Easy Instant Pot Pizza Pasta

Easy 10 minute Instant Pot pizza pasta with jar sauce recipe that my family loves! Super easy to dump it all in your pressure cooker and put in all of your favorite pizza toppings. A fun dinner like our pressure cooker pizza but a twist on the original that tastes even better the next day.

Pressure Cooker Pizza Pasta with Jar Sauce

To make things easier we use a jar of spaghetti sauce but you could use homemade if you would like. Think of it as an Instant Pot pizza just in a pasta form! You can cook it in your Ninja foodi pot too though, Crockpot Express works too. We aren’t brand specific y’all.

Pair this Instant Pot casserole with a side salad and/or some pull apart bread. Then you’ll have a quick meal your whole family will love. I mean who doesn’t love this classic Italian dish right? If you want your kids to think you are superwoman at the dinner table, make this!!

Ninja Foodi Pizza Pasta

If you love pizza, and pasta, this is a great dish to make in your pressure cooker! It is really quick to make, inexpensive, and I haven’t met anyone yet who didn’t think it was really yummy. It has all the flavors you love and you can load it up with any and all toppings you would normally put on your favorite “pie”.

Pepperoni and mushroom are great, add olives too if you want. I mean the list goes on and on. If you love Hawaiian pineapple and Canadian bacon you could dice the meat up and use tidbits for that sweet and savory blend you love, typically on a crust.

If you have only used these ingredients on a flat edible surface you need to think outside the box more friends! We have made it with noodles also with our slow cooker pizza casserole dish, so so good.

Then we used a more traditional way but with the same Crock with our Crockpot pizza instructions. That one was a really fun one to make with the kids to show them that baking doesn’t have to happen only in the oven.

Pizza Pasta Casserole Ingredients

1. I HIGHLY recommend you get a non stick pot
2. Noodles – rotini works well
   1. there are gluten free noodles, but timing may need to be altered
3. A jar of sauce or homemade spaghetti sauce
4. Water
5. Pepperoni
6. Mozzarella cheese
7. Mushrooms, olives, all toppings

What are the best toppings for pizza?

• Pepperoni
• Mushrooms
• Onions
• Sausage
  • you could add this at the beginning and saute with some olive oil
  • then follow steps starting at adding sauce etc..
• Crumbled bacon
• Sliced black olives
• Green peppers are a fave to some
  • if you add these I’d include them in with your uncooked noodles so they soften

How long does it take to cook pasta in a pressure cooker?

It depends on whether you are adding it in with sauce and other ingredients, or just with water. When I make Instant Pot pasta I always make it similar to what you see here.  Cooking uncooked noodles inside a sauce with some additional liquid makes it taste amazing. The pasta soaks up all the flavors in your spaghetti or alfredo sauce, so much better than boiling in water on your stovetop.

For the most part small noodles like these take about 4-5 minutes to become perfectly tender. If you add meat and longer noodles into the mix, like our Instant Pot spaghetti, 8-9 minutes is better.

Of course if you prefer al dente I would decrease the time about a minute. If using egg noodles like we did in our Instant Pot tuna casserole, those only take 3 minutes followed by a quick release.

If you wanted a low carb version of this you can follow our Ninja Foodi pizza spaghetti squash recipe. Now, you have an option as to when you add all of these wonderful pizza toppings. Here are the basic steps to follow:

How to Make Pizza Pasta Casserole

1. If you want ground sausage or ground beef to be added, set pot to saute now with some olive oil. Cook until outsides are no longer pink, then turn pot off. Leave on bottom of pot.
2. Pour 3/4 of your pizza sauce inside with all Italian seasonings and a bit of olive oil.
3. Sprinkle in uncooked noodles, then remaining sauce. DO NOT Stir!
4. Add water or broth into your jar, shake to get remaining sauce out.
5. Then pour this into your pot, again DO NOT stir!
6. Gently submerge noodles into liquid but not a lot. You don’t want them to be sitting on the bottom of your pot or the burn notice may appear.
7. Close lid and steam valve and set to high pressure cook for a 4 minute cook time. 
8. Do a 1 minute natural release, then quick release steam.
9. Stir in cheese and pepperoni and all other pizza toppings to warm and melt it all.
10. Serve this with more cheese on top, I mean you can’t get enough, and maybe some bread on the side.

How do you keep pasta from sticking?

• Add olive oil to the cooking water and/or other ingredients to keep the pasta from sticking.
• Pasta shouldn’t stick when properly cooked with this added ingredient.
• Doing this will actually coat the noodles and prevent sauce from sticking. 

If you want to cook the noodles first, watch the video we have in this post to see how to make it that way. This 2nd method just takes 3 minutes to cook your pasta with water to cover it well. Then add everything at the end, warm, and serve. We are busy. Both of us work full time. One thing we really strive for though is a dinner where we all sit down and eat together.

Eating together has been a great way to connect and honestly. It was hard for me to get everything I needed done at work and still cook a dinner until I started experimenting with my Instant Pot. It has been a lifesaver! Looking for more Instant Pot recipes?

We hope these two methods of cooking pasta in an Instant Pot help you understand how to make it perfect. Beyond that, start creating your own recipes!  As long as you understand the basic principals of cooking pressure cooker pasta, the sky is the limit!!

If you cook it separately with water first, you will probably never boil it on your stovetop again! It has really been a game changer for us. We even figured out how to make Instant Pot Kraft macaroni and cheese with NO draining required!

How long can I keep cooked pasta in the fridge?

If you have any leftovers, transfer it to a container rather than keeping inside the pot. To maximize the shelf life of cooked pasta, refrigerate it inside of a shallow airtight containers or resealable plastic bags. Properly stored, cooked pasta will last for 3 to 5 days in the refrigerator.

Other easy Instant pasta recipes you’ll love

• Easy Instant Pot lasagna soup is another Italian favorite
• This Instant Pot chicken pasta is great as well as our shrimp alfredo
• Instant Pot cheesy chicken spaghetti has a bit of a kick and tons of flavor.

Here’s the printable recipe below that includes nutritional information such as calories, saturated fat, etc… Let us know what you think below in the comments after you make this!