As many of you may have noticed already from some of my facebook posts, I have been slightly obsessed with my Instant Pot that I got last month! We have made everything from chicken creakst to meatloaf and mashed potatoes in it! I am going to slowly start adding more of those recipes here, as I find more and more good ones!
The other day, as I was cruising Facebook, I saw a post in one of the IP groups that I follow for spaghetti and meatballs. I was intrigued as I had never done anything with pasta in my IP yet… and we are all spaghetti lovers in my house!
As most of you know, I normally would rather cook from scratch and not use processed ingredients, but sometimes you need a quick dinner option. I am also a true believer in the 80/20- rule. If you are eating clean and healthy 80% of the time, the other 20% can be the quick comfort foods, sweets and other indulgences. By taking a few minutes to read some labels and making some educated choices, meals like this can be ok!
Normally, I would rather make my own meatballs from scratch, but since the recipe I found was for FROZEN meatballs, and I was able to find gluten free meatballs at the store, I figured I would give it a try.
This could not have been any easier!
InstantPot Spaghetti and Meatballs
- 1 bag of your favorite frozen meatballs
- 3 cups water
- 14-18oz of your favorite pasta
- 1 jar of your favorite pasta sauce
Put your FROZEN meatballs in the bottom of your IP and cover with 3 cups of water. Layer pasta over the meatballs and then dump the jar of pasta sauce over the noodles. DO NOT MIX!
Close the lid and make sure the vent is closed! Set your pot to Pressure Cook for 6 minutes, and walk away! To stop the the noodles from over cooking, use the Quick Release.
Depending on how long it takes for your pot to come to pressure and actually start cooking, you could be enjoying your spaghetti and meatballs in about 15 minutes!
Few notes:
The Gluten Free pasta that I used was a bit under done after 6 minutes. If this happens for you, you can always cover your pot back up and leave it on keep warm for a few minutes. After you do the quick release, your pot will still stay warm for a bit so your pasta will keep cooking.
Once you mix up your pasta and sauce, feel free to add a little extra sauce if you need more! It’s all personal preference!
I’m not sure how this recipe would turn out with regular spaghetti noodles. My fear is that they pasta would end up way over cooked! Feel free to experiment with pasta though and let me know!
Now, time to find the next IP adventure! Suggestions on what else I should try??
