Instant Pot Dal Makhani – Restaurant Style

Instructions

Soak whole Urad Dal and Rajma/Kidney beans overnight in three cups of water.

Drain water and pressure cook beans in 4 cups of water with a pinch of salt. (You can pressure cook them separatly too.)

3 whistle in medium heat makes the Rajma and Dal soft.

Turn on the Instant pot in saute mode, 15 minutes and medium heat ,this setting produces required heat to saute all the spices.

Add the oil/ghee in the pot, wait for 30 seconds - when oil is little warm add bay leaf, cinnamon sticks, cardamom, cloves and black peppers.

After 2 minutes when all the above spices are cooked, add ginger-garlic paste and stir for 2-3 minutes. At this point you will start to get a nice aroma of spices.

Once stirring is done, add onions, chopped green chilies and mix it with ginger garlic paste to remove the raw smell from it. It will take around 2-3 more minutes.

Now add turmeric powder, Amchur Powder, hing, coriander Powder,some Garam masala and pinch of salt. The intensity of aromatic spices will really intensified. It sure will enhance your appetite for dal makhani by multifold. 🙂

After 1 minute, mix chopped tomato , 1/2 cup water and stir it until tomatoes become soft and you can see little oil on the inner edges the mixture where it touches pot..

Now add the pressure cooked Rajma/Kidney beans and Urad dal, with all the water you boiled it.
If you did not boil it then add soaked urad dal and rajma with 2 cups water in it.

Mix all the ingredients properly, if anything is stuck to the bottom, deglaze the pot properly ,otherwise it will show burn sign.

Press cancel and close lid with vent in sealing position. The following close up picture shows vent position -

Now, cancel the saute mode and change the instant pot setting to pressure cook mode for 15 minutes in high if Lentil & kidney beans were Pre-boiled.
If lentil & kidney bean were just soaked then set Instant Pot setting to 40 minutes in high.

When you hear instant pot beeps, you know that your Dal Makhani is done. Cancel the instant pot setting and let pressure release by itself.  if you are in hurry, release the pressure manually by lifting vent upwards - just like pressure cooker whistle.

My suggestion is to always let pressure release by itself , it will give gravy time to simmer.

Now, Open Instant pot lid and then add crushed Kasoori meethi and chopped cilantro , mix it well.

Add 1/4 cup of heavy cream and mix it well.

The Tasty Dal Makhani is ready !

Serving Suggestion:
Garnish with 1 tsp of Ghee on top, Heavy cream and Cilantro, Server hot with steamed rice and roti/naan.