Instant Pot Ground Beef and Rice

Instant Pot ground beef and rice is a hearty meal sometimes called dirty rice. Served as a side dish or dinner, it’s great with ground sausage too.

Pressure cooker dirty rice

You can change it up with the type of meat you use, whether you add bell peppers, and make it as spicy or mild as you’d like. I use what I have on hand at all times. Many times I just have an onion as far as vegetables go so I go with that.

It is on our list of favorite cheap Instant Pot recipes because it comes in at about $10 for the whole pot full!

What meat goes good with rice?

Well we make Instant Pot white rice with literally everything BUT it sure does go well with a pound of ground beef. 

• Once you’ve enjoyed this, I suggest you go on to make a few other Instant Pot ground beef recipes.
• We have so many you’d be able to make a new pressure cooker recipe each night for at least a month or longer.
  • Of course we do cook in our oven (very rarely) when it is our favorite “old school recipe” like ground beef casserole with potatoes too.

Can you use frozen hamburger to make ground beef and rice?

YES! I have forgotten to defrost the meat I needed that night quite a few times, so I explain here how to cook Instant Pot frozen ground beef. You’ll need to follow these steps first, and then proceed to step 1 below once that is done.

Can you marinade ground beef?

Well you could, but with all of the spices and other ingredients that go into this pressure cooker hamburger and rice recipe I don’t feel like you’d need to. 

Our Instant Pot Korean beef tastes like it has been marinated, but in fact it’s just the pressure pushing the flavors of the sauce into the meat while cooking. There really isn’t a need to soak in a bag beforehand if you are using an electric pressure cooker, the machine does it for you. 😉

• What to add to rice to make it taste better

Add ins for this dish include:

1. Diced bell peppers, any colors
2. Chopped onions
3. Finely diced green onions and/or chives
4. Minced garlic
5. Can of diced chiles

We keep it pretty simple but I wouldn’t hesitate to add all of the above if you wanted to really amp this dinner recipe up.

Instant Pot ground beef and rice

• Add a bit of olive oil + your lean ground beef (and chicken if you’re adding that), onions, and diced bell peppers if you’re adding those.
  • we have used ground spicy sausage before and it is probably our favorite choice of meat
  • ground turkey could be used too
• Saute until meat is no longer pink, then turn pot off and deglaze your pot with a bit of your chicken broth. (if you have a non stick pot this really isn’t that necessary)
• Sprinkle in all the seasonings you want and stir together.
• Pour remaining broth into pot and stir
• Then sprinkle your uncooked rice in but do NOT stir!
• Simply submerge it into the liquid below just a bit
• Close your lid and set steam valve to sealing position. Then hit your rice button
  • if you don’t have one, push high pressure for 12 minutes
• Allow for a 3 minute natural release, then turn venting position to open for a quick release
  • I turned the steam release quickly once and think it is better to allow it to sit for the 3 min for rice to get fluffier
• Fluff rice and serve!!

You can season with salt and pepper at the end if you feel like it needs it. It probably takes 30 minutes from start to finish because the cooking time is so quick.

Another variation would be to make a Instant Pot cheesy ground beef rice casserole by adding 1 cup of cheese at the end. Once this is done just stir in shredded cheese and set lid on again for 5 minutes so it can melt. Stir and serve!

Either way this is an easy recipe everyone in my house really loved. It is something I can throw together with some long grain white rice I always have on hand, and use whatever meat I defrosted the night before.

• Use it as a side dish or main meal some night and let us know what you think!
• Then try our Instant Pot sausage and rice recipe that uses links instead of ground meat.

Instant Pot dirty rice

1. Ground beef
   1. ground sausage or turkey work too
2. Beef or chicken broth
3. Onion
4. Bell pepper
5. Olive oil
6. Chicken can be diced and added too
7. White rice
   1. NOT instant variety
8. Garlic powder
9. Green onions
10. Onion powder is good too
11. Salt and pepper
12. Cajun seasoning can be used for heat and/or crushed red peppers

Then if you have more meat, make our easy tater tot casserole next!