Instant Pot 5-Ingredient Meatball Casserole

Instant Pot 5-Ingredient Meatball Casserole–It only has 5 ingredients and it only takes about 5 minutes of prep! A tasty and hands-off way to make pasta and meatballs.

Instant Pot 5-Ingredient Meatball Casserole

This is one of those recipes that you can literally get started in about 5 minutes (and it only has a 3 minute pressure cooking time!). Dump and go! It’s a perfect dinner for a busy weeknight when you want a homemade meal but don’t have a lot of time on your hands.

It’s also very popular with kids. I mean who doesn’t like cheese, pasta and meatballs? We served this to Reagan and her friends after school and they commented, “this is so fancy!” I had to laugh that they thought this was fancy. I didn’t correct them though…if they want to think that I’ll go ahead and let them.

It can be as easy as you want it to be…use prepared spaghetti sauce and frozen store-bought meatballs and pre-shredded cheese. Of you can make it a little more “homemade” by using homemade marinara sauce, homemade meatballs and cheese shredded off the block. Either way it’s going to be great!

Ingredients/Substitution Ideas

• Frozen Italian-style meatballs–you don’t need to thaw them
• Rotini pasta–or another short cut pasta like cavatappi, penne, farfalle, macaroni, etc.
• Beef broth–or 2 cups water and 2 teaspoons of Better than Bouillon Beef Base
• Pasta sauce of your choice–if you like it saucy add the whole jar, if not then only add half
• Shredded mozzarella–I like to shred it off the block rather than use pre-shredded cheese so that it is melts better

Steps

• Layer in the ingredients: Add meatballs into bottom of Instant Pot in one layer. Dump the pasta evenly over the top. Dump the beef broth into the pot. Cover the pasta evenly with the pasta sauce. Don’t stir. This will help prevent the burn error message.
  
• Pressure cook: Cover Instant Pot and secure the lid. Make sure valve is set to sealing. Set the manual/pressure cook button to 3 minutes. When time is up let pot sit for 5 minutes and then move valve to venting. Remove the lid.
• Stir well. Stir in half of the mozzarella.
• Scoop up and serve, sprinkle each portion with the remaining mozzarella. Eat and enjoy. Garnish with fresh basil, if desired.

Notes/Tips

• Use a good quality pasta sauce. There aren’t many ingredients in this recipe so each ingredient should be high quality for the best tasting end product. Rao’s and Classico are good brands.
• You can use homemade meatballs if you’d like. They should be pre-cooked.
• To bring this dish to a new level, try dropping a dollop of ricotta cheese and chopped fresh basil on top of each portion.
• Serve with a green salad and Olive Garden salad dressing and garlic bread.
• I used my 3 quart Instant Pot*. You can also make this in a 6 or 8 quart pot.
• 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 frozen meatballs are Instant Pot Dump And Go Meatball Lasagna and Instant Pot Italian Wedding Soup.

More Instant Pot Pasta Recipes…

• Instant Pot “Pink” Pasta
• Instant Pot 3-Ingredient Casserole
• Instant Pot Million Dollar Lazy Lasagna

Did you know you can filter the recipes on my website to search by meat type, IP or Crockpot, low carb, gluten free, etc.? Use the filter to find exactly what you are looking for.

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*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.