7 Instant Pot Tacos Recipes

Here’s how to make pork, chicken or beef Instant Pot tacos in no time at all! Perfect pressure cooker dinners that are cheap and full of flavor. One uses Instant Pot carnitas for the meat. Loaded into a tortilla with slices of avocado, salsa, sour cream and lettuce is a great dinner.

Enjoy tender as ever or use your new lid to crisp for air fryer tacos when done! Feeds a crowd and is always a hit with a crowd for Super Bowl or on the weekend.

Ready for Instant Pot tacos 7 different ways for taco Tuesday??!! You’ll be covered for the whole month with all of these Instant Pot recipes for sure. Using pork, beef, fish or chicken and your favorite toppings you’re in for a real treat with these. (originally published 10/18, affiliate links present)

Instant Pot Tacos Shredded Beef

We have an easy carne asada tacos, healthy salsa chicken tacos, barbecue, Hawaiian tacos and of course how to make taco meat in your pressure cooker too. Load all of them up with tons of toppings and enjoy!

There are a ton of ways to make beef so tender it can be shredded. You can use our french onion pressure cooker roast or the basic instructions for pressure cooker shredded beef. It doesnt matter what brand of machine you have either. A Ninja Foodi works great as well, you will use the lid that isn’t attached for that one.

Ninja Foodi Tacos

If you do have a Ninja Foodi you have another option at the end. You can pressure cook the meat so it becomes fork tender. Then wrap that in your tortillas with fillings of your choice, spray with olive oil and air crisp with the other lid.

Below in the printable recipe card we will explain how to make our beef carnitas. Then throughout this pot I will share and explain several other ways including shredded chicken like you see here. You can use pork or beef diced to make carnitas too, really any sort of meat works but these are the two we’ve tried.

Your best bet no matter what meat you use is to first cut it up into chunks so each piece gets really nice and tender. This way it will fall apart with a fork I tell you once it’s done. I mean you could even cook from frozen!! That is right, frozen chicken in Instant Pot can be cooked in under 20 minutes flat. Toss with sauce and you’re good to go.

Instant Pot Taco Recipe

Ok so these aren’t just for taco Tuesdays y’all. I mean yes we do have those weekly and make one of these versions on a regular basis but you are allowed to make them on like a Thursday too. 😉 This is why we love them cow tongue tacos and beyond because:

• They are inexpensive to make
• No taco shells are even necessary
  • many times we make them into taco bowls
  • or you can roll it up and make air fryer flautas
• You can add tons of toppings, or the kids can leave them plain

Pressure cooker tacos offer tons of flavor since they’re cooked under high pressure. We feel the flavors are intensified because most of the time your proteins are cooked right in the sauce.

• They take less than 30 minutes to make including prep time and the time it takes to reach pressure
• For the most part Instant Pot tacos are pretty healthy!

Here are our Instant Pot carnitas once everything is thrown into the pot…literally this is a dump and go meal with tons of flavor!

Pressure Cooker Tacos

Let’s talk about having people over and creating a bar full of all the things. If you have a bunch of people over you could use your IP and then have another low and slow pot where you make Crockpot taco meat too. You could make poultry in one and beef in the other for a choice. Extras you can add into your mix to enhance the flavor to bold.

• Fresh cilantro – jarred dry cilantro 
• Cayenne pepper – jarred dry Sriracha
• Fresh limes – lime juice
• Fresh minced garlic – jarred minced garlic (seriously, I almost always use jarred because I’m just lazy to chop it up & I buy bottled because I use so much of it)

I wouldn’t substitute minced dried onions for fresh onions but these are decent substitutions. Just in case you have everything and realize you forgot cilantro you can have jarred cilantro on hand too. Use what you have is my philosophy.  Ready for a quick cooking time meal y’all???

Beef Instant Pot tacos

Typically you are going to go for shredded or ground beef right? With that said don’t go super lean. 80/20 is best because with a little bit of fat comes flavor! When it is super lean it will be more bland. Now if you are going to smother it in sauce or seasonings then I guess that is better but still…….

1. Instant Pot – I have the one you see at the top of this post.
   • It’s plenty big to feed the 5 of us. I share here my favorite Instant Pot accessories to make all my recipes here too
2. Beef- stew meat or I have cut up beef bottom round steak into small strips too if need be
3. Fresh limes
4. Cumin – I have this one
5. Fresh cilantro
6. Cayenne
7. Onion
8. Homemade tortillas are great

If you want to add toppings this is what we like:

• Avocado – our favorite
• Raw onion
• Cheese
• Salsa
• This is how to air fry taco shells if you want to make your own

Instant Pot Chicken Tacos

If you prefer Instant Pot chicken tacos we have a few options for you too! Yes these will be lower in fat and with this machine you really can get the connective tissues to break down easily so it is OMG so good. The picture you see here are our 3 ingredient Instant Pot salsa chicken tacos, use chicken broth for more flavor.

Our Instant Pot shredded chicken is really good inside tacos too, with a barbecue flavor. You can make this in your slow cooker too but that literally takes all day. Ain’t nobody got time for that!

• These baked chicken tacos are yummy.
• Instant Pot chicken taco bowls are amazing with black beans and chicken breasts

You can make these Instant Pot pork tacos too!

Even more options for Instant Pot recipes in the way of tacos are below the recipe card too! Most of them you just throw everything in, quick release and serve ’em up with lots of toppings.

Instant Pot Fish Tacos

If you love fish tacos use the recipe for this Instant Pot tilapia and make those too!

• If you make an Instant Pot whole chicken it will become fall off the bone tender, then just remove the meat and throw it into small tortillas. Serve with pressure cooker Mexican rice + whatever toppings you want….super healthy this way!!

If all you have are frozen chicken so you can still pressure cook tacos in a jiffy. Add some taco seasoning for even more flavor!

Pork Instant Pot tacos

• Our favorite is to use a center cut pork loin or pork tenderloin and make this Instant Pot Hawaiian pulled pork. Once it’s shredded in this sauce goodness then put it in small tortillas or others can put it on small slider buns. 

If you love an Asian twist on tacos make this Instant Pot pulled pork recipe. It is sweet with a bit of heat. Throw that in small tortillas!

• Here’s an Instant Pot pork shoulder recipe if that is the cut of meat you choose. Comes out amazingly tender in 1 hour. Makes for a terrific homemade taco inside tortillas.

If you’re interested in ground beef Instant Pot tacos we have the best recipe for flavorful Instant Pot taco meat. Then make those as well with all the wonderful toppings of your choice. Add a bit of chili powder for spice or leave it mild. Top with sour cream and it will make you love tacos!!

Here’s a peek at our Hawaiian pulled pork. We made them into tacos as well as served it over rice.

That will take us over the edge of 4 to 5 easy pressure cooker taco recipes for you!