3 Ingredient Instant Pot Penne Pasta

How to make Instant Pot penne pasta spaghetti with ground beef or plain with butter, either way it is an easy one pot meal everyone loves. Use your Ninja Foodi or Crockpot Express pressure cooker too, any brand works.

Pasta in Instant Pot

You don’t have to have this brand of pressure cooker either y’all. If you swear by your Ninja Foodi or Crockpot Express I got you. They will work the same way using the high pressure function for either of these creations. This is very similar to our Ninja Foodi spaghetti but with smaller noodles which kids love.

This works great if you have leftover beef or sausage left over that you don’t want to throw away. I do that a lot when making Instant Pot spaghetti. No sauteeing necessary in that case since they’re precooked, just throw that in. You could make it meatless too. It’s basically a 3 ingredient penne pasta as the base, not counting water.

Ninja Foodi Penne Pasta

Yes I have a lot of Instant Pot ground beef recipes on my site. That is because it is the one meat all 5 of us enjoy. Yes we eat a lot of chicken too but it just isn’t as popular. I like having dishes where I can add meat at times to serve right out of the pot, and still make it as a vegetarian option too.

This is one of those. You can omit the protein and have a vegetarian spaghetti recipe of sorts. Sprinkle on parmesan cheese or leave dairy free (like my husband needs) when done.

Serve with veggies as an easy side dish and you’re ready to serve. Here’s what we used;

1. Ground beef or half beef and half spicy ground sausage is great too
   1. if it’s already cooked you could skip step one below
2. Pasta noodles, small in size
3. Water or broth
4. Spaghetti sauce bottled or homemade
5. Salt and pepper to season
6. Diced onions and/or garlic is great to add

Parmesan can be added at the end on the top. If you want the more basic recipe you’d just need water, noodles and butter.

After making the first few Instant Pot pasta recipes at home I was totally hooked. To be able to cook noodles, vegetables and even a protein together in one pot made we were able to eat dinner together as a family more often. Made me cook healthier too, and cleaning became a breeze.

Package up any leftovers and then I just throw the pot into my dishwasher to do all the scrubbing. Easy peasy. Same goes for using rice for the carb instead.

Once I got the hang of how much liquid I needed I was able to cook all the things together. If you wanted a sort of version of this using grains instead, give our Instant Pot ground beef and rice too.

Penne Pasta Spaghetti

When it comes to what shape you use it really doesn’t matter but should be about the same size. Squiggly shapes, medium size shells or penne are all about the same cook time. Using macaroni noodles I wouldn’t adjust the timing either though. I like those in more tomato based recipes like Instant Pot chili mac or something like that.

If you are making the heartier version listed below with meat, remember that it will continue to thicken as it sits. Also, when you are done cooking anything remember to unplug your pot.

It will remain on warm if you don’t and will likely make your food stick to the bottom if it just sits there inside.

Instant Pot Penne Pasta with Jar Sauce

• Set pressure cooker to saute and add olive oil. Add ground beef and break up, include diced onions + garlic and cook until meat is no longer pink on the outside. Then turn pot off. Use wood spatula to scrape any stuck on meat off bottom.
• Pour in marinara sauce and water or broth. Pour your pasta noodles (uncooked) on the top and gently submerge into the liquid below. Do NOT stir or it may burn.
• Seal lid and steam valve and cook on high pressure for just 6 minutes. Then do a quick release, lift lid and stir. Serve with shredded parmesan on top.

In between servings set the lid on again and just let the contents sit and soak in the sauce. It will thicken as it sits.

Instant Pot Butter Noodles

To make butter noodles in pressure cooker without meat or cheese follow our pressure cooker butter noodles follow the directions in the recipe card in this post. For that you will need.

• 3 cups smaller types of pasta like shells or small penne. Egg noodles work too but just remember they will become much softer than others when pressure cooking them.
• 5 cups of water or broth
• Olive oil so the cooked pasta doesn’t stick together when cooking
• Salt and pepper to season
• We just add butter to these but after done you could add your jar of pasta sauce if you didn’t want to cook it together like we share here.
• You just cook for 2 minutes on high pressure with a quick release, super simple.

For more heat try our Instant Pot Mexican casserole with the same sort of noodles if you like, bow tie is fun too.

Ninja Foodi Butter Noodles

If you use this pot with the air fryer function too you could melt another layer of cheese on top and brown it nicely. Either way a quick and easy meal everyone loves.

Instant Pot Penne Pasta with Meatballs

Instead of fresh ground meat you could use frozen meatballs instead, that makes things even easier. You can skip the saute at the beginning part and throw these in at the very bottom, thawed or right out of the freezer.

Penne Pasta Spaghetti in Instant Pot saves quite well. You just want to make sure it is completely cool before transferring it into containers or bags. Then keep in your fridge until the next day or two and reheat in the microwave. Transfer it into a bowl that is heat tolerant and 1 minute stirring halfway thru should do it.