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Instant Pot Farro is a speedy way to cook this hardy and delicious whole grain in a flash. Learn how to cook farro in a pressure cooker or on the stovetop for a delicious and fast meal.
If you’ve never tried farro before, you’re missing out on a delicious option for a filling and versatile grain that is amazing in so many dishes.
You can think of farro as the bad boy of the whole grain family. It’s like if rice had a super healthy cousin that was super mysterious and deep.
How Long Does it Take to Cook Farro?
Farro will take 10 minutes in the Instant Pot or 30-35 minutes on the stovetop.
How Do You Know When Farro is Cooked?
Farro will not absorb all the liquid during the cooking process so it can be challenging to know when it’s officially “done”.
The farro will be tender and chewy when it is ready to be served. You can always bite one grain to see how the texture is.
Pro Tips/Recipe Notes
- You need to rinse farro before cooking it. It has a powdery coating on it that is best removed before cooking. Simply place your pre-measured farro into a fine-mesh strainer and rinse under running water for a minute.
- For additional flavor, use broth/stock instead of water. If you’re vegetarian or vegan, a rich vegetable broth is great. Otherwise, check out these posts on How to Make Chicken Bone Broth, Turkey Bone Broth, and Where to Buy Bone Broth.
- Include some aromatics while the farro is cooking. Minced garlic and diced onion will add great flavor to your finished dish.
- If you want to double or even triple the recipe, the cooking time remains the same but it will take longer to come up to pressure.
Freezing Farro
Make a big batch and freeze into individual portions for some easy healthy meal prep. Transfer cooked portions to reusable silicone bags (we love this brand and these too) for fast and ready to go meals.
More Delicious Recipes Like Instant Pot Farro
- Add some cooked farro to this Green Pea Salad With Mint and Feta for a hardy vegetarian meal.
- Instant Pot Garlic Butter Rice
- Instant Pot Quinoa
- Instant Pot Cilantro Lime Rice
- Instant Pot Beets
- Instant Pot Jasmine Rice
- Instant Pot Roasted Garlic
- Instant Pot Basmati Rice
- Instant Pot Sushi Rice
- Instant Pot Coconut Rice
- Instant Pot Brown Jasmine Rice
- Instant Pot Mexican Rice
Instant Pot Farro
Ingredients
- 1 cup farro {semi-pearled or pearled}
- 2 cups water {or broth of choice}
Instructions
Instant Pot Farro Instructions
- Rinse the farro in a metal sieve.1 cup farro
- Place farro and water/broth in the Instant Pot.2 cups water, 1 cup farro
- Place the lid on the Instant Pot and set the vent to sealing. Press Manual>High>10 minutes.
- When it has finished cooking, allow the pressure cooker to sit for 10 minutes. Then, carefully flip the steam release handle to “venting” and allow any additional pressure to be released. Remove the lid.
- There will likely extra water/broth; pour that off before serving.
Stovetop Farro Instructions
- Rinse the farro in a metal sieve.
- In a medium heavy-bottomed saucepan, combine farro and water/broth and bring to a boil.
- Place the lid on and reduce to medium-low heat. Cook for 30-35 minutes.
- There will likely extra water/broth; pour that off before serving.
Notes
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
Thank you so much for this recipe! The last time we made farro it took considerably longer than expected and I thought to myself, I bet this would be a good one to do in the instant pot. But I never got around to finding a recipe or experimenting with it myself. We will be making this recipe this week for sure!
Followed the instructions and the farro soaked up all the water, making it soft, sticky and unusable in the recipe I was making. Kind of like if you cooked rice on the stovetop and used too much water, however I followed the ratio given in this recipe. Not happy.
Gabrielle, without being in the kitchen with you, it’s hard to say what might have gone wrong. Do you know what brand of farro you used? Was it new, had it been sitting in the pantry for years, are you at a higher elevation, etc.?
As you can see from the photos in the middle of the post, our farro turns out fully cooked but still firm enough to hold up in recipes.
so I am about to cook (and then eat) farro for the first time ever. In 2014 I inherited the content’s of a friends pantry (divorce; she packed off to teach in China); the contents included an opened bag of semi-pearled farro. So … (1) the farro is stale if farro goes stale; and maybe rancid, if farro goes rancid. I won’t judge all farro by tonight’s outcome. I intend to cook all the remaining farro – 2:1 ration of liquid to kernels.
And I will only have a little bit of broth in the liquid mix – unless I want to nuke some frozen cups of veg broth first. But that got me wondering …I collect veggie scraps to make my own broth in the IP and I have a bag I would love to use up to flavor the water. If this were not my first time cooking farro, eating it even, maybe, and if I did not already have the variables of staleness and possible rancidity to contend with, I would be tempted to throw the accumulated veg scraps into a clean cheesecloth bag and use that to add flavor the to mostly water liquid I will be cooking the farro in (In the IP). Question: in your experience, would that throw the liquid:kernel ratio of 2:1 off?
What an adventurous eater you are! 🙂
I make my stock/broth separately and not make it while making other dishes, especially in the Instant Pot. The amount of food in the IP can impact how long things take to come up to pressure and depressurize. There is a change that throwing the veggies in (plus the cheesecloth) might throw off the cooking time.
Update:
I learned that I like farro! We mixed it half and half with cooked brown rice and used it as a side dish.
As mentioned before, I had to soak mine overnight, There was A LOT of leftover water. So next time I think I will try half a cup less because I didn’t compensate for any that the soaked farro was retaining.
Farro is on my shopping list and I will be making more. I always have portioned-out cooked rice and quinoa in my freezer for quick, easy sides and I will add farro as well.
Thanks!
who-hoo that’s awesome! I love discovering new foods to love. 🙂
I have some whole-grain farro that I still haven’t tried. I am not opposed to soaking it overnight. Have you got a suggested time for cooking it in the instant pot? Or do you think it is smarter to just stick with the stovetop for my first time? We have never had it before and want the first attempt to be successful!
Thanks!
I would soak overnight and cook for the 10 minutes. You can always test it and add a few minutes to cook it again. But you can’t go back once you overcook it.
Okay. Thank you! Cross your fingers for us then. I will get it soaking tonight! I only bought it months and months ago (and only about a cup of it!) so I REALLY should give it a go.