Instant Pot Banh Tet Recipe - Vietnamese New Year's Rice Cake (2024)

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When you don't have 6 hours to make Vietnamese Banh Tet, this Instant Pot Banh Tet recipe has saved the day when I've been in a pinch to make this delicious and savory Vietnamese soul food.

Tet (short for Tet Nguyen Dan) is the Vietnamese phrase for the Lunar New Year. It's one of the biggest holidays in the country where family and friends gather to celebrate ancestors and welcome in a new year. Banh tet is the dish that brings family, friends, and this holiday together.

In the recipe I'm going to share with you, you'll be able to shave off about 6 hours of the required boiling to make this hearty, sumptuous, and delectable cake.

About Banh Tet

Banh Tet as a staple in all Vietnamese households especially on days surrounding the Lunar New Year. It's the dish that brings families together. It's the dish that you can see commonly on ancestral altars to celebrate the lives of passed love ones. Banh Tet is a dish that brings the family together by preparing it, making it, and cooking it together.

Often, making Banh Tet can take SEVERAL days. The preparation requires a few steps to completely soak the rice and mung beans as well as marinate the pork belly. The wrapping of banh tet requires skill and focused effort to ensure that none of the fillings escape. The boiling of the banh tet takes upwards of 8 hours.

About the Instant Pot Banh Tet Recipe

This recipe can be adapted to make banh chung, which is the square variety that is typically made in North Vietnam. This recipe is different than my other one because I add shallots in with the mung beans. Read more about the differences between banh chung and banh tet.

Using an Instant Pot (or any pressure cooker) will allow you to save time from having to constantly watch over the cakes for 8 hours as it boils. The risk of doing it the traditional way is drying out the cakes and forgetting to add water into the pot.

This recipe will make 4 large cylindrical cakes.

I will say that wrapping them with the banh chung method, square, may prove to be easier to add multiple banh tet into a pressure cooker.

Recipe for Instant Pot Banh Tet

Ingredients

Ingredients for the Banh Tet Filling

6 cups glutinous sticky rice, soaked in water for 8 hours
2 ⅔ cup dried, hulled, and split yellow mung beans, soaked in water for 8 hours
1 shallot, diced
1 ¼ pounds of pork belly, sliced into 2 x 3 x 1.5 inch lengths
½ tablespoon of fish sauce
3 tablespoons of sea salt
3 teaspoons black pepper, freshly ground
½ teaspoon of vegetable oil

Banh Tet Wrapping

12 pieces of banana leaves
Cooking twine
Food Saver bags

Instructions for Instant Pot Banh Tet

Phase 1: Day Before Preparation for the Banh Tet Filling

You'll want to soak your glutinous rice and mung beans ahead of time for at least 8 hours (I would highly recommend more than that).

The rice that you choose is absolutely important. Glutinous rice makes the stickiness that is the basic element of making banh tet.

You'll want to soak the rice and water in separate pots, with just enough water to cover them. At this point, you can choose to add a teaspoon of salt to season both the mung beans and the rice.

Next, you'll want to create the marinate for the pork belly. Once the pork belly is cut, you'll want to put it in a bowl where it will marinate overnight. Mix in the fish sauce, sea salt, and black pepper. Use your hands to meld in the seasoning. Put in the refrigerator overnight.

Phase 2: Second Preparation of Ingredients

Next, take a pan and heat up the vegetable oil. Add in the shallots, and cook until it's transparent. Allow the shallots to cool.

Drain the mung beans. At this point, they should be soft enough to mash down to make a smooth paste. Use a food processor to whip it until it has a consistent texture throughout. Remove it from the processor and mix in the shallots.

If your banana leaves are frozen, now is the time to get it out. Take a cleaned, moistened paper towel and wipe down the banana leaves to clean them. Wash and dry the banana leaves. An optional step for the banana leaves is making them more elastic and supple by warming them for a few minutes over an open flame without burning or charring them. This will darken the side that is closest to the open flame. This side should be used on the next step to add the glutinous rice.

Next, drain the glutinous rice and set aside.

Phase 3: Assembling the Banh Tet

Next, you are going to set up an assembly line for the banana leaves, rice, mung bean/shallot mixture, and pork belly.

Take one banana leaf (darkened side up). Next, take another leaf (darkened side up) and lay it parallel, overlapping the other leaf.

Take 1 cup of the soaked sticky rice and place it in the middle of the leaves.

Next, layer on the mung bean/shallot mixture followed by the pork belly.

Cover with another cup of rice.

Wrap the banh tet by folding the long ends together. Next, fold in where the rice and the empty leaves are and tuck the sides in. Give it a good pat in order to take out the air and compact the rice.

Tie the centers with cooking twine. Next, as scary as it sounds, flip the cylinder so that it is now standing straight. Add some rice on the open end. Next, fold in the end like you are wrapping up a gift.

Cooking Banh Tet in a Pressure Cooker

If you have a 6 quart pressure cooker, you'll be able to fit about 2 cylindrical banh tet cakes. If you have an 8 quart, you may be able to fit all four, depending on how big you rolled the banh tet cakes.

Using Foodsaver bags, add the banh tet followed up a cup of crushed ice in order to create a proper seal on the food saver bags and to hydrate the rice.

Place the banh tet into the Instant Pot, then fill the Instant Pot with water.

Set it on soup mode for 45 minutes, and let it natural release.

Serving Banh Tet

Check out my other banh tet recipe to find out what to serve with banh tet!

Summary of Instant Pot Banh Tet Recipe

If you are anything like me, banh tet is a welcoming cake in my household any time of year, not just Lunar New Year. It is an absolutely divine dish that melds together wonderful textures. Instant Pot banh tet (or in any pressure cooker really) makes it that much more realistic to make because you are literally shaving a quarter of a day that it takes to make this dish.

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More Easy Vietnamese Recipes You’ll Love

Vietnamese Banh Canh Recipe
Vietnamese Banh Uot - Steamed Rice Sheets
Vietnamese Xoi Dau Xanh - Mung Bean Rice Dessert

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Yield: 4 Cakes

Ingredients