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 in your pressure cooker or as an easy Ninja Foodi recipe.
We made this Instant Pot ground beef and rice the other night and boy was it good! The next week we made it with ground sausage and once again this pressure cooker recipe was a hit. Enjoy this and then try a few other easy InstaPot recipes here. (affiliate links present)
Ninja Foodi Ground Beef and Rice
Yes it sounds quite simple, but it may become your new family favorite meal too. You can use long grain or Jasmine rice in Instant Pot to make this. Use what you like.
Easy is our thang I tell you. Some protein, rice, and you could even throw in some frozen mixed veggies if you wanted. Done. You can use any brand of pressure cooker at home like a Crockpot Express or Ninja Foodi will work the same as an IP.
Jump to:
- Ninja Foodi Ground Beef and Rice
- Pressure Cooker Dirty Rice Recipe
- What meat goes good with rice?
- Can you use frozen hamburger to make ground beef and rice?
- Can you marinade ground beef?
- What to add to rice to make it taste better
- How to Make Instant Pot Ground Beef and Rice
- Can you cook rice and meat in an Instant Pot at the same time?
- Instant Pot Dirty Rice Ingredients
If you are new to pressure cooking we have a lot of easy one pot meal recipes for you here. To begin with let’s start with a few basic tips:
- Make sure to Bookmark our InstaPot recipes page. We add new ones each week!
- Then PRINT this —–> Instant Pot cooking times cheat sheet that will help you understand how long meat, vegetables and beans take to cook in your pressure cooker.
- I HIGHLY recommend you buy this non stick pot.
- You should know how to deglaze a pressure cooker after sautéing but it won’t have as many issues with this better liner.
For reference, this is the model I have (a 6 quart) and use for all recipe creations.
Pressure Cooker Dirty Rice Recipe
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 mixed in there to make it more of a meal than side dish.
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.
What to add to rice to make it taste better
- Diced bell peppers, any colors
- Chopped onions
- Finely diced green onions and/or chives
- Minced garlic
- 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 pressure cooker dinner recipe up.
How to Make Instant Pot Ground Beef and Rice
- Add a bit of olive oil + your lean ground beef, onions, and diced bell peppers. 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.
- 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 with your cooked meat 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
- Fluff rice and serve!!
You could use the leftovers next day to make ground beef egg rolls too.
Can you cook rice and meat in an Instant Pot at the same time?
Yes!! We will show you how to add grains after you have browned the meat using the saute function here in this recipe. The biggest tip to remember is that you should not stir rice in, just submerge. 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.
Other Easy Instant Pot Hamburger Recipes You’ll Love
We make a lot of these since hamburger meat is so easy to find and pretty inexpensive too. Once you’ve enjoyed this one, I suggest you go on to make a few other Instant Pot ground beef recipes too.
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!
- 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 Ingredients
- Ground beef, ground sausage or turkey work too
- Beef broth or chicken broth
- Onions diced are nice
- Bell peppers diced we like
- Olive oil to saute the meat to brown
- Chicken can be diced and added too
- Uncooked white rice, NOT instant variety
- Garlic powder we like
- Green onions are optional
- Onion powder is good too
- Salt and pepper
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! Printable recipe card is below.
Instant Pot Ground Beef and Rice
Equipment
- 1 pressure cooker
Ingredients
- 1 lb ground beef, or spicy ground sausage is amazing
- 1/2 c chicken, optional add in – boneless, skinless, diced
- 1 onion, diced
- 1/2 c bell pepper, diced
- 1/3 c green onions, diced
- 3 c beef broth, or chicken broth
- 1 tsp garlic powder
- 1/2 tsp crushed red pepper
- 1/4 tsp pepper
- 2 c white rice, long grain, uncooked
- 1 tbsp cajun seasoning, optional
Instructions
- Turn pot to saute, add ground beef, chicken, onions, bell peppers and green onions. Cook until meat is no longer pink. Then turn off and deglaze the pot with a bit of your broth.
- Add rest of broth and seasonings and stir. Sprinkle in rice and gently submerge into liquid but do NOT stir.
- Close lid and steam valve, set to high pressure for 12 minutes, or just press the rice button if you have one.
- Allow to naturally release steam for 3 minutes. Do a quick release when done.
- Fluff rice and serve.
Video
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
This was very good and very easy. I followed the recipe except using creole seasoning. I use kinder’s Cuban blend spice and garlic powder. I also use Aborito rice. Came out very good.
so glad
Are you draining the meat and adding back after rice cooks?
No you don’t remove. Follow instructions as is, saute until no longer pink, scrape bottom of pot, then add other ingredients with the cooked meat……
@The Typical Mom, turned out perfect…thanks for a super easy recipe and quick response!
so glad
I just made this tonight. I used hot breakfast sausage, used a whole onion, and bell pepper but didn’t have any green onions to add, added a hot jalapeno, skipped the red pepper, and didn’t use quite as much creole as the recipe (the jalapeno was hot), and cooked it on the stovetop (instapot was being used to cook chicken lol) oh and I didn’t add the chicken. When it was done, we topped it our bowls with cheddar cheese. OMG, this recipe is most defiantly a keeper.
Yeah, and we love sausage instead of beef sometimes too
Delicious! Wow! I added minced garlic, about a quarter cup of diced tomatoes, added more bell peppers because I didn’t have green onions. Subbed a tablespoon of taco seasoning for the Cajun because I was worried about the spice level for kids. I sprinkled a tiny bit in of Cajun though. Heads up to parents of small kids- it came out a tad spicy so I would totally leave out the red chili flakes! Going to have my second bowl now!!
Glad it was a hit
Exactly the recipe I was searching for! This was perfect to quickly use up a lb of ground beef and wilting baby bells. The changes I made: no green onions so used a medium red onion, added: minced fresh garlic, two med zucchinis (large cubes), one undrained can of Rotel Mild Tomatoes, and subbed Tony C Creole Seasoning for the other spices. As recommended, I sprinkled in the rice last and just covered with beef broth (~3 cups). DELICIOUS! Will definitely make again. Thanks!
OH good!!
I just made this and it came out delicious. Used sausage, onions and garlic, one frying pepper and Trader Joe’s sofrito seasoning. Also only used 2 cups of chicken broth and poured 1 can of fire roasted diced tomatoes on top which added extra moisture. I set the instant pot on the rice setting which was 12 minutes at low pressure. Was hoping that was ok and it was fine. Left for about 10 minutes to natural release. Thanks for the recipe!
Glad it was a hit
I made this for a dinner party and it was a huge hit! I did green pepper and feel I could even throw in a few carrots or zucchini next time too. Great recipe!
Fabulous! I used an entire bunch of green onions and one whole red pepper, just the ground beef but topped with cooked, chopped bacon…..truly amazing! Great recipe.
Glad you loved it
Yummy!!! I make this recipe about once a month, and I follow the instructions/ratios- except I leave out the onion.
Awesome
Is there an error in the recipe? My daughter slaved away making thing and the rice didn’t cook. Then I tried to salvage it and added two more cups of liquid and re cook and now it’s burning. Should it really be two cups of broth to 2 cups of rice…most ratios are double liquid to rice. Please help, thank you.
There isn’t an error. You may not have submerged your rice at the very top. We make this quite often using the amounts above and there has never been an issue.
@The Typical Mom, I’ve found brown or wholemeal rice usually needs more water, I wonder if that’s what’s going on :\
Yes brown is very different than white rice, timing is much longer and needs more water. Need to use what is listed for timing below.
@The Typical Mom, my apologies for butting in, but unfortunately, per her comment, Cristine Bond’s daughter misread your instructions, instead of using 3 cups of broth, apparently she only used 2. We’ve all done that…lol