Instant Pot Pioneer Pasta—wagon wheel pasta and ground beef are cooked with fire roasted tomatoes, seasonings, cream cheese and pepper jack cheese for a pasta dish that has tons of flavor. Kids and adults love this meal!
Instant Pot Pioneer Pasta
Although I’m 100% certain that the pioneers never got to eat anything as good as this pasta dish I named it pioneer pasta because of the shape of the pasta…they look like the wagon wheels. Just look at this picture of my son and a pioneer wagon.
And then look at the shape of these pasta noodles…
I found my wagon wheel pasta in the bulk bins at Winco. They cost me a dollar a pound! I just love those bulk bins. Especially for the seasonings. I can fill up my spice jars for about 50 cents.
If you’re not fortunate enough to have a Winco and you can’t find the wagon wheels at another grocery store then you can also use elbow macaroni pasta. Not quite as fun but it will still taste great!
I used ground beef for this recipe but you can also use ground turkey or ground chicken. Sausage would add a lot of flavor too. If you use sausage I would suggest cutting down on the amount of salt since the sausage has a lot of salt already in it.
My whole family plus a friend that randomly showed up around dinner time loved this Instant Pot pioneer pasta. I’m certain that the pioneers would have loved it too and would have been amazed at how quickly we can cook now using our Instant Pots 😉 Make it this week for dinner! I know you’ll love it.
What Equipment Did You Use?
To make Instant Pot Pioneer Pasta I used my 6 quart Instant Pot Duo 60 7 in 1*. I love this Instant Pot because it has the yogurt making function which I use almost weekly. It has two pressure settings (high and low), and there are also little slots in the handles so that you can rest the lid there instead of putting it down on your counter-top.
I used a hamburger helper meat chopper* to break up the meat.
I own calphalon self-sharpening knives which I used to dice the onions.
I use a grater that is similar to this one* to grate my own cheese. I like to buy my cheese in the blocks and grate it myself. I find it melts better that way.
You’ll also like these other hearty Instant Pot dinners…
Instant Pot Homemade Hamburger Helper
Want more tried and true Instant Pot recipes?
The 365 Days of Slow and Pressure Cooking website has 3-4 new Instant Pot recipes a week! If you sign up for my emails (fill out the form below) you’ll receive an email each time something new is on the site. You can also join the 365 Days of Instant Pot Recipes Facebook group which is run by my husband Greg and myself. If you’re a visual learner consider subscribing to my YouTube channel where I share Instant Pot stuff with you weekly.
Instant Pot Pioneer Pasta
- Prep Time: 15 minutes
- Cook Time: 3 minutes (plus 5 minute NPR)
- Total Time: 35 minutes
- Yield: 4–6 servings 1x
Description
Wagon wheel pasta and ground beef are cooked with fire roasted tomatoes, seasonings, cream cheese and pepper jack cheese for a pasta dish that has tons of flavor. Kids and adults love this meal!
Ingredients
- 1 pound uncooked ground beef
- 1 cup diced yellow onion
- 1 tsp salt
- 1/2 black pepper
- 1 tsp garlic powder
- 2 tsp dried basil
- 1 3/4 cups beef broth
- 8 oz (1/2 pound) uncooked wagon wheel pasta (or elbow macaroni)
- 1 (14.5 oz) can fire roasted tomatoes
- 4 oz (1/2 of a brick) of cream cheese
- 1 cup grated pepper jack cheese (or cheddar)
Instructions
- Turn your Instant Pot to the saute setting. When the display says hot add in the ground beef and break it up*. Add in the onion. Brown the ground beef for about 5 minutes. If needed, drain any grease off of the meat.
- Stir in the seasonings: salt, pepper, garlic powder and basil. Add in the beef broth and scrape off any brown bits from the bottom of the pot. Evenly dump the pasta on top of the beef. Dump the tomatoes evenly over the pasta. Don’t stir. Dump the cream cheese on top of the tomatoes.
- Cover the pot and secure the lid. Make sure the valve is set to sealing. Set the manual/pressure cook button to 3 minutes on high pressure. When the time is up let the pot sit for 5 minutes and then move the valve to venting. Remove the lid.
- Stir the pasta so that the cream cheese incorporates into the pasta. Stir in the grated cheese.
- Scoop onto serving dishes and enjoy!
Notes
3 quart instructions: Keep the same recipe as above.
8 quart instructions: Decrease pressure cooking time to 2 minutes.
- Category: Beef
- Method: Instant Pot
- Cuisine: American
*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.
HI Karen, I LOVE your recipes, but have been diagnosed with a heart condition and must now strictly limit my salt intake. Most of your recipes are quite high in salt. I do limit what I can, but must now skip a lot of my old favorites and new ones a that sound delicious…. I wondered if you might consider limiting the salt in some of your wonderful recipes? It would help all of us seniors, and those with kids who don’t want to introduce so much salt into their diets at a young age.
I can testify that being TOLD to limit ones salt intake OR ELSE, is not a happy place to be.
Thank you so much!
I’m so sorry. That is so hard. I asked my FB group about lowering salt intake and this is what they said:
You might can try the American heart association they may have some recipe links.
My big thing is I use zero salt Stock!
I would recommend reducing the salt added, as well as looking at the ingredients…all canned products have sodium added (you can rinse the beans), as well as sodium in things like Worcestershire sauce, boullion, soy sauce and canned cream soups. I work in healthcare and have this talk with others often.
Actually you can get ‘no salt added’ tomatoes and vegetables now. I have to eat low sodium so I am always scouting the can goods.
Yes, I should have phrased that better, as “most” and to search for the low sodium options, or use alternatives. I home can most of my own veggies, and with my IP, I just cook all my beans from dry and freeze the extra.
I use reduced sodium broth and skip the packets. Add my own spice when I can.
There are some excellent cookbooks and after reading their ratings and a few recipes it won’t take long to find several that follow low salt regime not just try.
Look on Amazon for “Instant Pot Dash diet recipes” there are several cookbooks available.
Not a resource per say but I use low sodium broth, no added salt and read labels. Many spice blends have added salt and I don’t use them
Since cooking with the IP is primarily from scratch and not using processed foods you control the sodium by controlling the salt. I prefer to use my own homemade broth but sometimes use broth powder but do by the low sodium. She can also avoid soy sauce and some of those Asian sauces that are high in sodium by making her own. Actually cooking with the IP is already inherently low sodium!
I’ve been using Magic seasonings for years. Great flavor and lower sodium. Created by Chef Paul Prudhomme in New Orleans.
Carefully read all ingredients on stocks tomatoes etc. For example, you can find low sodium chicken broth at 120 mg per serving or 540mg per serving. Chinese food is an option if you use coconut aminos instead of soy sauce.
Rinse and drain can beans when using in a recipe.
I just use low sodium ingredients
Just use no salt canned items when you are cooking, non injected pork and chicken, and stay away from the Better Than Buillon as it is horribly high in sodium. You can find no salt Swanson’s chicken and beef broth or Herb Ox no salt Buillons online. I eat low sodium, and the recipes are really easy to convert.
I substituted ground venison for the beef (since we had that on hand and not beef), and you’d never know the difference! My hubby loved it.
★★★★★
Nice!! Glad to hear it Leah!
This was really good. It’s not fancy, but it’s tasty, fast, and even the picky toddler liked it. Thank you!
★★★★★
Yep! Most times fancy is not a dinner requirement in my home 😜
Needed something quick to fix and just happened to have all ingredients on hand. Well, didn’t’ have wagon wheel pasta but penne worked just fine! Used half pepper jack and half cheddar. End result-delicious!!! Husband and I both loved it. Thanks for another great recipe!
★★★★★
Nice!! This is one of my faves 😊
I have been cooking from your blog this week. I wanted the dairy/gluten free people to know that this meal turned out amazing! I substituted the cream cheese with mayo and used gluten free noodles.
I also made the orange chicken but substituted the brown sugar with monk fruit sweetener (will add molasses next time also) no leftovers for either meal!
Thanks for the ideas for different dietary requirements!
This looks amazing! To double the recipe, do you change the cooking time?
This recipe cooked up super fast and was really good. My daughter loved it and even ate leftovers the next day, which is unheard of for her. Will definitely make it again!
★★★★★
WINNING!!!
It looks really great. I want to do this. Thanks.
It’s so good! You’ll love it!
This is looks really good but, I noticed when I used the 2X scale, it also doubled the salt and all the spices. It seems that’s a lot of salt and perhaps too much of the spices.
That is just a generic tool that is used on all my recipe cards. It’s not always right. Use whatever you think will work for you!
This looks amazing. I know this sounds nuts but I absolutely hate pepper jack and cheddar cheese ( the only two I really don’t like). Can you recommend another cheese option? I was thinking mozzarella but that wouldn’t offer much flavor. Thoughts?
Maybe kraft american cheese, or a muenster cheese?
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Those would work!
Mozzarella would work. What about Colby or Monterey Jack?