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For a great tasting, super easy recipe that is perfect for feeding a crowd, meal planning, or Game Day, try Instant Pot Barbecue Beef. Use the meat for barbecue beef sandwiches, or over rice or on potatoes. This is essentially a 2-ingredient pressure cooker barbecue beef (if you use premade bbq sauce), and it is delicious!
Instant Pot Barbecue Beef
When it comes to cooking a beef roast in your electric pressure cooker, the Chuck roast is probably the most tender, a fall-apart cut you can make (trim the visible fat first, for this recipe).
What if you happen to have a Rump roast, or Bottom Round, as it is also called? This cut of beef is leaner than the chuck, so it comes out a little less fall apart, but it shreds very well.
You can use it for almost anything from French Dip sandwiches or tacos, to shredded beef, which is where I’m going with this recipe.
This BBQ Beef is easy to make. You just brown all sides of the roast chunks, then sauté the onions. After that you just add the roast back in with the broth/water, and cook it!
Pile the shredded beef high on a kaiser bun, or your favorite slider rolls. It’s so good on mashed potatoes, too! Lots of uses for this Instant Pot Barbecue Beef recipe!
I’ve included one of my barbecue sauce recipes to use with this Instant Pot Shredded Beef. If you have your own favorite recipe, go ahead and use that. You can also use your favorite bottled sauce, which I sometimes do! It’s so easy!
Instant Pot Mississippi Pot Roast
Instant Pot Simple Pot Roast
Instant Pot Pulled Pork
Instant Pot Bone-In Ham
Instant Pot Barbecue Beef
Equipment
- 6 or 8-quart Electric Pressure Cooker
Ingredients
- 3 - 4 lbs Bottom Round or Chuck Roast* (cut in thirds)
- Salt
- Pepper
- 2 Tablespoons Vegetable Oil
- 1 Onion, cut in half, sliced into ¼" thick half-rings
- 1½ cups Water or Beef Broth
- 1 - 2 cups Barbecue Sauce**
Barbecue Sauce (mix ingredients together and set aside)
BBQ Sauce Goes in After Pressure Cooking
- 1½ cups Ketchup
- ¼ cup Apple Cider Vinegar
- ½ cup Brown Sugar
- 2 Tablespoons Worcestershire Sauce
- 1 Tablespoon Paprika (or smoked paprika)
- 1 teaspoon Liquid Smoke
- 1 teaspoon Chili Powder
- ½ teaspoon Salt
- 1 teaspoon Garlic Powder
- ⅛ teaspoon Cayenne Powder (more for spicy)
Instructions
- Season the beef chunks with salt and pepper. Set aside.
- Turn on the pot's Sauté function. When it is hot, add the oil and then the roast chunks. Brown a few minutes on each side.
- Take out the meat and set on a plate and add the onion to the pot with a splash or two of the water/broth. Cook for a couple of minutes, scraping the bottom of the pot, to get the browned bits up (deglaze).
- Add the remaining water/broth, and the meat back in. Close the lid and lock in place. Set the steam release knob to the Sealing position.
- Cancel the Sauté function.
- Set to Pressure Cook/Manual, High Pressure, and use the +/- buttons (or dial) to select 60 minutes. When the cook cycle is finished, let the pot sit undisturbed for 10-15 minutes (10-15 minutes Natural Release). A smaller roast, like 2 pounds) means smaller chunks, so might only need 45 minutes cook time.
- Turn the steam release knob to the Venting position (or push button if you have one) and release the remaining pressure. When the pin in the lid drops down, open and remove the meat to a large bowl to shred.
- If the meat isn't shreddable, put it back in and cook it another 10 to 15 minutes.
- Use two forks to shred the meat.
- Use a slotted spoon to remove the onion from the pot and add to the shredded beef.
- Mix in some of the barbecue sauce. How much is up to you. If you want to use the meat for tacos, or something not bbq, divide it and just put the sauce on the portion you want to be bbq.
- Serve on buns, or over mashed potatoes, rice, in tortillas, pita bread, etc.
Notes
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
Resources to Make Instant Pot Barbecue Beef Recipe and More
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I have an eye of round roast I’d like to use for this. Any alterations I should make?
I don’t think you need to adjust anything.
Question: I would like to try your recipe. If i cook 5 lbs beef, how should I modify other ingredients and cooking time? Thank you for your help in advance.
First, cut the roast into 1 pound chunks and the cook time will remain the same. The water/broth amount will also stay the same. This only change you may need to make is to add more bbq sauce to get the desired amount of flavor/texture you like.
Fantastic and this family knows their BBQ. Sixty minutes in an instant pot sure beats six hours in the crock pot?
Thanks for the recipe?
Delicious sauce! Made this with a 4 lb sirloin tip roast but it was difficult to cut into chunks (too cartilage-y) so I seared and then cooked the whole thing for an hour, and then an additional ten minutes. But I would use this recipe again, and hopefully properly next time!
Ive just made this for the first time, and its my first time also to try this dish. So, I dont know if I did well or not. I used a cup of bbq sauce in a bottle (sweet and smoky flavour, bec we have one in the house and I dont want to waste it). The taste? Its great.^^ I cant wait to have it in a bun for lunch tomorrow. As for my husband who is not adventurous when it comes to food, he finds the taste strong. Therefore, Im feeling a little bit disappointed. Perhaps next time, Ill try to make it with your sauce recipe and Ill use only 2/3 cup of it instead of 1cup. Nonetheless, thank you for this recipe you shared with us. I will use this again in my next try. 😉
Can I make this with beef stew meat? My family is quite tired of stews, pot roasts & soups. They’re ready for a taste of summer!
Spring is finally here! I can’t wait to break out the grill! So I understand. Yes, you can use stew meat. The cook time will be about 30 minutes with a 10 minute natural release.
For the meat–I doubled all of the ingredients (except the oil), cut my partially frozen roast up, and cooked it for the recommended 60 minutes. I left it alone until the pressure plug came down on its own. The meat came out tender and ready to shred. I left the liquid in the instant pot and turned on the saute to let the liquid reduce. Then I added the reduced liquid to the meat. Thank you for a simple and delicious recipe!
I just just received my Insta pot for Christmas. I was not looking forward to learning how to use one more appliance but my daughter insisted I would love it! So, I selected this recipe since it had minimal steps,and very explicit instructions. I am glad I did! It was perfect the first time. And I absolutely love the BBQ sauce. I had plenty left over, So you could half the recipe, but I will use it elsewhere. Also, it was a bit on the sweet side so if you don’t like that you could probably reduce the sugar. All in all this will be a go to recipe for cooked beef. I can imagine many other recipes for this tasty beef. Thank you! My first Insta pot adventure was a success!
Hi Patricia, I’m so happy that this was a successful first recipe in your new Instant Pot! Thank you for your review!
Very good sauce. I used low sugar ketchup and Splenda and it was still good. I like that this recipe gave me every step in using the instant pot since I rarely use it. However don’t plan on it taking the time listed in the recipe. Plan on at least an hour and 40 minutes by the time you sautee each side of the beef and sautee the onions and let your pot get up to pressure.
Hi Joni, thank you for your comment, and I’m glad you liked this recipe!
Have you used a frozen roast for this recipe before? If I try it with frozen, what is your suggestion for extending the cooking time?
If you use a frozen roast that you are unable to cut in half, extend the cook time to 80 minutes. It really depends on how thick it is, and not the weight. But try 80 minutes, and see how that works.
I substituted pork for beef and it came out heavenly!!! If you have the time, make the bbq sauce recipe, it’s so delicious and so worth it!!! This is the first thing I made in my new Instant Pot so I wasnt sure how it would come out but it was perfect! The in-depth instructions really helped a newbie like me navigate this new gadget. Thank you for sharing:)
Awesome! Thanks for letting me know, and for your review!