Instant Pot · All year

Instant Pot Tomato Penne

The pasta cooks in the sauce, sitting on top of the liquid so it does not scorch on the bottom.

30 minutes · Serves 4 · 4 bowls

“He took the bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it to them.”
Luke 24:30

Ingredients

1
Set the pot to sauté. Soften the onion in the oil, about 3 minutes. Add the garlic for 30 seconds. Stir in the tomatoes, water, salt, and pepper. Scrape the bottom so nothing is stuck. Turn the sauté off.
2
Lay the penne on top of the sauce in a loose crisscross. Press it down just until the liquid nearly reaches the top of the pasta. Do not stir. Stirring sends dry pasta onto the hot base, and that is how a pot burns.
3
High pressure for 4 minutes. Quick release, with a towel over the valve, because tomato spatters. Stir. The pasta should be tender with a little bite. If it is still firm, cover it for 2 minutes or sauté for 1 minute. If it is thick, loosen it with a splash of hot water.
4
Stir in the basil off the heat. This is a tomato pasta, not a cream one. Cheese at the table is optional and good.

Twelve ounces, not a full pound, fits a 6-quart pot and stays under the halfway line. Pasta foams. A pot filled past halfway can clog the valve.
Other short shapes of a similar thickness can use this time. Thin spaghetti cooks faster and wants 3 minutes, broken so it fits.

Kept on this device, beside the recipe, for the next time you cook it.

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