Making Your Own Evaporated Milk in the Instant Pot
Evaporated milk is often used in a lot of instant pot cooking. Thickened milk is also at the heart of most Indian desserts. Think kulfi and rice pudding as starters.
I use canned evaporated milk when I am in a hurry. However, for a lot of really special Indian desserts, it lacks the creamy richness. The texture found by slow cooking and stirring cream back into the milk. Thickened milk or ghono dudh as we call it in Bengali is the charm of making Indian sweets.
Back in the day, there were no refrigerators. So any milk leftover at the end of the evening was thickened and served as a dessert of sorts. In winter with date palm jaggery and it summer with fruits. Thickened milk is served in other parts of India as well, take for instance Basundi.
My Evaporated Milk Story
All this is fine, you say… But who has the time to sit and nurse milk until it reaches this sublime thickness. Now, this is my discovery. The other evening, I started the process of reducing the milk.
About 3/4 gallon of milk in the instant pot and busied myself with something else. I gave the milk a good stir when it reached a good boil. About 15 minutes later it had reduced quite a bit and by the time the IP shut off I had enough milk to make my favorite dessert. No stirring! No sticking, just pour and let it do its thing.
I realized that the steady temperature was much higher than what would use on the stovetop, however, since it was nice and steady it just evaporated the milk without allowing it to stick. So, this really is too simple to be true. This will stay in the refrigerator for 5 days.
Freeze this in small containers if you so desire.
This really is not much of a recipe. It is a procedure.
3/4 gallon of whole milk, turn on the sauté button on the medium setting, stir once when it reaches boiling temperature. And if cooking this for longer than the 15 minutes, stir occasionally.
- After 15 minutes after it begins a boil it reaches the thickness of any commercial product
- At the 30 minutes it works for most things such as Indian Dessert, think kheer.
- After 45 minutes, you get a thick and almost curd like consistency. This is perfect of something like kulfi.
- As a change you can add in cardamoms while the milk is cooking down.
It is several tested and tried essentials and unique uses for the instant pot that makes my instant Indian cookbook special.
Betty W
Low, medium, or high Saute setting?
rinkub@aol.com
Hi Betty,
Nice catch, this is on the medium setting and I will update my post.
Ruma
Silly question – so the milk cooks with an open lid, correct? I see you said ‘saute’, so that should be right but I want to make sure.
rinkub@aol.com
Hi Ruma, Yes, cooks with an open lid.
Jessie Morris-jeter
Do you think this would work with a coconut or almond milk?
rinkub@aol.com
No, sadly they do not thicken the same way.
R Daugherty
So excited to try this! About how long does it take to come to a boil? And how many cups does it make when it is done cooking at the different levels you mentioned above (15 min, 30 min and 45 min)? Thanks!
rinkub@aol.com
Takes about 10 minutes, the key is to get to a good simmer and I end up with half of what I started with.
Vegan Mango Kulfi Popsicles - Spice Chronicles
[…] creamy due to the use of milk that is cooked until rich and thick. Cooked low and slow. Much like this. There is bits of creamy texture in the mixture and it’s all good. To mimic the creaminess I […]
O G
Please be careful with this recipe!
When the milk reaches a boil on the medium saute setting, it rapidly overflows the container (my case: 1/2 gallon of milk in a 6 quart model), creating a massive mess to clean up.
When I tried this again on the low saute setting, it took almost two hours to reduce the milk by 50 percent.
Might as well use the stovetop then.
Trucinda McConnell
Can this be used for creamer for coffee?
rinkub@aol.com
Not really, as it develops pieces of cream, which makes it great for Indian or other desserts.