Instant Pot Breakfast Bowl Meal Prep Recipe

How to Meal Prep a Week's Worth of Breakfast Bowls in your Instant Pot

Make a week's worth of breakfast bowls containing cheesy eggs, sausage, and potatoes in one meal prep pressure cooker session.

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Meal preparation and the Instant Pot is a match made in heaven. In this recipe we'll use the IP to simultaneously cook the components of a meaty breakfast bowl. With just 15 minutes of pressure cooking + natural pressure release time, you'll make enough to enjoy a hearty home-cooked breakfast every day!

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This recipe came about because my son moved into a campus apartment with his Instant Pot, because I'd stocked his freezer with a Costco box of Jimmy Dean Breakfast Bowls, and because one of his roommates does meal prepping.


He developed the basic idea on his own during the fall semester. I thought of ways to streamline the process. Over winter break we put our ideas together and came up with this recipe. This recipe is a copycat version of Jimmy Dean Breakfast Bowls and Jimmy Dean Meat Lover's Breakfast Bowls.



Because we're talking winter in Minnesota and the chaos of the holidays I don't have slick stylized photos or videos to share. The dogs were smelling that sausage and on patrol thru the kitchen. If I'm being honest, though, I never have slick stylized photos--who am I kidding?

Since it's a great recipe I wanted to get this out for you to start using, so here it is! Since this is another addition to my Instant Pot on Campus series of simple recipes with few ingredients I'll break it down into What You Need to Buy, What You Need to Have, How to Level Up, and Troubleshooting as well as the recipe and how-to video.

What you need to buy at the store

To make Instant Pot Breakfast Bowls you'll need eggs, sausage, shredded cheese, and potatoes. The ingredients are pretty straightforward--large eggs are fine, but if you have medium use another one, if you have Extra Large or Jumbo eggs use one fewer.

Try whatever type of breakfast sausage appeals to you--no need to buy links or patties, save your money and use a one pound chub or roll of sausage. I think spicy or sage or maple sausage would all be delicious in this recipe. Want to keep this vegetarian? Try a plant-based breakfast sausage.

The only fiddly ingredient is the potatoes--use small new potatoes, or creamer potatoes, or fingerling potatoes because they are easier to eat whole and cutting larger potatoes into chunks introduces a whole other level of difficulty in terms of sautéing. Save yourself the hassle and buy small potatoes.

• eggs 
• sausage
• small round new/creamer/fingerling potatoes
• shredded cheese

What you need to have in the kitchen

You'll need an electric pressure cooker--at least 6 qt size for this recipe--plus the trivet/rack that came with it. I use a flat bottomed wooden spoon ($2 at Ikea) in order to stir and scrape up stuck bits from the bottom of the Pot. In order to mix up the eggs you'll need a medium mixing bowl and a whisk or fork.

To cook the eggs within the Instant Pot you'll need a 16 oz (2 cup) oven safe dish. Check in your cupboards to see if your cereal bowl fits the criteria, or visit a thrift shop to find something that'll work. I'm using a Corningware French White 16 Ounce Round baking dish to give you and idea of the size you're looking for.

• Instant Pot or other electric pressure cooker + trivet/rack
• medium mixing bowl
• whisk or fork
• 16 ounce (2 cup) oven safe dish
• flat bottomed wooden spoon
• salt and pepper or whatever you season your eggs with
• a splash of milk for the eggs
• oil spray or butter to coat the egg dish
• tongs to remove the sausage and potatoes
• water

Troubleshooting

About the worst thing that could go wrong with this recipe would be the eggs expanding out of their container, and that's not the end of the world. Interestingly any scrambled eggs that fall off and land on the potatoes will be easily fished out and piled into a bowl to eat. The egg dish is a pain to clean, so I recommend spraying it well with oil spray or buttering generously.


If you choose to cut larger potatoes into bite-sized pieces, they will stick onto the bottom of the Instant Pot. Try layering cubed potatoes over the cooked sausage after you've scraped off any sticky bits, then don't stir again.

Level Up

Make this recipe into a Meat Lover's Breakfast Bowl by sprinkling some bacon pieces into each individual container. When you're ready to eat, add some salsa and sour cream for more flavor.

For more Instant Pot recipes, please see my Instant Pot Recipes Collection. For more recipes using potatoes, please see my Potato Recipes Collection. This collection ispart of the Visual Recipe Index by Ingredient, a resource for folks like me eating from the farm share, the farmer's market, the garden, the neighbor's garden, and great deals on ugly produce at the grocery store.

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Instant Pot Breakfast Bowls
By Kirsten and Erik Madaus

Make a week's worth of breakfast bowls containing cheesy eggs, sausage, and potatoes with one meal prep pressure cooker session.

Prep time: 00:10
Cook time: 00:08
Total time: 00:30

Yield: 7 servings
Ingredients:
oil spray or butter
¼ cup (2 ounces) milk, cream, or half & half
¾ teaspoon seasoned salt or ½ teaspoon salt + ¼ teaspoon pepper
1 pound breakfast sausage (a roll/tube/chub is perfect)
2 pounds bite-size potatoes
½ cup water
6 eggs
1 cup shredded cheese (cheddar, colby, or swiss are good)
Optional: sour cream and/or salsa
Optional for Meat Lover's Breakfast Bowl: 1 Tablespoon bacon pieces per serving

Instructions:

Spray a 2 cup/16 ounce/500 ml oven safe shallow dish with oil spray or butter. In a medium bowl beat the eggs with the milk and seasonings. Pour into prepared dish and set aside.

Press Sauté. When "Hot" appears drop the sausage into the Instant Pot and stir to break up into smaller chunks.

Stab the potatoes with the tip of a knife and then dump them on top of the sausage. Add water and scrape up any areas of stuck sausage from the bottom of the pot.

Place trivet/rack on top of potato/sausage mixture and balance the egg dish on top of the rack.

Press Cancel. Close & lock lid, turn the valve to Sealing. Set manual pressure cook time to 8 minutes. The pot will beep once when it comes to pressure and then the timer will start to count down.

Once the time is up the pot will beep 10 times. Let the pressure release naturally for 5 to 10 minutes, then carefully turn the release valve to Venting and release the rest of the pressure.

Carefully remove the egg dish and set aside. It will be hot--use a towel or pot holder! Scoop out and divide potato/sausage mixture evenly between 7 pint-sized containers (wide mouth canning jars work well). You may discard the liquid remaining in the Pot. Top with a spoonful of eggs and a generous pinch of shredded cheese. Enjoy!

If you'd like to make Meat Lover's Breakfast Bowls, add a tablespoon of cooked bacon pieces to each container before topping with cheese.

If you're not planning to eat this right away and would like to meal prep for future breakfasts, allow each container to cool before covering with a lid. Store in the fridge 3 to 5 days. Reheat and serve with optional sour cream, salsa, or hot sauce as desired.