Porcupine Meatballs Instant Pot Recipe

Porcupine meatballs in the Instant Pot with rice and ground beef are great served with pasta for dinner or a fun appetizer. If you love homemade meals this is a quick one that is inexpensive too.

What are Porcupine Meatballs?

If you have never heard of these you might be thinking huhhhh???? You might picture what these would look like when cooked and ready to enjoy, but how would you make it prickly? Rice is the answer to this question, and it takes this normal dish to something really special and delicious. Let us show you how they’re done these Instant Pot meatballs are made, and then you can try them for yourself.

A pretty good duo if you ask me. After all I grew up in Hawaii so Ninja Foodi rice was a thing served with almost every single meal. Now that I have kids of my own it is a favorite side dish of theirs as well.

SO why not combine the two right? Whether you’re serving these with Instant Pot spaghetti or on their own as a pressure cooker appetizer for guests they’re sure to be a real hit. Yes we have made Instant pot frozen meatballs before and those are easy peasy, but homemade is always best.

If you have a basic meatball recipe of your own then by all means use that as your base. Just make sure you have enough binder to keep them together so it doesn’t become seasoned fall apart ground beef in your pot when done. Here’s what was used for this round and worked quite well during a 20 minute cook time;

Ingredient Notes

To start these you will want a pound of ground beef but you could use a roll of spicy ground sausage if you preferred. If you like heat go with spicy Jimmy Dean, or half and half. You could even make the mixture to Ninja Foodi meatloaf but instead of one clump it will be shaped into smaller balls.

Uncooked long grain white rice is what I used. I haven’t tested this with brown as that would take a lot longer to get tender so I wouldn’t recommend that.

Diced onions I add to just about everything. Same goes for minced garlic, I buy this by the huge jar full. You could alternatively chop some fresh cloves if you’d rather start from scratch.

As for adding a lot of flavor I would go with adding some Worcestershire sauce, Garlic powder and onion powder into the meat mixture to incorporate well into each bite.

Egg will make your ground meat go further and become more moist than if you didn’t add it at all. Olive oil will be used to saute the onions and garlic until they soften a bit.

As far as the marinara sauce is concerned you can use tomato sauce or your favorite jarred version or try this homemade Instant Pot spaghetti sauce that uses pantry ingredients.

Tips

You could not make these with pressure cooker frozen meatballs unfortunately since those are already precooked and all you are doing is warming them up. These do take a bit more time to create but well worth it.

You could add the prepared meat with the onions to brown a bit on the outside and add some texture but in this case I wouldn’t. Reason being is they may stick in the process and begin to fall apart. For the sauce you could use spaghetti, tomato sauce, or tomato soup.

How Long to Cook Porcupine Meatballs in Pressure Cooker

I wouldn’t say it is faster than meatballs in the oven, but moister. Remember that it does take a bit of time to come to pressure and start the count down of minutes. So 20 minutes of cooking will take more like 25 minutes or 30. Add in the natural release and you’re at 40 or so. This will vary depending on how large your balls are though, you can decrease it if they are small or frozen.

Can you fry meatballs with rice?

These are great made as meatballs in air fryer as well! You’d need to follow the timing in this recipe highlighted. See which one you like best. The big difference is these are in sauce, and the others get really crispy outside. You could of course deep fry them too but that is a no for us. I don’t like the after taste of oil and added calories and fat using that method either.

Other easy ground beef recipes you’ll love

If you have a smoker I would highly suggest trying our bacon and cheese stuffed smoked meatloaf some time, it’s to die for. Crockpot spaghetti and meatballs are great with these instead of just using frozen in a bag. For a quick NO prep appetizer, give our Crockpot frozen meatballs a whirl. You can just throw in bbq sauce, tomato, or make that grape jelly chili sauce version.

Here’s a peek at the middle of one of these babies. I know, so fun right?? Spoon some more sauce over the top when serving so they stay super moist. If you’re having a party leave them in the pot but unplug it so it doesn’t continue cooking.