Easy Instant Pot Corned Beef and Cabbage

Easy Instant Pot corned beef and cabbage and potatoes recipe for St. Patrick’s Day or year round! Moist and tender corned beef brisket cooked in your pressure cooker is simple with potato trivets. Fresh or Instant Pot frozen corned beef is great!

Instant Pot Corned Beef and Cabbage Recipe

We don’t do a lot to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day, but I will say one thing I enjoy is this traditional dinner! It isn’t just for the holidays, and it isn’t just made in the oven anymore. You can use these instructions for the Ninja Foodi pot too.

This one explains how to get this cut nice and tender starting from fresh or defrosted. If you have had a forgetful moment I get it. That is why I also wrote instructions above if it is still rock hard.

Like I said, we’ve made this dish for years but in the past stuck with this slow cooker corned beef brisket recipe which is fantastic, but really does take all day to make.

Ingredients

1. Corned beef brisket – ours was 3 lbs. Plus pickling spice seasoning packet that comes in bag
2. Cooking liquid – beer is by far our favorite choice for that
3. 2 large potatoes – or a trivet can be used but it’s not as tasty. Use 2 large russet or 4 medium size red potatoes for this so meat lays flat on top
4. Head of cabbage, but just the outside larger leaves will be used unless diced to make our pressure cooker fried cabbage
5. 1 onion quartered, optional

Equipment Used

You see most people use a trivet when making cooking corned beef and cabbage in a pressure cooker but you are really missing out if you do it that way. I like using a few large potatoes cut in half instead because then they soak up all the drippings of the meat as well as the liquid you use to cook / “steam” it. Your multicooker is needed too

Variations

You can add thick slices of onions and/or large chunks of peeled carrots at the end with the cabbage leaves. This is optional but if you want to add more vegetables this is a great option.

Cooking corned beef and cabbage used to take about 8 hours. Now it’s closer to 1 1/2 hours! It is sure nice to know that if I had a hectic morning and forgot to throw it in that I can still save dinner. I wouldn’t want to bypass this fun day of the year.

Frequently Asked Questions

If you’ve never made a corned beef brisket it is not hard. You really should pick one up at the store. I choose a smaller piece (2-3 lbs). It will come with a little packet of spices like you see here on the top.

If yours doesn’t come with it here’s how to make corned beef spices. Overall it is a rather inexpensive and healthy meal too.  Watch the video in this post so you can see how I make it and how I make edible trivets using potatoes that taste amazing when they’re done!

Here are quick instructions. We have exact ingredients and step by steps below in the printable recipe card at the bottom of this post.

How to Make Instant Pot Corned Beef and Cabbage with Potatoes

1. Cut baking potatoes in half
2. Place at bottom of your Instant Pot or pressure cooker with the cut side down. (could use 4 red potatoes to and use those as trivets)
3. Set corned beef brisket on top of the potatoes. We will use these as our trivet. Make sure it’s flat so it doesn’t fall over.
4. Pour in your beer, beef broth or water on top. Sprinkle corned beef seasoning packet on top of meat and close lid and steam valve.
5. Set to high pressure for 90 minutes cooking time. (timing good for a 3 lb piece)
6. Do a natural release for 10 minutes, then let rest of steam out.
7. Open lid and remove meat, set aside covered with foil.
8. Quarter your onion and put into pot with liquid.
9. Add the largest cabbage leaves.
10. Place on top of potatoes the carrots and cabbage leaves (or omit carrots).
11. If you test potatoes and don’t want them softened further then remove them at this time and put cabbage in liquid with onions.
12. Put lid on, close steam valve, cook on high pressure for 3 minutes.
13. Do a quick release, cut meat, and serve vegetables on the side.
14. You should definitely make our mustard sauce for corned beef too. Brush it on top of the brisket and then have on the table. Then everyone can put more on each bite.

Pour some broth inside pot on top of everything when serving. When everything is done slice. Serve with some potato from the pot, onion, and cabbage. It is fork tender I tell you!

I kid you not everyone will fight over the potatoes once they taste them. They’re incredible! If you need a Crockpot Express or Ninja Foodi corned beef and cabbage recipe the directions below will work fine. Just set to pressure high.

Does cooked corned beef freeze well?

An uncooked corned beef brisket can be frozen if it is drained and well wrapped in tinfoil and then inside a freezer bag. Keep in mind that salt encourages rancidity and the texture will change, but it is still safe to eat after being frozen

After cooking, store your leftover corned beef for up to 3 to 4 days in the refrigerator. You can also freeze cooked beef 2 to 3 months

Leftover recipes

I tend to make a batch of Ninja Foodi cabbage or some air fryer cabbage wedges with the leftovers, or make one of the recipes below.

• We have a lot of different leftover corned beef recipes here to look over.
• Of course you can make Reuben sandwiches with some Swiss cheese, sauerkraut, and Russian dressing. Grill it between 2 slices of rye bread.
• Our corned beef soup is more like a chowder and comes out so good you could really add any type of meat to it.

You can make dutch oven corned beef and cabbage too if you’d like to try a different method each year!

I feel like you can add more vegetables to this version. It takes much longer of course but the meat comes out just as tender and the potatoes, carrots and onions are beyond amazing.

The nutritional information is included here as well, the calories, saturated fat, etc. are calculated by the recipe card itself. Like I said, you can use this for any brand of pressure cooker or Ninja Foodi.

Keep in mind that beyond the 85 minutes to 90 min. it takes a bit to reach pressure. Overall I would leave 2 hours to have this finished to perfection and ready to serve.