veggies and then place the lid on the instant pot.
- Set the valve to sealing and pressure cook the gammon for an hour followed by a 10 minute natural pressure release.
- Transfer the gammon to a big dish to drain the liquid.
- Then move the gammon to a chopping board and slice. Serve your gammon with fried eggs and sliced pineapple.
Notes
Nutrition
Can’t make it now? Then save it for later!
What is a gammon? Is it the precooked hams we have here in the US or uncooked ham/pork? Would hate to use a precooked ham and have it turn into mush.
Susan (Arizona)
Hi Susan,
A gammon is just like a ham joint in the US. Usually uncooked but you can get them cooked. In this recipe we used an uncooked gammon/Ham 🙂
Hi there, I’m going to be making this dish tonight and would like to know if l should use low or high pressure to cook the gammon.
Also, do you eat the vegetables and use the stock or discard it?
Look forward to making and tasting this dish.
Thanks
Simon (London)
Hello Simon,
Sorry we are a bit late with your reply but hope the dish turned out ok. For further reference unless otherwise stated all recipes are cooked on high pressure. We always keep what is left over blend it and then we have got a stock for next time.