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Instant Pot Spaghetti and Meatballs is a one-pot meal that is so easy to make! If you have some frozen meatballs and sauce on hand, this pressure cooker spaghetti and meatballs recipe will be ready in under an hour! It is delicious, easy, and no need to boil the pasta separately.
Instant Pot Spaghetti and Meatballs
Making pasta dishes in the Instant Pot is not something most people would think of doing, but it’s really great! No pot of boiling water or draining to deal with. The noodles get a chance to soak up the flavors of the sauce. Dinner ready in under an hour!
When making Instant Pot Spaghetti and Meatballs, just remember to layer the ingredients in the pot and don’t stir it until after pressure cooking. This helps keep things from sticking, and ensures that the noodles get cooked.
Here is how to make Instant Pot Spaghetti and Meatballs:
If you prefer your spaghetti with meat sauce, check out my recipe here. You cook the meat in the pot and add the rest of the ingredients in layers like this recipe, before pressure cooking.
You don’t have to use spaghetti noodles in this recipe. If you prefer penne, macaroni, or even shells, that’s fine. You may need to adjust the pressure cook time for the type of noodles you choose.
The rule of thumb for pressure cooking pasta is half of the recommended time on the package. So if the package directions calls for 9 minutes, you will cook for 4 or 5 minutes in the pressure cooker.
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Instant Pot Spaghetti and Meatballs
Ingredients
- 1 lb Meatballs, raw, cooked, or frozen
- 12 oz Spaghetti Noodles
- 1 (14 oz) can Diced Tomatoes (optional), drained
- 1 (24 oz) jar Spaghetti Sauce (or marinara sauce plus Italian seasoning)
- 3 cups Water (fill the 24 oz jar once) or use broth
Garnishes
- Grated Parmesan Cheese
- Shredded Mozzarella Cheese
- Parsley or Basil
Instructions
- Put meatballs in the bottom of the inner liner pot.
- Break the spaghetti in half and sprinkle over meatballs in a random pattern, so not too many are side by side. This helps prevent them sticking together.
- Pour the water/broth over the noodles.
- Pour the diced tomatoes, if using over the noodles, and then the spaghetti sauce over the noodles, and cover as much of them as you can with the sauce. This helps them all get cooked.
- Put on the lid and set the steam release knob to the Sealing position.
- Press the Pressure Cook (Manual) button or dial and then the +/- button or dial to select 9 minutes (7 minutes for al dente). High pressure.
- The pot will take several minutes to come to pressure. Cook time begins when pot is at pressure.
- After cook time has finished, turn off the pot and turn the steam release knob to the Venting position, and do a Quick Release of the steam so the pasta doesn't overcook.Watch it closely, and if sauce starts to spew out with the steam, close the vent and release the steam in bursts until it looks like no more sauce will be spewing out.
- After the pin in the lid drops down, open the lid and give the spaghetti a stir. If any noodles stuck together, just use a fork to separate them.
- Serve with some bread, and garnish with parmesan cheese, mozzarella, or whatever you like!
Notes
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
Resources to make Instant Pot Spaghetti and Meatballs recipe and more
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Lovely recipe, used Swedish meatballs, wholewheat pasta, needed 10 mins and I would use a bit of chilli next time. Overall a great mid week go to . Thank you.
It’s not a bad recipe but I found it bland for my liking. I used chicken broth instead of water and added Italian seasoning, salt, pepper, onion and garlic powder for flavour. I love that the pasta doesn’t stick and the sauce doesn’t burn to the bottom like other recipes I’ve tried.
Maybe your pasta sauce isn’t very flavorful? Start with that. Add more seasoning.
Just received my IP. Made this, 1st recipe. Very good and easy. Added the drained can tomatoes, 8 oz can garlic flavored tomato sauce, dried onion flakes. After it was cooked added 1 Tbls brown sugar and stirred. Really liked recipe. Husband enjoyed it. Said the only thing missing was garlic bread!
This is the best recipe! My kids and husband love this recipe. I use chicken broth instead of water and I have used all sorts of noodles (spaghetti, angel hair, rigatoni) and all have turned out great. This is in my regular rotation!
I love this recipe so much! I make it at least once a month. The only thing I do differently is add some red wine in place of some of the water! Thank you for posting this. I don’t think I’ll ever make it on a stovetop again!
Love this recipe with few few modifications. 1 lb wheat pasta, 1.5 lbs meatballs, 3 cups beef broth in lieu of water, no diced tomatoes (if decide to use reduce the amount of broth) and cook for 11 mins.
Can you use a 3 quart instant pot for this recipe?
It might be too small with the meatballs, but you should be able to cut it in half. See this recipe: Instant Pot Mini – Spaghetti
Amazing!!! It’s 100 degrees today so I was not cooking ground meat to put in spaghetti. This recipe is amazing. I’m glad it’s a tiny bit soupy because I know it will make amazing leftovers. Thank you!
Hello! This looks great! Just wondering if it makes a huge difference if the meatballs are frozen vs thawed…? If they’re frozen, do they heat up completely?
I almost always use frozen. Just takes longer to come to pressure.
This turned out great! I was nervous since my pasta was all out of the liquid on my 8qt IP, but 9 minutes and she was perfect! I used frozen meatballs and stock/liquid from can of fire roasted tomatoes. Took about 45 mins total from starting the pot to all pressure releasing. Def a keeper recipe!
This is a go-to recipe for me. I love that I can throw everything into one pot (including frozen meatballs!), set the timer and walk away. The only modification I have made is I use some red wine instead of water. It tastes best to me using ALL wine, but 2/3 of the liquid and the rest water makes the spaghetti a little less purple. Also, if you can find Boticelli pasta sauce, its THE BEST!
Spaghetti and meatballs doesn’t get any easier than this!!!
I made this “as is” with frozen meatballs *except* the pasta I used was whole wheat spaghettini. Because spaghettini is thinner than spaghetti I reduced the cook time to “0:00” (yes, zero minutes) with a quick release. The pasta was perfectly al dente. 😋
High pressure.
This was my first attempt after reading several recipes. I followed this recipe and found it super easy! I did not use the tomatoes. Used 3 cups of beef broth and 24 oz jar of spaghetti sauce, frozen meatballs and about 12 oz regular spaghetti. 9 minutes. Was so nervous but when I opened the lid….it was perfect!! Whole family raved about it! This is now our only way to make spaghetti!! Thank you!!