Instant Pot Pork Loin Roast with Apples and Mashed Potatoes

Make this tasty pork loin roast with apples and mashed potatoes for an easy one pot dinner. The entire meal can be made in your Instant Pot in about 45 minutes – perfect for either easy weeknight cooking or weekend entertaining. Instant Pot Pork Loin is a delicious easy dinner!

While I enjoy cooking for my family, most evenings I want to make a meal that is quick and easy, not time consuming and complicated! I am always looking for ways I can serve tasty food that is good for my family without spending hours in the kitchen.

The Instant Pot is great for creating these types of meals, with one pot creations like Meatball Soup or Instant Pot Jambalaya. This one pot dinner of Instant Pot pork loin cooked with apples and mashed potatoes is another delicious meal idea. With this recipe you can have a tender and juicy pork loin roast and side dishes on the table fast!

One Pot Instant Pot Meal

A big advantage of using the Instant Pot for this meal is that you can make the entire meal all together at one time. This is a huge convenience!

The potatoes cook in a steamer basket on top of the pork roast. By the time the pork loin is cooked the potatoes are also done and ready to mash.

I also cook apples along with the pork. These add a lot of flavor to the pork and make an excellent topping for the pork.

Find More Instant Pot Recipes!

Why Use Pork Loin

This recipe is for a pork loin roast and only a pork loin roast. There are a lot of different types of pork roasts – pork loin, pork shoulder, pork butt, pork tenderloin and so on. Although they are all pork roasts you can’t use them interchangeably in most recipes because the cooking times are different.

Pork loin is one of the leanest and most tender of pork roasts. So it is a great choice when you want something that will cook quickly. Pork loin tastes best when it is cooked to between 145-160 F. Cooking pork loin in a pressure cooker lets you rapidly bring it to the desired temperature without over cooking it.

For this recipe the timing of cooking the pork is important, since you want the potatoes and apples to cook along with it. Pork tenderloin cooks more quickly, so the potatoes wouldn’t be completely cooked. Pork shoulder or pork butt cooks more slowly, so everything else would be overcooked.

So use a pork loin roast of about 1 1/2 – 2 1/2 pounds for this recipe!

Brining the Pork Loin

You do not need to brine the pork loin before making this recipe – but if you do it will taste even better. Brining the pork increases the amount of moisture in the meat and makes it more tender.

This Apple Cider Brine recipe is perfect for brining your pork loin. A pork loin should brine for 12-24 hours, so you can brine it the night before you plan to serve the pork roast.

How to Make Instant Pot Pork Loin Roast

1. Season and Brown the Pork Loin

First season the pork loin roast all over with salt, pepper, rosemary and fennel. Then set the Instant Pot on the Saute setting and wait for it get hot.

Add butter to the Instant Pot and brown the pork loin on all sides. It should take about 5 minutes to give it a nice brown caramelized crust.

2. Saute the Apples

Once the pork is browned take it out of the Instant Pot and set it aside for a few minutes. Add the peeled apple slices to the Instant Pot and saute them for about 4 minutes. Then turn the Instant Pot off.

3. Deglaze the Instant Pot

Now add apple juice, broth or apple cider to the Instant Pot to deglaze. Use a wooden spoon to scrape the bottom of the inner pot and make sure there are no browned bits of pork or apples stuck to the bottom. This reduces the chance of getting a burn error when you cook the pork loin.

4. Add the Pork and Potatoes

Put the pork loin roast back in the Instant Pot, on top of the apples. Then take the peeled and cubed potatoes and put them in your Instant Pot steamer basket. Set the steamer basket on a trivet over the top of the pork loin.

5. Cook the Pork Loin in the Instant Pot

Put the lid on the Instant Pot, making sure the seal is in place and the pressure valve is closed. Set the pressure cooker on Manual, high pressure, for 15 minutes.

It will take about 10 minutes for the Instant Pot to reach pressure. Once it has finished cooking let the pressure release naturally for 10 minutes, then release any remaining pressure manually.

Set the pork aside on a serving platter to rest. I always check the temperature of my pork roasts before serving, so use an instant read thermometer to ensure the roast has reached 145 F.

Always use a meat thermometer to check the internal temperature, don’t try to cook based just on time. A thermometer is not expensive and the peace of mind they give you is priceless. Food poisoning is not fun! This is my favorite inexpensive meat thermometer, which you can buy on Amazon.

6. Mash the Potatoes

Then mash the potatoes with butter, milk and salt. Spoon out the apples and put them on top of or next to the pork loin roast.

Serving the Pork Loin Roast

There is no need to add extra side dishes, although a nice green salad goes well with any meal. The pork is moist and delicious and the apples give it a subtle apple flavor. 

The apples will be mushy like apple sauce, but they don’t really taste like apple sauce since they were cooked with pork. I like to sprinkle them with cinnamon and serve them on top of the slices of pork.

As an extra bonus I loved not having to wash multiple dishes! And if there are any leftovers it is delicious for lunch the next day. I like to make a quick Pork Fried Rice with leftovers or add it to a Soba noodle bowl.

Find More Instant Pot Recipes

• Instant Pot Pork Stew
• Instant Pot Jambalaya
• Instant Pot Corned Beef and Cabbage
• Instant Pot Italian Beef Sandwiches