Easy Instant Pot Stuffed Peppers Cooked Meat

These easy Instant Pot stuffed peppers will be your favorite pressure cooker meal! Classic and easy stuffed green peppers with cheesy ground beef and rice. You can make with no rice too for a low carb keto option. Either way they’re packed with flavor and will bring you back to your childhood!

Ninja Foodi Stuffed Peppers

I have been making these for years in my oven but now you can make it as an easy Ninja Foodi recipe or in your Crockpot Express too. Any brand of pot will works, which we can verify because we’ve done it all the ways.

With my original stuffed green peppers you have to take an extra step to blanche them first in boiling water. NO need to do this in your pressure cooker though! What a time saver right? If you have your own favorite filling by all means use that but this technique to cut down the cooking time dramatically.

Instant Pot Stuffed Peppers

If you don’t have a handy dandy vegetable steamer we will show you where to get this one. It makes it easy peasy to make this and other vegetables in your Instant Pot, and has a nifty and safe way to pull it out when it’s done too! You will use it for all other types of veggies to steam in this thing too so not just for this one.

Normally you’d need to blanch bell peppers before continuing on but when you cook them in your pressure cooker you can skip this step! Not that it is hard to do but does take time and is hot on the fingertips too.

Now when it comes to choosing the color and/or shapes at the store there is a rhyme and reason to which I do. Now green will typically be the cheapest, the other colors are a bit sweeter. I don’t care so much about that but I like females which have 4 bumps on the bottom. Allows them to sit flatter and not fall over.

Instant Pot Stuffed Peppers No Rice

These will be your “bowls” if you will. The main three items are meat, rice and some kind of tomato based sauce. The easiest with the most flavor already in it is spaghetti sauce. That is what we use. This is the  Instant Pot vegetable steamer I was talking about! All 4 will fit perfectly inside a 6 qt. which is enough to feed our family.

The recipe I will share with you is enough filling for 8, so two batches, of stuffed bell peppers. You can use any color you like, I just buy a variety to make it more “fun” for the kids, or whichever look best at the store.

You can skip the rice and carbs all together if you’d like, we don’t. I think it is definitely best if you cook white rice first instead of adding it raw and hoping the liquid will fluff it.

Here they are cut and cleaned out inside my Instant Pot vegetable steamer.

Pressure cooker stuffed peppers

This is what I meant by the trick to lifting your steamer basket out safely and easily….this hook! This hook/rod comes inside the box with your steamer basket, and makes it SO much easier to lift, place on a plate, and serve…without needing an oven mitt. I am ALL about easy!

Instant Pot Stuffed Peppers with Cooked Meat

Even if you aren’t a huge fan of peppers they serve as a great “bowl” for cooking your mixture. In an electric pressure cooker they soften perfectly in just 10 minutes cooked on high pressure with a quick pressure release.

Full of cheesy rice, meat, and tomato sauce with a tender bell pepper “bowl”.  You can eat them during or after you’ve finished the filling. It is an entire meal wrapped up into one, just like our grilled stuffed peppers cooked outside.

• My kids love these because everyone gets their own! Since the peppers are steamed inside your pressure cooker they lose their bitterness and are so soft. You can literally cut them with the side of a fork.

This is a great recipe for families I tell you! If your kids aren’t so sure about the peppers at first give it time. Allow them to just eat the insides first and eventually have them “try just one bite”. It took a bit but now my girls love the whole thing!

How long can stuffed peppers sit out?

Once cooked the general rule is 2 hours at room temperature. Beyond that you should store leftovers in air tight containers in the refrigerator.

Here’s a quick step by step but there’s a printable recipe card at the bottom of this post too. Make rice at the beginning as this will take a bit of time. Set aside when done. In a pressure cooker turn your pot to saute so you can precook your ground beef and onions until the meat is no longer pink.

• Mix cooked meat, rice, seasonings and spaghetti sauce or diced tomatoes in a bowl.
• Slice tops off peppers and remove seeds from the inside.
• Add water into your Instant Pot and lower down vegetable steamer basket.
• Place peppers that have been cleaned out into basket with opening facing up.
• Add a bit of cheese into the bottoms, then fill with meat and rice mixture. Top with more cheese
• Lock the lid and seal steam valve to closed. Set cooking time to 10 minutes on high pressure. Do a quick release when done.

Carefully lift each one out and enjoy.