Instant Pot Glazed Carrots

Instant Pot Glazed Carrots are so simple to prepare as a side dish in your electric pressure cooker. The carrots are cooked to perfection in just 3 minutes, followed by a quick sauté to coat the carrots in a delicious sweet, buttery glaze.

If you like carrots as a side dish, you will love these glazed carrots. They’re tender and coated with a nice sweet glaze. As a side dish, they go well with a lot of things, like chicken and pork chops.

It takes just 3 minutes to cook the carrots to tender. You can also make them crunchier by cooking for just 2 minutes, and even softer with 4 minutes. That’s the best part about this recipe, that it can be adjusted to your liking.

Ingredients You Need

• Carrots – This is the most important ingredient. I typically use baby carrots because they’re already cleaned and peeled. Keep it simple. But if you use regular-sized or large-sized carrots, then cut them into 1″ chunks.
• Honey – Choose your favorite type of honey to use in the glaze.
• Butter – I always use salted butter and to speed things up a little, you can melt the butter before using it in the Instant Pot.
• Salt – Season to your liking with salt and pepper.
• Garlic seasoning – I use this garlic herb blend for these carrots. It has no salt and bits of dehydrated garlic. Another option is to use fresh or minced dehydrated garlic. If your garlic seasoning has salt in it, you won’t need to add the additional salt.
• Water – The Instant Pot needs a cup of water to produce the steam that will cook the carrots. If you’re using an 8-quart pot, use one and a half cups of water.
• Fresh parsley – This makes a nice garnish for the finished dish, if you want.

How to Make Glazed Instant Pot Carrots

Pour the water into the inner pot. Add chopped carrots to the pot. You can also use a steamer basket if you want to. It’s not necessary.

Close the lid and turn the valve to Sealing. Press the Pressure Cook or manual button and set it to cook for 1 minutes on high pressure. This will result in a tender carrot with a little bit of bite left to it, as long as your carrot are cut to about 1-1.5″. If you cut them smaller or larger, they may need more or less time.

If you prefer more tender carrots, cook them for 2 minutes. Or if you’re using large full sized carrots that are thicker, you’ll want to cook them for 2 minutes.

When the cooking time is up, do a quick release and remove the lid. Carefully pour the liquid out from the Instant Pot, leaving the carrots inside.

Turn the Instant Pot on sauté mode, on the high setting. Pour in the butter, honey, and salt. Cook on low for 2-3 minutes, until the glaze is bubbly. Add in the garlic and cook for another 30 seconds. You add it at the end so it doesn’t burn. Burned garlic is the worst.

Turn off sauté mode and remove the pot from the heat. Transfer to a serving dish. You can serve it with fresh parsley on top if you like. I think it looks pretty that way.

Possible Substitutions

We love this honey-based glaze on the carrots, but you can substitute the seasonings in a number of different ways to make it your own.

• Vegan butter
• Maple syrup
• Thyme or rosemary
• Green onions
• Brown sugar
• Cinnamon 

Helpful Tips

• This is a great recipe to make if you’re bringing a side dish to a holiday dinner, such as Thanksgiving or Christmas – you can whip it up at the last minute in a small corner of the kitchen without using up any of that valuable oven or stove space.
• Store any left over glazed carrots in an airtight container and put them in the fridge for a maximum of four days.
• Reheat glazed carrots in a microwave or on the stove at low heat.
• If you want to make your glazed carrot dish look festive, sprinkle some parsley on top.
• The leftover glaze can be used on fish. It’s also delicious over broccoli.

Frequently Asked Questions

Are glazed carrots healthy? 

Yes, they are. The natural vitamins and minerals like potassium, biotin, and several others remain intact after cooking and glazing the carrots. It also attracts and is well-liked by those that don’t like eating vegetables. 

What pairs well with glazed carrots? 

Instant Pot glazed carrots can serve as side dishes for meals like roasted chicken, ribeye steak, meatloaf, red wine braised short ribs, pork chops, and a host of other side dishes. 

How do I make my carrots sweeter? 

Cooking carrots makes them sweeter. This is because the terpenoids in the carrot are broken down, and natural sugars are released. This is why carrots are steamed in Instant Pots. It brings out the sweetness, especially so when they are glazed. If you still want them sweeter, add some brown sugar to the glaze.

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