This Instant Pot Stuffed Pepper Casserole recipe is the perfect comfort food, and ready in under 30 minutes! Tender rice, ground beef, a thick tomato sauce and lots of cheese make family classic a favorite!
If you love easy Instant Pot recipes, you’ve got to try our Instant Pot Chicken Tacos. We make a batch EVERY WEEK! Or give our easy Instant Pot Rice pudding a try for dessert tonight!
Pressure Cooker Stuffed Peppers
Today’s Stuffed Pepper Casserole recipe is so easy!
We love using our pressure cooker for fast weeknight dinners. We’ve chosen some of my favorite childhood meals, like Instant Pot mac and cheese, and hamburger helper and transformed them into quick dinner classics.
Using the Instant Pot has many advantages:
- Brown your meat right in the instant pot so that you don’t have to dirty another dish!
- From start to finish this dinner was on the table in well under 30 minutes!
- And even grandma would approve of the flavor of this classic dish!
We’ve even made our favorite mississippi pot roast into a pressure cooker favorite. See how easy it is to make Instant Pot Mississippi pot roast in just a fraction of the time.
Important Ingredient Notes
- Ground beef- we prefer using a lean ground beef, such as a 90/10 for best flavor. Can also swap it out for ground chicken or ground turkey if preferred.
- Vegetables- Onion, Garlic, Green Pepper- the trifecta of flavor. Feel free to add or delete for your favorites.
- Beef Broth- not only adds important liquid to allow dinner to come to pressure, but is also used to scrape the bits of cooked meat from the bottom of the pressure cooker to avoid the burn notice.
- Jasmine Rice- by far this is our favorite rice to use in stuffed peppers. I don’t recommend using brown rice or long grain in today’s recipe.
How to make Stuffed Peppers in the Instant Pot
Brown the Meat:
- Select “saute or browning” on your pressure cooking pot to brown the ground beef and onion. Mine took about 5 minutes to brown 1 pound of ground beef.
- I drained the little bit of excess oil out of my instant pot, but that’s optional. If using ground turkey, you should be fine to continue to next step.
Add vegetables and rice:
- Add in your garlic, green peppers, diced tomatoes, tomato sauce, beef broth, rice (I used Jasmine rice), worcestershire sauce, salt, and pepper.
- Use a straight wooden spoon/spatula to scrape the bits of cooked meat from the bottom of the Instant Pot. This will prevent the burn notice. Take care to try to remove ALL cooked meat.
Natural and Quick Release: When time is up, use natural release for 10 minutes, then finish with a quick pressure release.
Add Toppings. Carefully open the lid and add your shredded cheese. I closed my lid again for a minute while I gathered everyone to the table. By the time we sat to eat, the cheese was melted and perfect! ENJOY.
Tips and Tricks
- We tested this recipe using a 6 quart Instant Pot.
- Feel free to use frozen green peppers and onion. Since we cook the vegetables to soften them, this is a great place to use frozen veggies.
- No need to cook the rice first, as it will cook during the pressure cooking process.
- Want to serve it in a pretty dish? I get it. Not everyone loves serving dinner from the pot. Transfer the cooked casserole to a serving dish BEFORE adding the cheese. Top with cheese and let it melt naturally (or place in oven to melt cheese).
- Store leftovers in refrigerator for up to 3 days. Reheat in microwave until warm.
More Dinner Recipes:
- Pork Chop Recipes
- Chicken Alfredo Recipe
- Orange Chicken
- Pot Roast Recipe
- Easy Beef Stroganoff Recipe
- Chicken Tetrazzini
- Pineapple Chicken Curry
- Homemade Sloppy Joes
- Instant Pot Ziti
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Instant Pot Stuffed Pepper Casserole Recipe
Ingredients
- 1 pound ground beef
- 1 small yellow onion diced (about 1/2 cup)
- 2 cloves garlic minced
- 2 green bell peppers diced
- 1 can diced tomatoes 14 oz (don't drain)
- 1 can tomato sauce 15 oz
- ⅔ cup beef broth
- ⅔ cup jasmine rice
- 1 Tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
- ½ teaspoon kosher salt
- ½ teaspoon black pepper
- 2 cups shredded Cheddar-Jack cheese
Instructions
- For the pressure cooker, select “browning/saute” to preheat the pot. Once hot, add the ground beef and onion and saute for about 5 minutes, stirring constantly until beef is browned. I drained out any extra fat/oil.
- Next, add the garlic and bell peppers, saute for 1 full minute.
- Add tomatoes, tomato sauce, beef broth, rice, Worcestershire sauce, salt, and pepper. Lock the lid in place. Select “High Pressure and 5 minutes cook time.
- Once the cook time ends, turn off the pressure cooker and use a natural release for ten minutes. Then finish with a quick pressure release and remove lid. Sprinkle the cheese on top, place lid back on, and let sit for a few minutes to allow cheese to melt.
- Serve and enjoy hot!
Notes
- We tested this recipe using a 6 quart Instant Pot.
- Feel free to use frozen green peppers and onion. Since we cook the vegetables to soften them, this is a great place to use frozen veggies.
- No need to cook the rice first, as it will cook during the pressure cooking process.
- Want to serve it in a pretty dish? I get it. Not everyone loves serving dinner from the pot. Transfer the cooked casserole to a serving dish BEFORE adding the cheese. Top with cheese and let it melt naturally (or place in oven to melt cheese).
- Store leftovers in refrigerator for up to 3 days. Reheat in microwave until warm.
- See blog post for more recipe tips and tricks.
Video
Nutrition
Recipe originally published June 24, 2018
Looking for a delicious, easy weeknight dinner idea? This Instant Pot Stuffed Pepper Casserole recipe is the perfect comfort food, and ready in under 30 minutes!
The rice is never cooked when I try this recipe. It tastes good otherwise, but I have tried adding more liquid, doing longer time and longer natural release, it is never cooked when I open it up. I spend an extra 10-15 minutes on sautee trying to cook the rice.
Excited to try this recipe! As far as the nutritional info…. how much is a serving? 1 cup, 1/2 cup…??? There is no basis for what a serving size is….. I only ask because I am very much trying to control my weight… so serving size is very important to me for judging caloric+ intake.
This was a huge hit! Everyone in my family loved it, even my very picky 17yo who went back for seconds and said, “This is good.” HIGH praise from him, believe me!!
Great and easy recipe! I made mine into a mexican style dish by replacing the tomato sauce with enchilada sauce, using Ro-Tel tomatoes with green chiles, and adding some cumin and chili powder instead of worchestershire sauce, and added a can of black beans as well. I only had brown rice so I had to pressure cook it longer to ensure the rice was fully cooked (15 min high pressure with 5 min natural release). This was a hit and looking forward to leftovers tomorrow for lunch!
Thanks for your great tips!
Delicious!!!! I cooked and sautéed the meat, garlic, and veggies in a skillet then put it in the instant pot just because that’s what I usually do (and I was teaching a kiddo). He could reach the stovetop easier that doing it in the instant pot on the counter.
Do you think I would have to change anything timing-wise if I doubled it?