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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
- Electric Pressure Cooker
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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If you don’t cook the rice in the IP do you still use all of the water and butter? Thank you in advance for your help!! Can’t wait to make!!
No, the water and butter are for the rice, except for the small amount of water (1/2 cup) in the recipe.
Made this tonight and it was amazing!! I tried making the rice in the instapot with the beef, but I’m new to this instapot thing. I used a metal bowl that may have been too tall or something because the rice was overdone. But that definitely didn’t ruin the dish, because the beef was soooo good! Thanks for a great recipe!
I’m glad you liked it, Lindsey. I think it’s worth another try in a more shallow dish. Maybe 2-3 inches.
We loved this, thanks so much for the recipe. I used a little less sugar and it was still plenty sweetened!
That’s great, Laura! Thank you for your review!
This is absolutely amazing!!!! Like top notch greatness.
Just made this with turkey and it was delicious! I didn’t expect it to be as good as beef, but I couldn’t tell the difference. Will definitely make this again! Thanks
Very easy recipe to follow, also new to the IP craze. I have the IP mini and used ground turkey which is sold in 1lb packages – cut down on the sugar to a bit less than 1/4 and upped the red pepper to a solid tsp but left everything about the same- removed the juice from the turkey after sautéing it but would probably reduce the water to 1/3 c as well as the sauce was a tad watery -though would have to make sure it got to pressure. Even a tad watery- super flavorful and I dumped this over cauliflower rice from trader joes I cooked over the stove while letting this cook. YUM. Will make again and for the mini tweak the liquids to try to get it saucier
This was really good.. I didn’t do the rice portion since I already had cooked rice made. Thanks for a yummy recipe!
That’s great, Sheila! Thank you for your review!
So you follow the same instructions if you are not making the rice?
Yes.
Hi, this looks great, but I have a mini, and I don’t like to have a lot of leftovers sitting around. How would I go about cutting this recipe down to about 2 servings, cook time and all? All the info on converting recipes from the large pot sizes to the mini are so confusing.
Thanks.
Hi CK, just cut the recipe in half, but keep the cook time the same.
Absolutely delicious! I used Trader Joe’s microwaveable jasmine rice (it’s good!) instead of cooking in the IP, ground turkey, and a little less of the red pepper flakes. The different brands at the store were labeled “crushed red pepper,” so I figured/hoped that’s the same as flakes in your recipe.The crushed does include seeds. Wonderful flavor, heated up beautifully, will be making it often. Thank you!
I have a bottle of bulgogi sauce I bought a while ago and since lost the recipe I was going to use it for. Been wondering what to do with it until I spotted the title of your recipe. I usually prefer to make the sauces from scratch but would like to use up this bottle. Which ingredients would it replace in your recipe?
Thanks.
Hi Leanne, not being familiar with this bottled sauce, I couldn’t say with any certainty which ingredients it will replace. I’m guessing it is meant to use alone, over the meat.
My family ate every morsel and told me to be sure and keep this recipe. I am still marveling that I could cook the rice and the beef at the same time and have it all come out perfectly. It’s amazing. I had a good deal of juice at the bottom of the pot and so I cooled it and added some cornstarch, put it back in the pot to thicken, returned the mee and heated everything in the “gravy”, and had a perfectly delectable moistened meat that I surrounded my beef with. Looked very fancy because the rice was cooked in a round bottom stainless pan that is usually a mixing bowl (I don’t have lots of accessories –yet) so I just flipped it over into a perfect dome of rice and surrounded the rice with the meat Wish I had thought to take a photo for you. Thanks so much!
Hi Gayle! That sounds wonderful! Thank you for letting me know. I am so glad you and your family liked this recipe!