Our easy Instant Pot sloppy joes recipe with 3 ingredients (or canned sauce) + ground beef is a meal even your kids will love. Combine your sauce with ketchup, mustard and brown sugar and serve inside slider buns or on garlic bread.
Jump To
- Ninja Foodi Sloppy Joes
- Instant Pot Sloppy Joes with Canned Sauce
- Instant Pot Sloppy Joes with Frozen Ground Beef
- 3 Ingredient Sloppy Joe Sauce Ingredients
- Do you drain the meat?
- How Long to Cook Sloppy Joes in Instant Pot
- How do you thicken sloppy joes?
- Instant Pot Sloppy Joes Recipe
- How to Save Leftovers
- Other Instant Pot Recipes You’ll Love
This meal is probably one of the easiest dinners I have made for over ten years for my family. Then when I got my new pot and was creating new Instant Pot recipes it dawned on me that I should try it this way and it was a huge success.
I made this sloppy joes recipe for years on the stovetop. Now it was time to use my new favorite kitchen appliance! You can just use saute or pressure cook to really lock in those flavors. I tweaked it a bit adding bell peppers and a few other ingredients. Figuring out the timing was another step. After a few batches we determined which was absolutely perfect so we could share it with you.
I’d hate to share something with y’all that might have an issue, it has to be perfect. Now if you like spicy you can adjust it for that really easily. My favorite way of adding heat would be some dry Sriracha or red pepper flakes works as well.
Ninja Foodi Sloppy Joes
You can make this one in your Crockpot Express, Ninja Foodi or any other pressure cooker brand you have. With this variety though you need to remember to use the lid that is not attached and the pressure cook lid on the front.
Instant Pot Sloppy Joes with Canned Sauce
If you do not want to make your own not so sloppy joe sauce like directed below (which is really easy and highly recommended) you can certainly use a can of Manwich. There are several varieties out now including a chunky and spicy variety, use the 15 oz. can, saute the meat, drain, pour in sauce and let saute for a few minutes is how you would make that.
Instant Pot Sloppy Joes with Frozen Ground Beef
It is always best to use fresh or defrosted meat but if you need to know how to cook Instant Pot frozen ground beef to begin with, start with the instructions here and then proceed with the step by step in the recipe card below.
Can you use ground turkey?
You can totally use any sort of ground meat you like. There are ground chicken sloppy joes and ones made with turkey that are lower in fat. Using Jimmy Dean spicy sausage is another favorite. I like half beef, half sausage if I can find it and they are on sale. Adds a ton of flavor, a bit of heat, and even the kids prefer this blend.
We use olive oil to help brown the meat in the initial step. You could use avocado oil as a substitute if you wanted something different.
3 Ingredient Sloppy Joe Sauce Ingredients
Ketchup is the main base of your sauce. I have tried several varieties and Heinz organic is my favorite with the deepest flavor and cleanest taste.
Brown sugar makes it a bit sweet, adjust as you wish. Mustard creates that zing, use yellow vs. dijon. Use chili powder to add a bit of heat.
What else can you add?
Worcestershire sauce will give you a deep almost soy sauce type of flavor to the sauce. If I am making Big Mac sloppy joes I will leave whole slices of onions on the side for the top too. Garlic we love, chopped from fresh cloves or from jarred.
As far as the bun you can use hamburger buns, Hawaiian rolls, garlic bread or open faced like our Texas Toast sloppy joes.
Do you drain the meat?
This is totally up to you. Sloppy joes aren’t intended to take shape like a normal hamburger, but rather like loose meat sandwiches. I have done it both ways. If I use really lean meat I don’t bother. If there is a lot of drippings I will drain so the sauce is thicker to make sloppy joe sliders.
How Long to Cook Sloppy Joes in Instant Pot
10 minutes is the real cook time but that doesn’t account for the time it takes to reach pressure and start to count down. I use a wooden spoon almost always as to not scratch my non stick pot. This recipe is really great because it is super easy and there’s tons of flavor when it’s done.
How do you thicken sloppy joes?
You always want it nice and thick with the sauce. I didn’t find a need to do anything extra for this one but if you wanted a different texture you could add more tomato paste and a bit less sauce. Keep in mind that when it cools it will get thicker so just wait. Another option is to set to saute to allow some moisture to cook off, stir, allow to bubble, and it will get thicker.
This is one of our favorite easy Instant Pot ground beef recipes you can make in 30 minutes or less and your whole family will want seconds for sure!
Instant Pot Sloppy Joes Recipe
Equipment
Ingredients
- 1 pound ground beef, or ground sausage
- 2 tbsp brown sugar, more or less depending on desired flavor
- 3 tbsp mustard, more or less depending on desired flavor
- 3/4 cup ketchup, more or less depending on desired flavor
Instructions
- Put pot on saute function. Add a few tbsp olive oil and once it is hot If you want to add 1/2 cup add diced onions, bell peppers and 1 tgsp minced garlic you can start by sauteing for about 2 minutes to soften them slightly. If you don't want to add these extras you should skip to step 2.
- Add ground beef and cook until outsides are no longer pink (if there is a noticeable amount of grease in your pot, drain that off)
- Add all other ingredients in the list inside the pot to make the sauce and stir together. Taste to see if you feel like it needs to be sweeter with more sugar or have more tang with more mustard. (you can also double the sauce ingredients if you want it really wet)
- Leave on saute and allow to bubble, stirring consistently so it doesn't burn for about 3-5 minutes to deepen the flavors.
- Put on buns and serve.
Video
Notes
How to Make Spicy
If you want some heat to this you can either swap the ground beef for HOT Jimmy dean ground sausage or add 1/4-1/2 tsp of red pepper flakes or dry Sriracha into the sauce.Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
How to Save Leftovers
If you have leftovers they save quite well. Wait until the mixture cools off completely and then transfer it to a plastic container or freezer bag. Seal the container or baggie tightly so as little air as possible gets trapped inside.
Keep in the fridge for up to 3 days. When you reheat it I would just go ahead and use your microwave for about 1 minute. Stir halfway thru and you can even add some shredded cheese to the top the last 15 seconds to melt. Serve this over rice instead of inside a bun to change things up, or just alone.
Other Instant Pot Recipes You’ll Love
Serving sloppy joes are typically served on hamburger buns. Use your imagination though! We love this recipe incorporating noodles too we called Instant Pot sloppy joe casserole, totally fun dish. You could even serve it over chips and call them sloppy joe nachos! Other pressure cooker recipes you’ll love:
You can go further to add a cornbread topping to this with our sloppy joe casserole recipe. Instant Pot lasagna soup is easy to make and a family fave. This is just one of our favorite Instant Pot kids recipes. You can find a lot more on that post to enjoy with your family.
Just made sloppy Joe’s. So so good. The only thing I would change cooking on l Iow heat instead of high heat. Mine started to burn but I did drain the turkey fat from the turkey meat. But overall the be8thst.
Yes there may not have been enough liquid as a barrier on the bottom. having a non stick pot will help with this in the future. Glad it was a hit
Easiest and tastiest sloppy joes.
We did a blind taste test and our grandchildren like Instant Pot Sloppy Joes much better than the canned version!
Family favorite.
I made this exactly as the instructions said, however my entire family says that it is really bland. Could I have done something wrong time make this dish have such a lack of flavor.
Depends on whether they think they want it sweeter, hotter or more zing. You can easily adjust to your family’s preference. More zing = more mustard, sweet add more brown sugar and Srirach will add heat.
I have only used my Instant Pot for the past month so you can for sure say I am a beginner! I tried the sloppy joe recipe and kept getting the burn error. I tossed my sloppy joe mix in a bowl, cleaned my instant pot and threw in another easy meal and it did fine….. the hubby and kids really wanted the sloppy joes so I tried placing it back in the pot with a cup of tomato juice added and I am still getting the error! Any help would be much appreciated!
Hmmm, did you deglaze the pot after sauteeing the ground beef? That is a must. I would also HIGHLY suggest getting the non stick ceramic pot vs. the one it came with. It will almost entirely eliminate the burn message showing up. Most of the time it is false and not really burning but the sensor thinks it is. With the non stick there is an added barrier and doesn’t trigger it, game changer. Link near top of page for the one I have.
@The Typical Mom, Yeah, I’ve made this several times and always get the burn error no matter what I do. I will consider getting the ceramic pot and try it again though because the recipe is great.