Instant Pot Korean Ground Beef

Instant Pot Korean ground beef with gochujang has a sweet and savory sauce we love to serve over rice in bowls. A cheap Instant Pot ground beef recipe even your kids will love with homemade sauce with tons of flavor with hamburger meat.

Easy Korean beef with hamburger is wonderful y’all! Why? Well we’re all about family friendly meals kids will love and this is on the top of my girls’ list of favorite Instant Pot recipes.

You see, we buy half a cow at the beginning of each year from a farmer so we have a lot! You too can buy meat online in bulk if you want. Just search local farmers in your area, or butcher shops and you’ll likely find a few that will sell you a quarter, half or the whole thing. Saves money and you get really great quality meats this way.

Ninja Foodi Korean Ground Beef

We make a lot of easy beef recipes here on The Typical Mom blog. We do a lot of them in our IP, Crockpot Express and Ninja Foodi recipes. All of them work the same as far as having the necessary saute and high pressure functions so the brand name doesn’t matter.

Traditionally it was made with beef short ribs marinated in a sauce that may contain soy sauce, water, garlic, sugar and sliced onions. You can make a slow cooker Korean beef version using chuck roast too. Have kids though who will only eat the ground kind? I did too so I tweaked it to be made this way.

BUT, I always like to tweak things a bit. Just like with our Instant Pot ground beef stroganoff that uses ground beef instead of stew meat, you never know which you’ll like better until you try it. Using this allows us to add this pressure cooker recipe to our list of cheap Instant Pot recipes too.

Ingredient Notes

I do highly recommend getting a non stick pot though, makes everything easier. Lean ground beef, my preference is to not drain the grease. It adds flavor to the dish but that step is up to you. Drain if you feel you must.

If you’d rather use chicken, follow our Instant Pot Korean chicken recipe instead. It is one of my youngest daughter’s favorite meal and made with a similar sauce. Thighs work best because they have so much flavor and become so tender under high pressure.

Sauce Ingredients

Then add all of your other ingredients including: Soy sauce creates a deep salty flavor, Beef broth is better than water to deepen the flavors. Minced ginger and garlic are a must for the flavor profile. Sesame oil adds to the traditional flavor, olive oil would work too but won’t add that umami. Brown sugar will give the dish sweetness you would expect

How do you make this spicy?

Gochujang or ed pepper flakes are optional for heat, more or less depending on if you want it spicy or not. If you don’t have that there are other substitutions like Sriracha, chili powder or tobasco.

How Long to Cook Korean Ground Beef in Instant Pot

You will want to set to saute and cook ground beef to brown with your onions for a few minutes first. Then with the sauce you cook for 3 minutes so in total it would be about 10 minutes which doesn’t include timing it takes to reach pressure though.

How to Thicken the Sauce

I don’t feel like there’s a need to thicken the sauce with any corn starch like a few other dishes we make often. Left to sit for 10 minutes or so the sauce will continue to soak into the meat and thicken on it’s own.

If you like to use this type of meat in tacos, so do we. It can get boring though with the same spices and seasonings so this can change it up a lot. Instead of lettuce and tomato on top, use cabbage salad and sliced avocado instead. They are high protein meals with tons of flavor.

Can you make this with rice?

Here’s an optional version if you want to cook the Ninja foodi rice pot in pot at the same time. If you want to make it this way you’ll add a trivet with a pan on top to put your uncooked rice and water into. Cook time of 3 minutes will remain the same, just the natural release time will be doubled from 5 minutes to 10.

Of course you can cook the rice separately, that is why I include both sets of directions in the recipe card below. I do have a few different pots so many times I will make a batch of fluffy brown rice in one and this in another. When done I store what is left and throw the pots into the dishwasher. Easy cleanup!

Typically we always serve this 30 minute Instant Pot dinner with rice, brown rice would work too. Beyond that here are a few ideas:

FAQ

More ground beef recipes in Instant Pot you’ll love

Our Instant Pot sloppy joes style are always a favorite and so very easy to throw together on busy nights. Instant Pot chili recipe can use both hamburger and ground sausage. Mixing the two makes this over the top inside Ninja Foodi baked potatoes. Instant Pot chili mac style is a second favorite one pot meal with everything cooked together. You can make a bowl of Korean oxtail soup with another meat too.