Instant Pot Chinese Beef Casserole is also known as Beef Chow Mein Casserole and is a classic Midwestern hot dish with ground beef, rice, creamy soup, and celery that is topped with Chow Mein noodles. Grandma used to make it in the oven and now you can make it in half the time in your Instant Pot.
Get the SLOW COOKER recipe here
Instant Pot Chinese Beef Casserole
I’ve had a chow mein casserole recipe in a old family cookbook for years. It is one my mom and grandma would make every now and then. I always thought it was a family recipe but after googling a bit I am realizing there are plenty of other people that had this exact same dish growing up!
Today’s version is made in the Instant Pot instead of the oven. I cut down on sodium by using the Healthy Request version of the cream soups and low sodium soy sauce. It still tastes like home and is good old fashioned comfort food.
For this casserole recipe I used the pot-in-pot method. I knew that if I stirred the cream soups, rice and water together it would definitely receive the burn message if it was cooked directly in the pot. To circumvent this issue I cooked the casserole inside an oven safe dish inside the Instant Pot liner. I like to use a 3 quart Instant Pot liner* inside my 6 quart or 8 quart Instant Pot liner. It works perfectly for pot in pot casseroles (another option is to use a 7×3 inch fat daddios cake pan*). To lower the pot into place I like to use my OXO trivet/sling*.
Ingredients and Substitution Ideas
- Lean ground beef–or ground turkey
- Diced onion–fresh of frozen
- Campbell’s Healthy Request Cream of Chicken Soup–or cream of celery soup
- Campbell’s Healthy Request Cream of Mushroom Soup
- Chopped celery
- Water chestnuts–find in the Asian section of grocery store
- Uncooked parboiled rice–or long grain white rice
- Water
- Low sodium soy sauce–or tamari
- Chow mein noodles
- Diced green onions
Steps
- Brown the ground beef: In a pan on the stove or in your Instant Pot on the sauté setting, brown the ground beef and sauté the onions. Add the mixture into a pan that fits inside your Instant Pot used for pot-in-pot cooking*. Clean out bottom of Instant Pot (if you used it for browning the beef).
- Add ingredients to pot-in-pot dish: Stir the cream of chicken, cream of mushroom, celery, water chestnuts, rice, water and soy sauce in with the beef.
- Prepare Instant Pot: Pour 1 cup water into bottom of Instant Pot. Place filled pan on top of a trivet/sling and lower it into the bottom of the Instant Pot.
- Pressure cook: Cover Instant Pot and secure the lid. Make sure valve is set to sealing. Set the manual/pressure cook button to 25 minutes. When time is up let the pressure release naturally for 5-10 minutes and then move the valve to venting. Remove lid. (Why the long cooking time? Because we are using the pot-in-pot method the rice takes longer to cook than if it was directly in the bottom of the pot.)
- Add the finishing touches: Lift out the pan and stir. Sprinkle chow mein noodles on top. Scoop onto plates and serve topped with green onions.
Notes/Tips
- What is converted/parboiled rice? Don’t confuse converted rice (or sometimes it is called parboiled rice) with pre-cooked or minute rice. Parboiled rice has been processed in its husk by soaking, steaming, and drying. As a result, all the nutrients from the husk are absorbed into the grain before it’s removed. The starch content alters in the process, making cooked parboiled rice less sticky than regular white rice. The rice kernels aren’t clumpy and glued together instead they are more separated. I found a bag of parboiled rice at Walmart next to the normal long grain white rice. Sometimes I buy it at Winco in the bulk section. I have also found it in the orange box (Ben’s brand) next to other rices.
- I used a 3 quart Instant Pot liner* inside the 6 quart Instant Pot liner. It works perfect for pot-in-pot cooking. You can also use a Fat Daddios 7 x 4 inch pan*.
- I used my 6 quart Instant Pot Duo 60 7 in 1*. Make in the 8 quart pot with no changes except adding 1.5 cups of water beneath trivet instead of 1 cup water.
- Serve this casserole along with roasted or steamed broccoli.
- Store leftovers in an airtight container* in the refrigerator for up to 5 days or in the freezer for up to 3 months.
- Other recipes you can make with chow mein noodles are Instant Pot Church Supper Hotdish and Instant Pot Hawaiian Haystacks.
More Instant Pot Ground Beef and Rice Recipes…
Instant Pot Cherokee Casserole
A cheesy, creamy rice and beef casserole that is so fast and easy to make in your Instant Pot.
Instant Pot Hamburger Jazz
An easy 6 ingredient recipe that has pantry ingredients you probably already have on hand. Rice, enchilada sauce, ground beef and mozzarella cheese are the stars of this one pot meal.
Instant Pot Crispy Cowboy Casserole
A hearty casserole with rice, beans, corn, picante sauce and cheese. It’s topped with french fried onions for a crispy finish!
Instant Pot Popeye’s Cajun Rice
Ground beef, green pepper and rice with Cajun seasonings. An easy copycat recipe that you can make at home in your Instant Pot.
Instant Pot Uncle Willie’s Casserole
An easy ground beef, rice and vegetable recipe that comes together very quickly with the help of your pressure cooker.
Instant Pot Chinese Beef Casserole
- Prep Time: 15 minutes
- Cook Time: 25 minutes (plus 5-10 minute NPR)
- Total Time: 40 minutes
- Yield: 6 servings 1x
Description
A classic Midwestern hot dish with ground beef, rice, creamy soup, and celery that is topped with Chow Mein noodles. Grandma used to make it in the oven and now you can make it in half the time in your Instant Pot.
Ingredients
- 1 pound lean ground beef
- 1 cup diced onion
- 1 (10.5 oz) can Campbell’s Healthy Request Cream of Chicken Soup
- 1 (10.5 oz) can Campbell’s Healthy Request Cream of Mushroom Soup
- 1 cup chopped celery
- 1 (8 oz) can sliced water chestnuts, drained
- 1 1/4 cup uncooked parboiled rice or long grain white rice
- 1 1/2 cups water
- 3 Tbsp low sodium soy sauce
- 1 1/2 cups chow mein noodles
- Diced green onions, for topping
Instructions
- In a pan on the stove or in your Instant Pot on the sauté setting, brown the ground beef and sauté the onions. Add the mixture into a pan that fits inside your Instant Pot used for pot-in-pot cooking. Clean out bottom of Instant Pot (if you used it for browning the beef).
- Stir the cream of chicken, cream of mushroom, celery, water chestnuts, rice, water and soy sauce in with the beef.
- Pour 1 cup water into bottom of Instant Pot. Place filled pan on top of a trivet/sling and lower it into the bottom of the Instant Pot.
- Cover Instant Pot and secure the lid. Make sure valve is set to sealing. Set the manual/pressure cook button to 25 minutes. When time is up let the pressure release naturally for 5-10 minutes and then move the valve to venting. Remove lid.
- Lift out the pan and stir. Sprinkle chow mein noodles on top. Scoop onto plates and serve topped with green onions.
Notes
I used a 3 quart Instant Pot liner* inside the 6 quart Instant Pot liner. It works perfect for pot-in-pot cooking. You can also use a Fat Daddios 7 x 4 inch pan*.
I used my 6 quart Instant Pot Duo 60 7 in 1*. Make in the 8 quart pot with no changes except adding 1.5 cups of water beneath trivet instead of 1 cup water.
- Category: Beef
- Method: Instant Pot
*Karen Petersen is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to amazon.com.
4/4/23 – Made this for Wife & I. I did add about ¾ cup of fresh julienned carrots based on a commenter. This is an easy recipe to prepare and clean up from. Browned the ground beef & drained the fat out. Sautéed the onions in the same pan. Used my 6 quart IP with an insert from a 3 quart IP. Mixed all the ingredients in the 3 quart insert and pressure cooked for 25 minutes with a 10 minute NPR. Delicious! Great flavor. The rice was a bit crunchy so next time I will adjust the pressure cooking time to 30 minutes. I used regular long grain white rice. Note that I had seconds. I will add this to my favorites.
Thanks for the 5 stars, Mike! I’m glad you liked it!
I’ve made dozens of your recipes, Karen, and appreciate them all. This is the only one that didn’t come out right. I used the bottom pan of my two-tiered pans, and there was too much casserole filling for it. The rice didn’t seem cooked.
Oh shoot! I’m sorry to hear that. I wonder if a deeper pan would have worked? I like the 7×4 inch pan or the 3 quart liner inside a 6 quart liner.
I will give it another go and find some other deeper pan. I call all these recipes “my experiments”, so I’ll just chalk this up to a failed experiment and go on from there.
I had assumed my pan would be big enough but it was only 7 x 3″. I’ll try this again.
Great recipe!! Can the leftovers be frozen?
Thank you!
yep! for sure
Can I use a 7×3 pan instead of a 7×4 I have a 7×3
yes you can!
Is 25 minutes the right time?
It seems long since basically the rice is the only thing that needs to be cooked.
Love your recipes and have made so many of them. Thank you
Yes because it uses the pot-in-pot method and that takes much longer than cooking directly in the Instant Pot liner.
Karen, I usually never mess with your recipes the first time I make them, but I have a question. I’d like to add some carrots (matchstick style) to this. Would it be ok to add maybe 3/4 c of these carrots to all the goodies in the pot? Just reading this recipe makes my mouth water.
Yes I think that is a great idea!
Hi,
Can you please email me the link for the non-stick “Pot-in-Pot’ that is in the video please ?
Thank you for your cooperation !!
sure. here is the link: https://amzn.to/3HfG3RF
Do I need to cover the pt to prevent condensation from getting in my pot (in pot)?
No, not for this recipe
So I screwed up and was out of white rice and my pot in pot was too small for all the ingredients. So I improvised and put the ingredients except for the water and rice on the stove to simmer and used my instant pot to make brown rice and served the beef chow mein over it. We all loved it and I ordered a 3 qt liner so I can make this again soon, in the instant pot this time. Delicious!
It sounds like it was all fine in the end! Glad it worked out!!
What is a good substitute for the cream of mushroom soup? Allergic to the mushroom soup. Thank you.
Can you do any cream of soups? I’d do another kind.
I always use jasmine rice. Confused on what you mean by par boil
What is parboiled rice? Don’t confuse parboiled rice with pre-cooked or minute rice. Parboiled rice has been processed in its husk by soaking, steaming, and drying. As a result, all the nutrients from the husk are absorbed into the grain before it’s removed. The starch content alters in the process, making cooked parboiled rice less sticky than regular white rice. The rice kernels aren’t clumpy and glued together instead they are more separated. I found a bag of parboiled rice at Walmart next to the normal long grain white rice.
this is a great recipe I love it! I use success rice and that’s perfect.
Awesome! Thanks for the 5 stars!
I have a sprinform pan that fits in my Instant Pot. Would I be able to use that?
Yes I think that should work. Sometimes my springform pan leaks but if you have a tight seal it hopefully will be okay.
Would I be able to make this with instant brown rice and if so should I adjust the time? And if that is not feasible could I just cook it without the rice and how long to cook?
Yes I bet instant brown rice would work. Here is the website that says how long to cook Instant rice in the IP: https://minuterice.com/faqs/cooking/ Brown Rice: Use equal amounts of rice and liquid. Stir. Use the “manual” setting with High Pressure. Set timer for 5 minutes. When cooking time has elapsed, use the “Quick Release” to vent all the steam. Remove lid and fluff rice. Serve.
My mom made a similar recipe but baked in a casserole and with chicken instead of beef. Also she would add pimento ( very popular to put pimento into every casserole in the 50’s). And I remember that she would add a big scoop of mayonaise?!? Well I loved it even though now the mayo seems weird.
I wiil try your recipe, and maybe I will make it with chicken too, but without the mayo!
Thanks for another great IP idea.
Haha! all the interesting foods our moms used to make us!!
I made this for dinner last night and it was amazing. I did not have a dish that all the ingredients would fit in, so decided to cook right in the instant pot container. It did get pretty brown on the bottom but it didn’t affect the taste of the dish. I’m going to order an insert for my instant pot (I’ve been wanting one for awhile anyways) so next time it will turn out perfect and we can eat every single bit of it.
I really appreciate your recipes and I have made quite a few, but this time I felt I needed to comment because this was so tasty. Thanks for sharing all of your recipes and wisdom with us.
Oh this is so nice to hear! And glad you didn’t get the burn message!
looks great, I need to try it soon.
Hope you like it!
How does the lid seal if you have a sling sticking out, or does that get stuffed inside?
And, yes, why do you need to use the Pot-in-a-pot method?
Go back and read Karen’s full writing. She explains why.
thanks, that helps…..
yes it gets stuffed inside!
Will we need to allow extra headroom in the inner pot to allow for rice expansion? Or does it not expand much?
It doesn’t expand much!
I thought ‘mein’ meant noodle.
Not sure if that’s true but it’s named after those LaChoy chow mein noodles that you put on top of the casserole.
Why couldn’t you make it IN the regular Instapot or Foodi pot?
Go back and read Karen’s full writing. She explains why.
For this casserole recipe I used the pot-in-pot method. I knew that if I stirred the cream soups, rice and water together it would definitely receive the burn message if it was cooked directly in the pot. To circumvent this issue I cooked the casserole inside an oven safe dish inside the Instant Pot liner.
Thanks for the explanation! i just did another of your recipes with rice, and it did burn a little! (my fault, not yours! ) I just ordered the smaller pot, cant wait to try it! i love your recipes! 🙂