A tasty instant rabbit recipe made easy with pressure cooker. Rabbit with bacon and mushrooms cooked in a rich creamy sauce and served over pasta! Delicious and easy dinner recipe.
Cooking with rabbit is quite popular here in Spain, so you can find many rabbit recipes on the Internet. One of the most popular is rabbit with garlic and rabbit stew.
When you visit Valencia (the birthplace of paella), you will learn that the traditional Paella Valenciana is also made with a combination of chicken and rabbit meat.
Now, this
instant rabbit has nothing to do with traditional Spanish cuisine, but because this meat is available in our local store, I decided to try it and develop a recipe for pressure cooker rabbit with bacon and mushrooms.
How do you cook the rabbit in an instant pot?
If you’re wondering how to cook rabbit under pressure, let me show you how I do it.
First, heat the oil in an instant pot. When hot, add the seasoned rabbit and brown all the pieces on both sides. If you are using more than 1.5-2 pounds of meat, you will need to do so in 2 batches. You don’t want to vaporize the rabbit.
When ready, remove the pieces and add the onions, mushrooms and bacon. You can do this in stages or add everything at the same time. Sauté them for about 5 minutes.
Note: Mushrooms will release their juices, so use the juice to deglaze the pot. If you feel that it is not enough, add some water.
Next, add the
paprika and oregano, mix and add the chicken broth and rabbit. Cook it under pressure for 4 minutes, then manually release the pressure.
The last thing you need to do is add half and half (or heavy cream) and thicken the sauce with flour or cornstarch suspension to the desired thickness. For this instant pot rabbit recipe, I usually use about 2 tablespoons of flour.
How long does it take for a rabbit to cook?
The pressure cooking time may vary slightly. This will depend on the size of the pieces and parts of the meat. Cooking a rabbit in an instant pot (1.5 pounds of whole rabbit, chopped) will take about 4 minutes.
If you have a whole rabbit weighing 2.5-3.5 pounds and you are simply cutting it without bone-in, meaning all of its pieces will be larger than mine, I suggest you add an extra 1 minute to the active pressure cooking time.
Keep in mind that if you use boneless pieces the size of a golf ball, you can be fine with 3 minutes (no matter how much meat you use).
If you’re not sure, use a food thermometer to check the internal temperature of larger pieces. If it is not ready, you can cook it sautéed at this stage, as it should not take long. Don’t pressure cook anymore! If you wanted to pressure cook the rabbit afterwards, it is more likely to dry out.
What goes well with the rabbit?
This tasty rabbit dinner is best served with small forms of pasta (i.e. elbow pasta), but you can serve it over mashed potatoes or rice, couscous, or orzo if you prefer.
Tips for Making the Best Pressure Cooker Rabbit:
- To make sure your rabbit doesn’t dry out (or to reduce the chance of drying out), you should first brown the meat. I wanted to simplify this instant pot rabbit recipe and skip the browning part, but in this recipe it is a must! If you skip this step, you’ll end up with beef jerky.
- You can buy whole rabbit and cut it into pieces yourself (if you need help, you may find this article useful: How to cut a rabbit) or you can ask the butcher to do it for you. I used 1.5 pounds of whole rabbit already cut, but if I had a choice, I would prefer to use boneless meat just because I would feed more people.
- 5 ounces of mushrooms is enough for this instant rabbit recipe, but you can add more, if you wish. If you want to make a double serving of this easy rabbit recipe, just increase the number of mushrooms to 8 ounces (I found that 10 ounces was too much).
- Don’t like or can’t buy rabbit at your local store? Use chicken thighs instead!
Easiest Instant Pot
Recipes:
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- Coconut Rice
- Honey Mustard Chicken Instant Pot Chicken
- Paprikash – If you have rabbit, you can use it to make this easy instant pot recipe!
Instant Pot
What
rabbit parts do you eat?
You can eat all rabbit parts, including heart, liver and kidneys, if you want (I didn’t use them to make this instant rabbit).
The heart, liver, and kidneys can also be used to make a rabbit cake recipe, but be sure to bone the rabbit first.
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