Easy Instant Pot Sauerkraut (2024)

Published: Jul 5, 2018 · Modified: Oct 31, 2018 by Alyssa · This post may contain affiliate links.

Instant Pot Sauerkraut is SO easy to make in a fraction of the time of traditional from-scratch versions. Just a handful of ingredients (including bacon and caraway seeds) and a half hour are all you need to make this hearty side dish recipe.

While I'm Italian, we never did the Feast of the Seven Fishes on Christmas Eve. Technically we feasted on one fish as an appetizer, our all-time favorite baked clam dip, but we stopped there.

No baccalà for us.

Since each year we would get together with our close family friends for dinner, we'd each make a tried and true family recipe for the main dish. This meant most years we ate a combination of baked ziti with meatballs right alongside kielbasa, pierogies, and sauerkraut.

Looking back the two cuisines weren't quite matchy matchy, but when comfort food tastes that good, who wouldn't want to enjoy them both? I certainly wouldn't want to be the person who had to pick between them.

There's a major difference between the sauerkraut I grew up eating and this Instant Pot Sauerkraut, and that's the cooking vessel. What typically is made over the course of hours on the stove top to let the flavors meld just right (definitely worth it!) can come together with just ten minutes of pressure cooking time in the Instant Pot.

No need to keep an eye on it, add more liquid at intervals if needed, etc. Just lock the lid, set the time, and listen for the beeps.

Despite that huge difference, the ingredients are just about the same! I included "easy" in the recipe title for this Instant Pot sauerkraut not only for how quickly it comes together, but for the main ingredient: cabbage.

This recipe calls for two 14.5-ounce cans of shredded sauerkraut, meaning you can simply open the lids and pour them into the Instant Pot. While I do enjoy preparing recipes from scratch/close to scratch, I also value convenience. Since the three ingredients of the canned sauerkraut are basic (just cabbage, water, and salt), I happily use them in here.

Plus with my less than ideal knife skills, who knows how much extra time it would add to the recipe for me to finely slice a whole head of cabbage?!

Bacon, onion, and caraway seeds add a great flavor to this Instant Pot sauerkraut, and the smell alone brings back so many memories.

My mom has reported that she's been able to buy sauerkraut that already includes caraway seeds, though I haven't found any in the stores around me. If you can find it - great! Feel free to use it here (and omit the caraway seeds added separately).

If not, I recommend adding ¾ teaspoon of caraway seeds to this recipe, which is just under 30 ounces of sauerkraut. I've bumped it up to 1 teaspoon before which was still delicious, but maybe just a tad strong if you're not a full-fledged lover of that flavor.

One thing to note on the broth. The generally accepted guidance around pressure cooking in the 6-quart Instant Pot is that you should add at least one cup of liquid, though I've heard the argument made that it can be less.

Since bagged or canned sauerkraut has a pretty good amount of brine in it, I went the extra step and drained and measured the liquid to see how much was going to be added from the sauerkraut directly.

Each 14.5-ounce can of sauerkraut yielded about one-quarter cup of liquid. Times that by two and one-half cup of liquid would be coming from there. To be on the safe side, I then added one-half cup of broth to everything to ward off any stress-inducing Instant Pot "burn" messages.

After a quick cook time and a short natural-then-quick pressure release, a delicious and not-mushy-whatsoever Instant Pot sauerkraut awaits! There will be a little extra cooking liquid, but it shouldn't be too excessive. I like to store it with the leftover portions.

Recipe Notes

• Be sure not to skip the deglazing step in the instruction #3 in the recipe card below. Getting the browned bits off of the bottom of the Instant Pot before pressure cooking prevents the bottom of the pot from overheating, which could trigger a warning message.
• This recipe was tested and made in a 6-quart Instant Pot (affiliate link). If preparing this Instant Pot sauerkraut in an 8-quart Instant Pot, I would add another ⅓- to ½-cup of broth to account for the larger size.