Salt Potatoes In The Instant Pot (or Boiled Baby Potatoes With Salt)

Been up north say around the Syracuse NY area? You may have heard of salt potatoes or boiled baby potatoes with salt. I’m going to show you how to make salt potatoes in the Instant Pot.

Salt Potatoes In The Instant Pot

I had never heard of salt potatoes before until I moved up north for a while. I was in central NY close to Syracuse New York.

Anyways, I fell in love with these delicious little boiled baby potatoes cooked in salt! Now that I am back south, I still try to have them from time to time. I even figured out how to make salt potatoes in the Instant Pot (or any pressure cooker).

While the classic way of cooking salt potatoes is by boiling potatoes in a salty brine, that way the cooking time is about 25 to 30 minutes.

By cooking them in the Instant Pot pressure cooker or another electric pressure cooker, you can be enjoying your potato side dish in a fraction of the time.

If your grocery store does not sell bags of salt potatoes in your area, don’t worry. Any small B-grade bite-size or baby potatoes will work.

If you are looking for other Instant Pot recipes to try, be sure to check out these.

• Instant Pot Pumpkin Butter
• Paleo Instant Pot Mashed Cauliflower
• Chicken Feet Broth Made In The Instant Pot / Pressure Cooker

How To Make Instant Pot Boiled Potatoes With Salt:

Pour 3 cups water and salt into the Instant Pot insert pot.

Then add your washed small whole potatoes to the bottom of the pot. You do not need to place trivet or steamer basket in the pot, just put potatoes right in the pot.

Place the lid on and twist until locked. Make sure the valve is in the sealing position.

Push the manual high pressure button and add a cook time of 2 minutes.

When it beeps that it has finished, allow it to natural pressure release (NPR) for five minutes and then you can open the valve to release pressure after that.

Drain off water and serve.

Note: This time works well for really small potatoes. If the size of the potatoes is larger, you will need to add a few more minutes to the cook time.

What Type Of Potatoes Can You Use? 

While salt potatoes are normally made using #2 size white potatoes, they can be made with a variety of potatoes. You can use any small potatoes such as yellow potatoes, red potatoes, gold potatoes, and even Idaho potatoes if they are small baby ones.

If all you have on hand is medium potatoes or larger potatoes and you still want to make this easy recipe, you can! The easiest way to do that is to cut the large potatoes into large chunks. They will not be as firm with missing parts of the skins, but still really good.

Just be sure to clean potatoes before cutting them.

How To Serve:

This easy side dish is great served at cookouts with a small dish of butter to dip them in. They are also really good dipped in sour cream as well.

Ideas To Use Leftover Boiled Potatoes:

When we make these there are not normally many leftovers. However, if you do have some they can be chopped up to make potato salad or you can use them to make mash potatoes.

A Little About How They Started In Syracuse:

Salt potatoes originated in Syracuse New York. In the 1800’s, workers in the local salt mines would bring potatoes to work for lunch, and boil them in brine. The result was a salty tasting potato with a non-rigid but firm peel to keep the potato from becoming a mushy consistency.

They actually have more of a creamy texture than regular boiled potatoes. Later on, in the 1900’s, a local food businessman named John Hinerwadel started packaging small bags of young potatoes with a package of salt included.

Hinerwadels has been selling salt potatoes since the 1960’s and today sells over a million bags a year. The potatoes themselves are a young white size B U.S. grade number 2. Most are served in a small dish, with melted butter.

The normal way to cook these potatoes is one cup of salt to six cups of water. That mix will fit about 2 and a half lbs of potatoes. You would boil for about 25 minutes or until the potatoes can have a fork inserted easily.