Instant Pot Beef Manhattan—slices of seasoned top round roast piled on white toast, topped with a scoop of creamy mashed potatoes and drizzled with caramelized onion gravy.
Instant Pot Beef Manhattan
Every now and then Greg finds a recipe online and says to me, “we should make this in the Instant Pot!!!” This was one of those recipes. He found a recipe for something called Beef Manhattan that looked amazing.
Despite the name it is not something you’d order in a New York restaurant. Rather it is something you could find in a diner in the Midwest United States, specifically Indiana. According to Wikipedia, “The dish was first served in a restaurant under the name ‘Beef Manhattan’ in a now-defunct Indianapolis deli in the late 1940s where it gained traction as a Hoosier staple. The dish was named by Naval Ordnance Plant Indianapolis (NOPI) workers who were trained on a fabrication of the Norden Bombsight in Manhattan during World War II. They enjoyed the open-faced sandwich they had in Manhattan and brought it back to their cafeteria as the ‘Beef Manhattan’. In Indiana, it is served on bread. The roast beef is sliced and put on the bread like a sandwich, then cut corner to corner and plated in a V shape. Mashed potatoes are served between the two halves, and the whole is covered in gravy.”
My version uses a lean top round roast that is only pressure cooked for 3 minutes with a very long 30 minute natural pressure release. This gets the meat to the right temperature without overcooking it. I also created a gravy out of caramelized onions that was so flavorful and delicious. My kids were in heaven that I had actually bought white bread for once and secretly I loved it too. White bread does taste so good. I hope you like my version of Instant Pot beef Manhattan and try it out soon!
More Instant Pot Beef Recipes…
Instant Pot 4-Ingredient Pot Roast and Brown Gravy
Instant Pot Meatloaf and Baked Potatoes
Instant Pot Hot Beef Sandwich and Mashed Potatoes
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Instant Pot Beef Manhattan
- Total Time: 60 minutes
- Yield: 6 servings 1x
Description
Slices of seasoned top round roast piled on white toast and then topped with a scoop of creamy mashed potatoes and drizzled with caramelized onion gravy.
Ingredients
For the meat:
- 2 pounds beef top round roast
- 2 tsp kosher salt
- 1 tsp pepper
- 1 Tbsp olive oil
- 1 cup water or beef broth
- 1 Tbsp Worcestershire sauce
For the onion gravy:
- 2 Tbsp butter
- 4 medium onions, cut into thick rings
- 1/2 tsp baking soda
- 1/2 tsp pepper
- 1 1/2 tsp kosher salt
- 1/2 tsp Better Than Bouillon Beef Base
- 1 tsp minced garlic
- 1 tsp dried parsley
- 1 tsp vinegar
For mashed potatoes:
- 4–6 medium Russet potatoes
- 2 Tbsp butter
- 1/4–1/2 cup milk
- Salt and pepper
For serving:
- 6–8 slices of white toast
Instructions
For the meat:
- Turn your Instant Pot to the sauté setting. While it is heating up pat the roast dry with paper towels. Then press the salt and pepper all over the meat. When the display says HOT add in the oil. Place the roast in the Instant Pot and brown for 3 minutes. Turn the roast over and brown for 3 minutes. Brown 2 more sides for 2 minutes each. Turn off Instant Pot. Add in the 1 cup water/broth and scrape the bottom of the pot clean.
- Place a trivet into the pot. Place the roast on top of the trivet. Drizzle the Worcestershire sauce on top of the roast. Cover the pot and secure the lid. Make sure valve is set to sealing.
- Set the manual/pressure cook button to 3 minutes (YES only 3 minutes!). When the time is up let the pot sit for 30 minutes (YES 30 minutes natural pressure release!).
- Remove the lid and measure the temperature of the middle of the roast. It should be close to 120° F. If the temperature is significantly lower than that place the roast back into the pot and cover. Use the Keep Warm button to continue to slow roast the beef. It will rise 7° to 10° every 5 minutes.
- Place the roast on a cutting board and loosely tent it with foil. Let it rest for 8 minutes. Use a large serrated knife to slice the meat as thin as possible. It will be pink in the middle and that’s okay!
For the gravy and potatoes:
- While the meat is resting on the cutting board add butter, onions, baking soda, ½ tsp pepper, 1 ½ tsp kosher salt, ½ tsp Better Than Bouillon Beef Base into the Instant Pot with the drippings that are in the pot from the meat. Scrape bottom of pot so that nothing is sticking.
- Wash and cut up the potatoes into cubes and place into a steamer basket. Lower the steamer basket into the pot on top of the onions.
- Cover Instant Pot and secure the lid. Make sure valve is set to sealing. Set the manual/pressure cook button to 8 minutes. When time is up perform a quick release by moving the valve to venting.
- Remove the lid. Pour the steamer basket of potatoes into a big bowl. Pour the onions and drippings into a blender. Add in garlic, parsley and vinegar. Blend until smooth.
- Mash the potatoes until creamy. Stir in the 2 Tbsp of butter, milk and salt and pepper to taste.
Assemble:
- Place a piece of toast on a plate. Pile meat on top of toast. Add 1 scoop of potatoes on top and drizzle with gravy.
Notes
I used my 6 quart Instant Pot Duo 60 7 in 1*.
- 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.
When you put the broth in to deglaze, is that what you are considering drippings from the meat?
If you double the recipe the cooking time does not increase?
Correct!
I’m making this right now and realized that there’s no instruction for the onions. Are they supposed to be chopped, whole, sliced?
Oops! Sorry I just added that. you can slice them into thick rings.
I know this is going to be great like all of your recipes. Wondering can I use a bottom round roast for this recipe. They are sale this week. I don’t want to chance it if you think cut will not work. Thannkiong you in advance.
★★★★★
from what I understand the bottom round has a tighter grain to it. I think you’ll want to increase pressure cooking time. But I’m not sure how much? Maybe to 20 minutes.
My husband moaned and groaned with every bite. It was his favorite recipe of all time!
★★★★★
Haha when I read this I didn’t know if moaned and groaned was a good thing or bad thing!
New to such a delightful meal. How do you eat it? Certainly not as a sandwich, I imagine. 😊
Just with a fork! It is tasty!!
How would you adjust cook time if using pre-sliced top round?
I might just use the saute setting to cook instead of pressure cooking. It will probably get too done under pressure. If you do decide to pressure cook I would use a zero minute PC time with a 10 minute NPR.
Normally, have made many of your recipes and, have had great success. Sadly, this one wasn’t at all as I expected. I’m sure the cut of meat I used was partially to blame. Only had a 2 lb. bottom roast. Cooked it 6 minutes, since I thought it would be a less tender cut. We do not like “pink” inside. That part I can live with, but it was so salty, we could barely eat it. Just my personal opinion, but any time a recipe calls for the use of bouillon, there should be NO additional salt. For this recipe, there were a total of 3 1/2 tsp of salt!!!! And with the 1/2 tsp of Better than Bouillon Beef Base, there were 4 tsp of salt in addition to the broth used to “scrape the bottom of the pot clean”…………….Definitely not for people who are watching their sodium intake. I love my Instant Pot (s), I have 3 of them and use them all the time. In the future, I will not use anymore than 1 teaspoon in total for a recipe, and should the recipe call for the use of bouillon, I’ll use even less. Just thought you should know my experience, because as a nurse, we tell our patients; salt/sodium consumption is one of the causes of high blood pressure, and kidney damage, just to name a few. Thanks
★★
Sorry you had a bad experience Peggy!
Any tips on making this in the slow cooker?
I haven’t tried this one in the slow cooker yet. You could make a chuck roast in the slow cooker all day with the onions and I bet it would be really tasty.
Haven’t yet, but this one I WILL. I just finished preparing 2 of Karen’s instant Pot recipes to take for a campout. I have had great luck with all of Karen’s recipes. She is awesome.
★★★★★
Thanks Tim you are so nice!
Swap out the mashed potatoes and gravy for french fries and melted cheese and you’ve got yourself a beef “horseshoe”.
Well that sounds amazing!
I was going to comment about ‘something called beef Manhattan”. My first thought was,’who hasn’t heard of a Manhattan?’. I honestly didn’t realize it was an Indiana thing.
My mother made huge pot roasts with a ton of potatoes on Sundays. Leftovers became Manhattans on Monday. Same with turkey, but with turkey gravy. So Good!
I love hearing this! Turkey is my jam so I’ll have to try that!
This sounds like a perfect winter, Sunday night dinner! But honestly, I will make it because of the charming story….
Thanks for sharing!
Thanks for being here Suzanne!
This kind of looks like what we in Iowa call a hot beef sandwich. 🙂 Looks delish.
Yes I think they are pretty much the same!