In the introduction to Instant Pot Italian, the author Ivy Manning assures us that the Instant Pot can tackle all of your favorite Italian dishes. It can do them better and faster than traditional methods, using only the Sauté and Pressure Cook functions for the most part. Calling on her experience living and cooking in Italy, she assures an Instant Pot can create the incredible Italian food we love.

After a brief introduction comes “10 Tips For Better Italian Instant Pot Dishes”. I found these tips excellent for getting the best results from the Instant Pot. The “Quick Safety Reminders” list, is a refresher on safety for the Instant Pot. “Must Have Ingredients” provides a list of the main pantry ingredients you want to keep on hand when creating the recipes in this book.

Recipe categories include:

Antipasti and Salads
Soups and Stews
Pasta and Grains
Poultry
Pork, Beef, and Lamb
Vegetables
Desserts
Pantry

Each of the recipes in the book includes a brief Introduction, the Quantity, Active Time, and Total Time. The author has factored in the Pressure Cook release times into the total times. This will give an accurate indication of the amount of real time you will need for each recipe.

The Pantry category covers basic recipes you want to need on hand, like Homemade Marinara, Basil Pesto, Ricotta, various Broths, etc.

I was impressed with the clear easy to follow instructions. They even have emboldened the button name you use [Sauté] to make it easily stand out at a quick glance.

The author has also been kind enough to include storage information on how long the recipe can be stored and in what manner. This way you can make extra and will know how to preserve it correctly.

A little over half of the recipes include a lovely full-color photo. Other photos are sprinkled throughout at the beginning of each Recipe Category, in the Safety Instructions section. The “Must-Have Ingredients” include excellent close-up photos of many of the pantry ingredients you will need.

At the beginning of the book after the list of Contents By Chapter is a list of the recipes in order of appearance. The back of the book has a second index which also sorts but the main ingredient.

A Must Have Resource

A well put together cookbook includes those tiny little touches which really help make cooking easier. The first thing you notice when you open this cookbook is that it has flaps on both covers. The flaps work well as bookmarks to save your place. The details in the recipes, the excellent indexes, and the tips, are all so helpful. Touches like these combine to make Instant Pot Italian a “must have” resource for anyone who wants to cook Italian.

See the full review and the recipe for Braised Pork Loin With Milk And Sage at The RecipesNow! Reviews And Recipes Magazine. This review is written in response to a complimentary hard copy of the book provided by the publisher in hopes of an honest review. ( )