Almost a decade ago, a childhood best friend of mine moved back to our hometown, and we began having dinners together at their house. During one of these dinners, they introduced me to “slop,” a recipe passed down from a former partner during camping trips.
Continuing the camping tradition, they used a manual pressure cooker on the stovetop. They mixed together lentils, rice, vegetables (the holy trinity), and chicken breast. Wonderfully, these simple ingredients combined to make a hearty bowl of slop. Although presentation was not a priority, it tasted so good and was incredibly crave-able. As a result, I often asked them to make it for me.
As a home cook, I am using this space as a digital garden 🌱 Digital Garden – A personal online space where ideas are cultivated like plants in a garden, allowing for continuous growth and evolution. This concept allows for early publishing of thoughts, which can be refined over time within a space that you own and design. For a deeper dive into this philosophy, read Maggie Appleton’s essay on Digital Gardens. to document my kitchen processes for future-me and others to consume. I’ve tested these recipes repeatedly, so I can share plenty of tips, substitutions, and how to handle mishaps gracefully. Through these writings, I reveal my “Capsule Kitchen🍲 Capsule Kitchen – a system where I use a consistent grocery list to create a variety of meals. These recipes are well-tested. I’ve cooked them dozens of times, learning plenty of tricks and workarounds along the way. Plus, I often prepare multiple dishes simultaneously since they share similar prep steps, and I’ll guide you on how to efficiently do that too. Stay tuned! I plan to document this system across the site over time (eg. grocery lists, cross-cooking meals, and more)” approach, using a consistent grocery list to cook up a variety of meals.
My friend, being thoughtful and crafty, made me a gift of little hand-drawn coupons to redeem slop whenever I wanted.
Until they moved away, there was not a ton of pressure (pun intended) to make slop on my own. I bought a manual pressure cooker and I still have it. However, I never had the courage to try making it myself.
Pssst …. Is that a dog in the drawing? If you like dogs, you might like this story about dogs – This may seem random, but this is a blog where I also tell stories (besides posting recipes that come from dear friends). Read what you came for… explore what you didn’t.
What is pressure cooking?
For those unfamiliar, pressure cooking is a magical method that achieves the results of slow cooking in a fraction of the time by using steam pressure. In just minutes, it can make your dish taste like it’s been cooking for hours. Meat becomes tender and falls off the bone, vegetables blend into rich sauces and soups, and flavors meld beautifully.
Pressure cooking is achieved in a special pot, sealed with a lid, and set atop a heat source like a fire, stove top, or electric device (eg. instant pot).
Slop 1.0 involved a manual pressure cooker 💣💥. However, now that I have an instant pot, I can pressure cook more safely.
I wanted to make slop for years and even bought a manual pressure cooker, but I was scared to use it. Why?
Manual pressure cookers, unlike modern Instant Pots with digital readouts and sensors, can be dangerous. If not sealed properly, they can potentially explode! Additionally, pressure cooking requires a specific ratio of solid food to liquid. If this ratio isn’t met, your food can burn. Modern appliances with sensors alert you to potential burning, allowing you to address it immediately.
For more information, check out The Kitchn’s write-up about pressure cookers, where I learned that pressure cookers have been around since the 1600s!
Fast-forward to 2024, when I got an Instant Pot. I messaged my friend for the recipe.
Unfortunately, they had forgotten it, so I had to wing it. From memory, I knew it included chicken, rice, lentils, and the holy trinity (onions, carrots, celery). When uncertain about timing or quantities, I often look up other recipes for guidance.
I found an inspiring recipe that included sweet potatoes, which I always have on hand. This helped me figure out the right ingredients, ratios, and cook times for the Instant Pot.
With some leftover ancient grains (a rice medley) and green lentils I bought, along with my staple holy trinity, I was ready to recreate the dish. It was time.
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📜 The Recipe, with pictures added for context.
While you can quickly view the recipe (scroll over to download a one-page printable PDF), the following Timings, Ingredients & Steps include pictures for added context.
For the first time making slop, it is nice to have pictures to confirm your own process. After that, the PDF download and quick recipe reader are much more scannable.
Timings
- (Variable) Prep time: 50 min if slow, 30 min if fast.
- (Fixed) Cook time: 45 min for instant pot steps
Ingredients
- 1 cup carrots, onions, celery, sweet potatoes each – dice all (small cubes)
- This is typically 1 carrot (or handful of baby carrots), 1 medium onion, 1 small sweet potato, 2 celery sticks.
- 7 cloves ish of garlic – rough chop
- 3-6 Thai chilis (optional) – sliced (3 mild, 6 noticeably spicy, 10 if you really like spice)
- Eyeball seasonings – however much seasoning you like on other things, or 2 teaspoons (of each) if you must have measurement
- curry powder
- ginger powder
- fresh cracked salt and pepper
- ginger paste, or fresh ginger – rough chop
- 1 cup rice or wild rice
- I used Rice & Ancient Grains, which is a medley: red quinoa, barley, buckwheat, bulgar, wheat berries, red rice, oats
- 1 cup lentils (I use green)
- 6 cups of vegetable broth (I use better than bouillon)
- Optionally, add a splash of red or white wine vinegar
- 1.5-2lbs ish of chicken thighs boneless skinless
Steps
- 🫖 Prepare vegetable stock – eg. if using better than bouillon, bring 6 cups of water to boil in a sauce pan, with the paste in the water. Stir and remove heat.
- 🥑 In the instant pot, drizzle avocado oil.
- 🥕 Dice veggies (small cubes), then add veggies to instant pot: carrots, sweet potatoes, celery, onion at the bottom. Jiggle the pot to make contents flat and even.
- 🌶️ Add aromatic/flavor bits (eg. chopped garlic, ginger, Thai chilis) on top of the veggies
- 🍚 Measure out the grains and lentils – then add them on top, jiggling the pot to flatten out the contents again.
- Add Seasonings on top of contents using half the spice amount, because you season again after chicken is added. Also, there’s no need to mix it all. If measuring it out, use 1/2 of the spice amount (e.g. 1 teaspoon per spice).
- 🍗 Add Chicken flat and evenly on top. You could have several layers of chicken. Add more seasonings again and optionally between each full layer of chicken. No need to mix. (e.g. 1 teaspoon per spice).
Note: If you forgot seasoning earlier, feel free to add it all here – not a problem!
- 🫖 Pour in the stock over the chicken and optional red or white wine vinegar. Again, no need to mix, because the flavors will blend together on their own during pressure cooking!
- ⏲️ Set Instant pot to pressure cook for 10 min. The lid needs to be on and secured. Press start.
- ⏲️ Anticipate 25 minutes: It will take about ~10-15 minutes for it to “pre-heat” kind of like an oven. Then it will build pressure for 10 minutes.⌚️ Hint: Set a timer for ~20-25 minutes from when you sealed and started the instant pot.
- ⏲️ After the 10 minutes of building pressure is done, the instant pot will count time. We want to wait for the instant pot to count to 15 minutes. During this time, the food is cooking while doing a natural release – which means its cooking while slowly losing pressure. Later we will do a quick release to get the remaining pressure out.⌚️ Hint: At this point you should be able to set your watch/phone timer to when the 15 minutes will go off. It the pot isn’t counting yet, wait for the pressure cook time to end!
- 🔔 When your timer goes off, the instant pot will say 15:00 min has gone by. We can now do a manual/quick release to let go of the remaining pressure. It takes about 2 minutes. Wait till the instant pot is done releasing pressure before removing the lid, which you will hear a click.
- 🥘 Break up the chicken with a sturdy spatula or wooden spoon. Should come apart easily. Serve!
🧐 Extra insights from cooking this slop and “messing it up”
While I’ve made this dish many times, I have certainly “taken alternative steps” along the way. Below I list some of those mishaps or alterations and their effects.
- Once, I forgot to add the first batch of seasonings at the vegetable layer, so I added them at the chicken layer stage. It turned out fine.
- Another time, I accidentally let it manually release for 30 minutes instead of 15 because the timer went unnoticed. The chicken was more shredded than ideal, but it was still delicious.
- Occasionally, I’ve rough chopped the vegetables instead of dicing them. This only changed the texture (larger chunks) but didn’t affect the taste or doneness.
- While of course things taste better with real ginger, I do not always enjoy cutting ginger. So I use “squeeze ginger paste” which I find in the produce aisle near fresh herbs.
All things considered, this dish is hard to ruin, even with these variations.
If you make this dish…
💬 Privately, let me know your slop turns out here.
✍️ Publicly, did you know that I encourage people to post a response in a medium of their own choosing? This includes responses to these recipes!
