This Instant Pot sweet balsamic pork roast is delicious and flavorful, with balsamic vinegar, brown sugar, and soy sauce making the best glaze. Plus it cooks in under one hour!
We have gotten into a bit of a recipe rut lately. We have so many recipes at our disposal (over 550 on my blog!), but because I eat a bariatric diet with almost no carbs, our options are pretty limited. It's always 4 ounces of a protein and 4 ounces of a vegetable.
We made up a recipe binder months and months ago with our favorite bariatric-friendly recipes listed out in dividers by type of meat, and that does help because either Joe or I can page through our favorites and pick something that we haven't had in a while.
Even the recipes in the binder were feeling a little stale, so Joe was searching around on the internet and found something that inspired him to make a balsamic vinegar gravy, which he put on top of a pork roast.
We love pork, and I love this recipe. I can't say what it is about the pork that always comes out so well, but the combination of the balsamic glaze and the flavor of the pork are just out of this world.
When Joe makes this, I happily eat it for several days and scrimp on foods at other meals to make up the calories. It's worth the sacrifice.
Balsamic vinegar is naturally sweet, and adding a little brown sugar to it makes it really come alive. The sweetness is balanced out by soy sauce and the pork roast is smothered in rich, brown sauce. You can't go wrong with this tender Instant Pot pork roast!
What you'll need to make an Instant Pot pork roast
Equipment
This recipe requires very few special tools. Of course, you will need an Instant Pot or another electronic pressure cooker. I prefer a 6-quart model or bigger.
I also use a garlic press to prepare this recipe. If you have a super sharp knife and good knife skills, you could finely mince the garlic. You will want the pieces to be as small as possible.
Ingredients
See the printable recipe card at the bottom of the page for all measurements and nutritional information.
- Olive oil - This is to brown the pork.
- 2-3 pound pork roast - This recipe works best for a pork shoulder or pork butt because they will give you a more moist, almost stringy texture. You could also use a pork loin or tenderloin, but the cooking instructions are very different.
- Salt & pepper
For the sauce
- Fresh garlic, pressed with a garlic press
- Packed brown sugar - You can substitute this with an equal amount of Splenda or Stevia with very little loss of flavor.
- Balsamic vinegar - Get the very best balsamic vinegar that you can afford as this is the base for the entire sauce.
- Water - If you decide to add the cornstarch to the sauce after cooking, you'll need 2 tablespoons extra.
- Cornstarch
- Soy sauce
- Rosemary, chopped
What is a pork butt?
It's not what you think. The pork butt is a cut of meat from the front of the pig, in the shoulder area. It's called a butt because butchers three hundred years ago packaged the meat in barrels that were called butts.
Pork shoulders and butts are nice cuts of meat, but they need to be cooked at a low temperature for a long period of time in order to become tender and juicy.
The Instant Pot speeds up the process of cooking of cooking pork shoulder significantly, as you can go from start to finish in about an hour and have a fork-tender roast.
Why cook pork shoulder in the Instant Pot?
There are three main reasons you should use your Instant Pot to cook pork roasts:
- The sauté function allows you to achieve a beautiful sear on the outside of the roast with minimal effort and without dirtying a second pan. Also, the Instant Pot comes with a trivet that allows you to prop the meat up above the cooking liquid, preserving the caramelization that you seared on and preventing a burn warning.
- The lid locks onto the IP, allowing you to walk away from the whole thing and come back an hour later to a safely and perfectly prepared roast.
- The Instant Pot allows you to enjoy a slow-braised, fork-tender pork roast in a fraction of the time it would have taken to cook one in the oven.
How long should you cook a pork roast in the Instant Pot?
When you cook a pork shoulder or pork butt in the oven, it takes approximately 40 minutes per pound of meat.
The Instant Pot allows you to cook the same piece of meat in about 15 minutes per pound. In other words, if you are cooking a 2-pound shoulder, you should set the IP for 30 minutes. If it's closer to 3 pounds, set the timer for 45 minutes.
Remember that pressurizing takes some time, so when you set the timer for 30 minutes, the roast will actually cook for closer to 40-45 minutes as the pressurization takes 10 to 15 minutes just on its own.
You also have to release the pressure. I like to do a natural release for 10 minutes and then vent the rest. Venting is not the same as quick release.
After all of the pressure has dissipated, you can open the lid and remove the meat from the pot.
You never want to quick release the pressure right after the cook time when cooking meat because the rapid change in temperature will cause the meat to seize and become tough.
When you're finished, a 3-pound pork shoulder or butt will take about 70 minutes to cook in the Instant Pot (10-15 to pressurize, 45 to cook, and 15 to depressurize), but that's still way better than the 120 minutes the same roast would have taken in the oven. Plus, the Instant Pot roast will be more tender and juicy from being pressure cooked in a moist pot!
How to make sweet balsamic pork roast in the Instant Pot
- Mix garlic, brown sugar, balsamic vinegar, water, cornstarch*, soy sauce, and rosemary in a small bowl.
- Heat the Instant Pot to sauté. When the display reads HOT, pour in the oil. Season the pork on both sides with salt and pepper and brown on all sides, approximately 4 minutes per side.
- Turn off the sauté mode, remove the pork, and add the water to the Instant Pot. Use the water to help you scrape up all the brown bits from the bottom of the pot. If you don't do this, you will get a burn warning.
- Add the sauce to the Instant Pot.
- Place the pork in on top of the trivet. Program Instant Pot to the high pressure or meat setting and cook for 15 minutes per pound. Keep an eye on the Instant Pot during the cooking time as some cooks have had their IP alarm for burning. If this happens, carefully release the pressure, add another ½ cup of water, replace the lid, and repressurize to finish cooking. When the timer beeps, turn it off and let the pressure naturally release before removing the lid.
- Slice the pork and serve topped with lots of sauce.
How to prevent a burn warning when cooking this Instant Pot pork roast recipe
*Some commenters have suggested that adding the cornstarch and water before cooking is what causes some people's Instant Pots to give a burn warning.
There are 2 things you can do to prevent this.
First, you could just add additional liquid during cooking, between ½ and ¾ cup.
Second, you can add the cornstarch and water after cooking. Simply remove the pork from the IP and set it to sauté. Mix the cornstarch and 2 tablespoons of water to make a slurry, and pour that into the juices left behind in the pot. Heat on sauté until the sauce boils, about 5-7 minutes. This will thicken the sauce while preventing the burn warning during the initial cooking.
What should I serve with sweet balsamic pork roast?
I personally like to serve this pork roast with slow cooker mashed potatoes, and spoon the gravy over top of the potatoes.
For a vegetable, I prefer roasted asparagus or roasted balsamic beets, but it's my favorite so that's what I serve with pretty much everything. My second choice is either roasted brussels sprouts.
You should check out some other Instant Pot recipes while you're here:
- The best ever Instant Pot pot roast
- Chicken Burrito Bowls in the Instant Pot
- Mongolian Beef in the Instant Pot
- Instant Pot Garlic Chicken
- Easy Shredded Beef Tacos in the Instant Pot
- Instant Pot sloppy joes
- Instant Pot chicken tacos
- Coconut Chicken Curry in the Instant Pot
- Lemon Chicken in the Instant Pot
Recipe
Sweet Balsamic Pork Roast in the Instant Pot
Equipment
Ingredients
- 1 tablespoons olive oil
- 2-3 pound pork roast A tenderloin will give you a more firm, drier texture, and a pork shoulder will give you a more moist, almost stringy texture. I prefer the shoulder.
- Salt & pepper
For the sauce
- 3 cloves garlic pressed with a garlic press
- ¼ cup brown sugar You can substitute this with an equal amount of Splenda or Stevia with very little loss of flavor.
- ¼ cup balsamic vinegar
- ¼ cup water
- 1 tablespoons cornstarch
- 1 tablespoons low sodium soy sauce
- 1 tablespoons dried rosemary chopped
Instructions
- Mix all sauce ingredients in a small bowl.* (See note below about cornstarch.)
- Heat the Instant Pot to sauté. When the display reads HOT, pour in the oil. Season the pork on both sides with salt and pepper and brown on all sides, approximately 4 minutes per side.
- Turn off the sauté mode, remove the pork, and add the water to the Instant Pot. Use the water to help you scrape up all the brown bits from the bottom of the pot. If you don't do this, you will get a burn warning.
- Add the sauce to the Instant Pot and then place the pork in on top of the trivet. Program Instant Pot to the high pressure or meat setting and cook for 15 minutes per pound. Keep an eye on the Instant Pot during the cooking time as some cooks have had their IP alarm for burning. If this happens, carefully release the pressure, add another ½ cup of water, replace the lid, and repressurize to finish cooking. When the timer beeps, turn it off and let the pressure naturally release before removing the lid.
- Slice and serve with plenty of sauce.
Patricia Zabala says
Great recipe! I'm new to instant pot cooking. Thank you to all the positive comments, it helped a newbie who doesn't cook that well. Lol. And to the other snarky comments, keep it to yourself. If you can't reply nicely then don't reply. She was nice enough to put it out there and not her fault if it didn't come out right for YOU. She never claimed this was fool proof. Learning curve for everyone and stuff happens when you try new things. Seriously what happened raising someone up instead of just tearing them down? You didn't like it? Try a different one. You have a reply that will help? Do it courtesly. Just quit the rude and your better than someone else attitude! Its wrong!
Tara Ziegmont says
I am blessed by your kindness Patricia. Thank you. And I'm so glad that you liked the pork. It's one of our favorites.
KB says
A little late but you are ABSOLUTELY right. Let’s lift up not diminish. I made this tonight and tweaked a few things because I didn’t have certain ingredients and it’s to cold to go to the store lol, and it was great!!! Keep cooking everyone
Rose-Marie says
Thank you for sharing this amazing recipe. My husband loves it! It is very quick to prepare and the pork turns out very tender and full of flavor. It has become my new go to recipe for pork roast. I added the cornstarch after the roast was out and it worked perfect.
lori says
spot on regarding all rude comments i'm going to try this tonight (the recipe)
Alicia says
Made this before so yummy!! 2nd time I changed up the gravy 🙂
Tara Ziegmont says
What did you do instead?
Meg says
This sauce is AMAZING! I did not do the whole recipe, so I cannot speak for the rest of it...but this sweet balsamic sauce is definitely a keeper! I made 2 batches. 1 for marinating the pork and another to which I added 2 tbsp of cornstarch and cooked to make a glaze. Love love loved it! Thank you for sharing!
Mike says
Great recipe, 2nd time made a pork roast, I put the cornstarch in after to thicken the sauce. The sauce is a Great flavour over the pork roast .
Improved everything by reading the recipe a couple of times before starting to brown the roast.
Andrea B. says
Mike, you made me laugh out loud! Being the impatient person that I am, not reading the recipe thoroughly before I start preparing the dish had led me into many disasters. Thanks for the reminder!
Stephanie says
Amazing! So moist... and that sauce... to die for! We'll be keeping this on our menu!
Sarah Stout Miller says
Is the water added in with the sauce ingredients, or held out to deglaze the pot?
Tara Ziegmont says
You use it to deglaze the pot.
Mary says
That would have been nice to know. I am sure I am not the only one who added it to the sauce because it is listed as a sauce ingredient.
Dee says
I have a question. Can I use the bone-in pork loin? Do I cook for the same amount of time?
Tara Ziegmont says
I've never used a bone-in pork loin, but you should be able to. I think it will probably need a bit more time to cook. From what I've found in researching it, I think you should try for 18-20 minutes per pound with the bone in.
Kimberly says
I just made this with a almost 4lb bone in pork sirloin, cooked for 2 hrs in my Ninja Foodi and it was perfect!
Jenn says
Can I make this in a crockpot instead?
Tara Ziegmont says
I never have, but I'm sure it would work just fine. You could probably cut back a bit on the liquid since the Instant Pot requires more liquid to cook than a Crockpot does.
Melanie says
New to instant pot too! Could this be done from frozen? I ALWAYS forget to take my meat out in time 🙁
If so, what’s the rule of thumb time-wise??
Thank you!!
Tara Ziegmont says
You can do it from frozen, although it's easier to cook a frozen pork loin that a frozen pork shoulder. I've never done either one, but from what I've read, you should cover the frozen meat with liquid in the IP before pressurizing. So what I'd recommend for this recipe is to add beef broth to the IP, enough to cover the meat. You may need to add a few extra minutes to the cook time, like 22 minutes per pound instead of 15. The extra liquid will dilute the sauce, so you'll have to make a new batch of sauce to use as a glaze on the stove while the meat cooks. But, all that said, if your meat is frozen and you want to eat it tonight, it will be worth it to do the couple of extra steps to make the sauce. The sauce is what makes this pork roast amazing. You'll be glad you made it.
Susan says
Truly tender pork with an amazing gravy. Will be a regular!
KimCooks says
i grabbed a giant pork loin, used half for pulled pork in my instant pot and tonight in trying this recipe. i ran out of balsalmic vinegar, but had white wine balsamic in the cupboard so hopefully it still turns out as tasty as everyone has commented. i hate substituting, but was already in process of searing
Michael cubbin says
Made this last nite. Exactly to the recipe with two minor changes. I added additional rue of cornstarch at the end after the roast was out to thicken the sauce a bit more, and to the sauce earlier I added 2 tablespoons of my favorite barbecue sauce for a little more flavor in the sauce. it was perfect. No issues with Instapot. My wife took it to a women’s club potluck dinner and she said it was the hit of the party. Thanks ,Mike C
Camille says
I’m sorry if I missed this, but can you make this if your roast is frozen?!
Tara Gerner says
You can. You'll just have to cook it a bit longer. I would start with 5 extra minutes and leave a buffer of time knowing that it made need another 5-10 minutes on top of that.
Peggy says
This was absolutely delicious. Next time I will double the sauce. In fact we were trying to figure what else we wanted to put the sauce on. I used a pork loin because that was what I had defrosted but will definitely try it with pork shoulder. I just wish I knew it was going to take so long for the natural release. All my sides were ready, waiting and getting cold.
Hannah says
Thank you for the recipe. This was absolutely delicious! I doubled the recipe in our 10 quart instant pot, used frozen roasts (added 15 minutes onto your cooking time guide to account for the frozen meat), and used 1/2 teaspoon xanthan gum at the end to thicken the sauce as we don't use cornstarch. Oh, I also used swerve brown instead of sugar. Hopefully these notes might help someone else. We have plenty for dinner, leftovers, and the freezer. Blessings to you!
Tara Gerner says
Thank you for taking the time to share your modifications!
Lorna Mackey says
This is the fifth time making this recipe, one of our favorites, ran out of balsamic, so I’m using balsamic vinaigrette, craft dressing, and doing it with a frozen pork loin roast it turns out well.