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! 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!
Table of Contents
Why This Recipe is Best
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
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!
This tasted really good but I had to keep on adding time. I tried cooking for 5 min on high and then NR for 10 and the rice wasn’t cooked. I added 3 min on high probably 3 or 4 more times before the rice was cooked. Did I miss something? Was the rice supposed to be cooked already?
Did you use Jasmine rice? Brown rice would take much longer, but the 5 inutes, plus natural release is perfect for Jasmine.
Deff wish I’d read the reviews about not mixing the rice. Mine burned multiple times. What should’ve been a. Single run ended up being three on pressure cooker and last time on low rice button to finish cooking the rice. Not much flavor and probably won’t be making this again unfortunately.
Made this tonight and it was easy AND delicious! It does have quite a bit of liquid, I’m going to try just under a full cup of rice next time. This is definitely going into our meal rotation.
This was so delicious. Made this exactly as written and it was so easy and fast. I will be adding this to my meal plans. Thank you for sure a great recipe.
Could you print this recipe for those of us who do not have an instapot? Thanks
I’m not sure what you’re asking for here?
Great recipe….the addition of parmesan (1/4 cup) and some dried parley before the cheddar was a modification but loved the recipe. Would rather chop and stuff! Thank you.
This was out standing.This is a keeper and so easy to make..I served ours with a slice of baguette bread…Thank you so much for this tastey recipe.😋😋
So glad you enjoyed the recipe!
Made this tonight and with the beef broth and tomato sauce, it seemed more like a soup. It was tasty though. I had no problems with the burn notice. I didn’t stir the rice. I just made sure it was underneath the beef broth.
Family fav, for Christmas I put my pot away , today was reminded that we haven’t had it in a while so tonight unstuffed peppers in my instapot 🙂 <3
Is the rice supposed to be precooked?
Nope.
Should have read comments. Looked to see wether to stir the rice or not. Would be nice to add it to your instructions. Thanks I stirred and the bottom of my pot burned. 😞
I have no issues when I stir?! I’m sorry this happened to you.
This recipe is sooo good!! I give it 100%!!! Definitely a keeper.
My whole family absolutely loved it! Including my 1 year old and very lucky 3 year old! I will definitely make this again. Thank you!
A lot of people in the comments are getting a “burn” message and the key to avoiding that is to NOT stir the rice. When you stir rice (or pasta) dishes in an Instant Pot, some of the rice gets on the bottom of the pot and burns. You want the rice to stay on top. I just pat it down so it’s still under the liquid and cooks properly. Hope that helps!
I wish I read this before I started!
I love this recipe, problem is I cant make it without ever getting a burn notice. I even add in extra beef broth in the beginning to try and avoid it. But its like inevitable. Do you have any advice? Thanks 🙂
Make sure after browning the meat, you add the broth and scrape up all the browned bits that are stuck to the bottom of the pot.
Can you do this using brown rice?
Agh.. Keep getting a burn notice. The uncooked rice is causing this.
Can’t have tomato seeds, any suggestions for the can of tomatoes. Maybe another can of tomato sauce.
Trying to make this now and it keeps burning and not coming to pressure. Not sure what is going on. Followed the recipe exactly. Maybe I shouldn’t have stirred beforenoutting the lid on.
What is your recommended cook time if using brown rice in this recipe?