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
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 looks yummy. Have you used cauliflower rice?
Do you cook this in the little pot that is removable or just directly on the bottom of the instant pot?
Always cook in the instant pot that is removable. I highly suggest before using your instant pot that you familiarize yourself with the manual 🙂
We tried making this tonight EXACTLY as the recipe states and it was ruined because everything burnt to the bottom… any suggestions?
My instant pot has a low medium high mode. I always saute in low mode.
Good Lord! Does anyone read their instruction manuals anymore? Who the heck is dumb enough to cook directly on the bottom of the Instant Pot? Even common sense tells you that’s NUTS!
That’s not what they meant!!
They meant do you insert a pan inside the pan.
Who’s dumb now??????
Made this for dinner last night and my family LOVED it! Such a quick and satisfying dinner anyone can pull off in no time.
A couple people have asked about cooking time if doubling the recipe. Im gonna ask also in hopes that someone has done this already and can give us some info.
I haven’t tried to double the recipe yet, so I don’t have an answer. If anyone does try it, I’d love to hear back how it worked!
Delicious!!!
I doubled the recipe and it took the same amount of cook and release time.
I did not drain the liquid from my lean ground beef and I added everything as directed. I was afraid of getting the burn notice but it didn’t happen. Whew!
I did not stir at all after cooking the ground beef, onions and peppers. I know a lot of recipes like this one say not to stir all the ingredients together. Just put them into the pot in the order as directed.
I will definitely be making this again regularly.
What if you don’t have an instant pot?
Such an easy meal to make and so flavorful too!
This sounds SO good and I love how easy it looks to make. What a great idea!
Oh my goodness! Comfort food perfection! Can’t wait to try this recipe!
There was not enough liquid and the burn light came on and then I add some water and the burn light cam on again . I ended up cooking on the stove. Very good recipe ingredient!
After browning meat in the Instant Pot you have to deglaze the pot with liquid and a wooden spoon, making sure not bits are stuck to the pot! Some pressure cookers are more sensitive than others.
What an amazing recipe! I am adding this to my dinner line up for the week; looks delicious!
We had this for dinner and it was delicious!!
What is jasmmin
how long to cook if doubling the recipe?
Our family loved it. Going to make chic fil a coleslaw to go with.
When reading your recipes they sound good but my husband is counting calories and trying hard to loose weight. It’s hard to know if it’s worth trying without calorie and portion info please consider including this in your posts.
I’m just starting to add it to new recipes and work my way backwards on old ones. You can use free online tools (like my fitness pal) to calculate it too 🙂