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About this tool
Convert cook times to pressure-cooker whistles and Instant-Pot minutes, with dal, rice, rajma and meat charts.
The Pressure Cooker Time Converter turns a conventional cooking time into pressure-cooker minutes and stovetop whistles, dividing conventional time by 3 for soups, stews, soaked beans, tough meat and root vegetables (by 4 for tender vegetables) and estimating whistles as pressure minutes ÷ 3.5. It also carries a chart of 18 common Indian dishes — toor dal, basmati, brown rice, chole, kala chana, rajma, potatoes, chicken, mutton, keema — each with its whistle count, electric-cooker minutes, water ratio and whether to use natural or quick release. Above 600 m it adds roughly 5% cooking time for every additional 300 m of altitude.
Open Pressure Cooker Time Converter on AltFTool — it loads instantly in your browser.
Choose Food picker and a dish from What are you cooking?, or Custom time with the recipe minutes and Type of dish.
Open Altitude adjustment and type Your altitude (metres) or tap Mumbai, Delhi, Bengaluru, Shimla or Leh.
Read the stovetop whistles and the electric minutes at high pressure with the release method and water ratio, then Copy or Download.
Every result gives both the stovetop whistle count and the electric-cooker minutes, so the same chart works whether you cook by sound or by timer.
Each entry specifies natural or quick release — beans and dals natural, mixed vegetables and cubed potatoes quick — because getting that wrong ruins the texture regardless of the timing.
Enter your elevation, or pick from Mumbai, Delhi, Bengaluru, Shimla or Leh, and the times are scaled by about 5% per 300 m above 600 m rather than left for you to guess at.
Divide by about 3 for soups, stews, curries, soaked beans, tough meat braises and root vegetables, and by about 4 for tender vegetables. A 60-minute braise becomes roughly 20 minutes at high pressure. Treat it as a starting point and adjust to taste on the next attempt.
About 3.5 minutes at high pressure, so the converter estimates whistles as pressure-cooker minutes divided by 3.5, rounded to at least one. Whistle frequency varies with the cooker, the flame and how full the pot is, so use the count as a guide rather than an exact measure.
Roughly 5% more cooking time for each 300 m above 600 m, because water boils at a lower temperature as pressure drops. At Leh's 3,524 m that works out to around half as much time again on top of the sea-level figure.
Because beans and lentils foam heavily under pressure, and a quick release can push that froth into the vent and block it. The chart marks rajma, chole, kala chana and all the dals as natural release; quick release is reserved for things like cubed potatoes and mixed vegetables that turn mushy if left to depressurise slowly. Always follow your cooker's own manual on pressure release and minimum liquid — at least 1 cup (250 mL) for most electric models.
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