Are you surprised to see that you can make Instant Pot Hotel Room Meals? If you’re trying to save money on your family road trip, you’ll love using your Instant Pot to prepare meals in your hotel room that are tasty, frugal, and easy to clean up, too.
I’ve compiled all my Road Trip Posts together into an Ultimate Road Trip Guide Post that you can read here.
When we took our big 4,000-mile family road trip, I knew it was going to be expensive. We had to worry about hotel expenses, gas, entertainment, and food just for starters. I was trying to cut costs anywhere I could so I decided that we should cook as often as possible in our hotel or motel room.
Related Reading:
But … just because I wanted to save money, it didn’t mean I wanted to spend a bunch of time cooking.
This was vacation, you know.
I also didn’t want to be eating peanut butter and jelly sandwiches or crackers and cheese every day. While I have one son that would be pleased as pie if we did that, my tastes are a little too grown-up to handle it.
So, after spending some time researching and planning, I realized I could make hotel room meals in an Instant Pot that are easy, healthy, and delicious.
This post contains affiliate links. This supports my family and allows me to keep providing you with great resources. You can trust that I only promote products I love or would use myself. Read my full disclosure for more details.
How to Choose Instant Pot Hotel Room Meals
We each may have different criteria, but for our family, this is how I went about choosing meals.
- I didn’t want to pack too many ingredients, so I needed to be able to use just a few things grabbed from the store.
- The preparation (cutting, mixing, etc.) needed to be quick.
- It needed to require just the supplies carried in my Hotel Room Kitchen Kit. You can read about my Hotel Room Cooking Box, Here.
- It had to be fast because the quicker it was made, the quicker we could relax or get in the pool.
Related: Super Fun Road Trip Kids Activities
Why Use an Instant Pot in Your Hotel Room?
While some people use a slow cooker or rice cooker for hotel room cooking, I think the Instant Pot is a much better choice. Why? Because it is multi-functional. It works as a rice cooker, slow cooker, and pressure cooker. It can also saute and steam.
If we’re going to be checked into a hotel all day long, then the slow cooker function works out awesome. After a day of sightseeing, we can come back to our room and dinner will be hot and ready.
Most traveling days we plan to check into our room around 5 pm so we have enough time to pressure cook or saute something in the Instant Pot and eat at just the right time.
Make sure you read my post about How to Pack a Hotel Room Cooking Box. Having just the right tools will make cooking in your Instant Pot so easy.
And, as an extra bonus: I use these slow cooker liners to make clean-up really easy when slow-cooking. I have used them successfully by making sure they’re tucked down and away from the lid.
Here’s the Instant Pot I have. Just click the image to read more about it. And, I recently found this amazing carrying case for your Instant Pot.
Super-Easy Hotel Room Instant Pot Meal Ideas
Here are several Instant Pot hotel room dinner ideas. You’ll see that there are a lot of options and they may even spark several ideas of your own.
Related Reading: 70+ Road Trip Snacks for Kids
Batch-Cooked Shredded Chicken
Batch-Cooked Shredded Chicken is extremely versatile. Once it’s cooked, keep it in a Ziploc bag in your hotel fridge or your cooler and you’ll have quick meals ready in no time. Here are some ideas.
- Chinese Chicken Salad – pick up a salad kit and mix in your chicken
- Chicken Burritos – wrap it in a tortilla with salsa, cheese, refried beans, etc.
- Cold Chicken Salad Sandwiches – use your favorite chicken salad recipe on sandwiches
- BBQ Chicken Buns – Mix BBQ sauce into your chicken and eat it on buns
Baked Potatoes
It’s so simple to make potatoes in your Instant Pot. Read 5 Things to do with Instant Pot Baked Potatoes to see how to cook them and 5 ways to eat them. Some ideas:
- Topped with canned chili and cheese
- Serve topped with your shredded chicken
- Use Hormel Refrigerator Dinners Beef and Gravy, Turkey and Gravy, or one of your other favorites. You can get them in the refrigerated section at a grocery store.
Taco Meat
Brown some ground beef in your Instant Pot and mix in taco seasoning according to the instructions. Then make the following meals.
- Get a Taco Kit like this and it has everything you need except the produce and cheese
- Taco Salad – mix with salad, tomatoes, cheese, salsa, etc. in a big bowl
- Burritos – add to your favorite ingredients and wrap in a tortilla
- Put on a baked potato or rice
Rice
Cook your favorite kind of rice in your Instant Pot and serve with the ingredients below for a great dinner.
- Top with shredded chicken and teriyaki sauce, Yoshida’s is our favorite
- Serve with turkey lunch meat and warmed gravy from a jar
- Make a burrito bowl with black beans, salsa, and cheese
Soup
When you serve a tasty soup, all you need to go alongside is a loaf of french bread, some saltines, or a bag of tortilla chips. You can even make your soup ahead of time and freeze it.
- Make 5-Ingredient Black Bean Soup
- Instant Pot Green Chicken Chili
- 7-Can Soup from The Pioneer Woman
- 5-Ingredient Lemon Chicken Soup from The Pinning Mama
- Instant Pot Creamy Tomato Soup by The Pinning Mama
Get some more great ideas at Cheap and Easy Family Meals Under $5
Best Side Dishes to Eat in Your Hotel Room
After looking at these recipes, you may be thinking that we don’t eat any vegetables, but the truth is, there are a lot of veggies and fruits that we serve along with these meals. Some of our go-to sides are:
- Steam-in-bag frozen veggies
- Canned veggies
- Carrot Sticks
- Any fresh cut up veggies
- Salad
- Apples
- Fruit Cups
- Applesauce Pouches
It really is quite easy to make all kinds of hotel room meals in your Instant Pot. And, best of all, it will save you lots of money on your road trip since eating out is so expensive. You also get to control the nutrition and calories of the food you’re eating.
Have fun trying some of these meals the next time you take a road trip.
Related Reading: How to Eat a Healthy Breakfast in a Hotel
