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Instant Pot Korean Ground Beef is not only delicious, it is a quick meal This flavorful, versatileAsian ground beef recipe is made with ingredients you may already have! Cook your rice right along with this pressure cooker Korean Beef for a flavorful one-pot meal! One of my most popular Instant Pot ground beef recipes.
Originally published 5/8/18
Instant Pot Korean Ground Beef
When you get bored with what you have been making for dinner, and want something different to make with that ground beef you have, Instant Pot Korean Ground Beef is a great meal to make.
Do you want tacos? Make Asian tacos and wow the family! Want a rice bowl? The rice cooks at the same time as the beef, so there’s your one-pot-meal!
I love a fast and easy recipe that can be made into different tasty dishes. Any time you can cook more than one thing at a time in your pressure cooker, you save time.
I like to cook potatoes with my meatloaf and with chicken thighs. I cook rice with Mississippi Chicken, and rice with this Instant Pot Korean Ground Beef!
For this recipe I choose to use Jasmine rice as it has a faster cook time and works well with this fast cooking recipe. You can experiment with different varieties of rice, if you want, and see what works best for your taste.
Pressure Cooker Korean Ground Beef makes awesome tacos! Use flour tortillas and add a little rice and some of the beef mixture. A few veggies, cilantro, and some sour cream mixed with a little Gochujang (Korean hot pepper paste) will take this up a notch!
Typical Bulgogi is made with thinly sliced beef that you cook on a very hot grill, but ground beef is a fun shortcut, and it makes for an easy meal.
The other ingredient that sounds strange is an Asian Pear. Some call it an Apple Pear, or Nashi in Japan. We started getting these in Washington in the late 1970’s, in my neck of the woods. We love them. They are very crisp, yet not as dense as an apple. They have lots of juice.
Grate half of an Asian Pear into your sauce if you want to lean a little closer to the authentic Bulgogi. I didn’t use one for this recipe, but I wanted you to know that it’s really good with the Asian Pear.
That’s it! Cooking the rice with the beef makes it so easy! This pressure cooker Korean ground beef is ready to enjoy!
Maybe you want something lower carb, but still full of flavor. Try making this Korean Ground Beef into lettuce wraps. Satisfying and so tasty! You can probably tell I’m a big fan of Instant Pot Korean Ground Beef.
You can also make a Korean Rice Bowl. Add some veggies like radishes and cucumbers, for some crunch. Top with a soft fried egg for some creamy richness.
Instant Pot Korean Ground Beef
Equipment
Ingredients
- 2 teaspoons Vegetable Oil
- 1½ lbs Ground Beef or Ground Turkey, 90% lean is best
- 7 cloves Garlic (or 1 Tbsp pressed garlic)
- ⅓ cup Soy Sauce, low sodium
- ½ cup Water
- 3 Tablespoons Brown Sugar
- 1 Tablespoon Sesame Oil
- 1 Tablespoon Fresh Ginger, grated (or 1 tsp powdered ginger)
- ½ Asian Pear, grated (optional)
- ¾ teaspoon Red Pepper Flakes (or more for some spice)
- ½ teaspoon White Pepper (or black)
For the Rice - I use a 7" x 2.5" pan
- 1½ cups Jasmine Rice, well rinsed
- 1½ cups Water
- 2 Tablespoons Butter
To Serve
- Tortillas (for tacos)
- Lettuce Leaves (for lettuce wraps)
Garnish
- 2 Green Onions, sliced
- Sesame Seeds
Instructions
- Get all of your ingredients together and measured out. This will make the process go smoother. Also have the rice in the pan and ready to go.
- Turn on the pot's Sauté setting. When it is hot, add the oil, and then the ground beef. Cook beef until it loses the pink color. I use 90% lean beef, so I don't drain, but drain the excess fat if there is more than a few teaspoons.
- Add garlic, soy sauce, water, brown sugar, sesame oil, ginger, Asian pear (if using), red pepper flakes, and white pepper. Mix well, scraping the bottom of the pot to get up any browned bits so you don't get the Burn error.
- Cancel the Sauté setting.
- Set the trivet in the pot over the beef.
- Put the rice, water, and butter in the pan and set on top of the trivet.
- Close the lid and set the steam release knob to the Sealing position.
- Press the Pressure Cook/Manual button or dial and the +/- button or dial to select 4 minutes. High Pressure.
- When the cook cycle is finished, let the pot sit undisturbed for 10 minutes (10 minute Natural Release). Then turn the steam release knob to the Venting position and release the remaining pressure/steam.
- When the pin in the lid drops down, open the lid and use silicone mitts, a pan gripper, or such to carefully remove the pan of rice. Then fluff the rice with a fork.
- Remove the trivet and stir the beef.
- Serve over rice, or on lettuce leaves, in taco shells/tortillas, garnish, and enjoy!
Notes
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
Resources to Make Instant Pot Korean Ground Beef Recipe and More
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My family loves this! My boyfriend was skeptical at first because I always find wacky instapot recipes that turn out bad but this one won him over. He even requests it! I use ground turkey because of dietary restrictions and white rice because that’s what we prefer and it works perfectly every time! Even my super picky 3 year old loves it, he has declared his favorite food to be ‘meat’. Thank you so much!
That’s awesome, Lena! Thank you for letting me know. When you can feed everyone in the family with one recipe, it really is nice!
I made this with ground Turkey for a lighter option and it was fabulous! The whole family loved it and now it is a regular in our dinner rotation 🙂
That’s such a great substitution! We also eat ground turkey! Thank you for your nice review!
This was delicious! Both of my kids had seconds. And what a quick and easy meal!
Excellent! We are currently living in an efficiency while we wait for a new home to be constructed. The kitchen is literally 3′ x 3′ with 2 burners, a microwave, a toaster, and a small sink. I bought a 3qt IP. Earlier this week, I made your spaghetti in it – excellent! Tonight this. The only difference – I don’t have an insert pan for rice, so I used microwave rice. I cooked the full meat recipe and pressure cooked it for 3 minutes to let the flavors infuse.
Hi Sandy! How exciting that you will get a new home! I’m glad this recipe worked for you in your cute little kitchen space! Thanks for leaving a review!
This is Delicious!! I made this with stir fry beef and added some mirin as well. I just purchased an Instant Pot, and was a bit intimidated to cook in it. Your directions were very thorough and easy to follow Thank you for this recipe!
That’s great! Thank you for letting me know!
What kind of pot did you use for the rice? New to this IP world
I used a 7″ round stainless cake pan. Use something oven safe.
Hi… I have a larger group that I want to make just the beef for. If I double the recipe do I need to increase the cook time at all?
Also, I don’t normally stock low sodium soy sauce. Is it okay to use regular?
Thank you.
Hi Joy, no, don’t increase the cook time. I think regular soy sauce is fine.
Hi Sandy,
Thank you for your response. I used the regular soy sauce and ended up tripling the recipe. It came out awesome! I will definitely be making this again.
That’s great, Joy! I’m so glad you liked it! Thank you for letting me know!
Looks delicious! I wanna try it but was wondering go if I could make it from frozen ground beef? Just throw everything together?
If the beef is raw, and in a one pound block, it will need 20 minutes to cook on a trivet. Then discard some of the grease and make the recipe. You can try adding all of the ingredients, but I’m afraid will end up too greasy. Maybe if you use very lean ground beef?
I made this for dinner tonight and it was AMAZING! what a delightful meld of flavors. I got my IP in March and this is the best meal yet! Thank you
That’s great, Pam! I’m very happy you liked this recipe. Thank you for your review!
Hi Sandy, I live in an area where there is a large Korean population, and I often cook with gochujang. I’d like to know how to adapt this recipe to include it. I’m thinking maybe I’d leave out the brown sugar and cut down on the soy sauce. What do you think?
And another question. Can I really put the rack over the contents and a dish with rice on it? The rack seems very small. Is that just for the 6 qt model?
Hi Janet, I would just add 1 or 2 Tbsp of the gochujang into the recipe and cook it that way. It will be a stronger flavor, and spicier.
The trivet I use has tall legs, but you can just set the trivet on the meat, though the bottom of the pan will get messy. Here is the tall legged trivet I use (My affiliate link). Very cheap and so useful!
Great, thanks!
This is a great recipe! I did add 2 tablespoons of gochujang with the other ingredients so it was a little spicy but so flavorful! I only used about 1/4 tsp red pepper flakes. My tall trivet hasn’t come yet so I just used the trivet that came with the pot with a small round Pyrex bowl and the rice cup measurement of rice with equal water (I thought 1 1/2 cups of rice might be too much for the pot). The meat mixture came up the sides of the glass bowl a little but it didn’t seem to matter. I used basmati rice that I had rinsed. Perfectly cooked. Delicious! ?
Yum! That’s great, Janet!