Instant Pot Southwest Tavern Sandwiches—a loose meat sandwich seasoned with southwest flavors and then topped with cheese, avocado and tomato. A perfect dinner or lunch to feed a crowd.
Get the SLOW COOKER recipe here

Instant Pot Southwest Tavern Sandwiches
If you love southwestern food and sloppy joes you’re going to love these Instant Pot Southwest Tavern Sandwiches which are a cross between the two. Saucy, flavorful ground beef is piled onto toasted buns that have been slathered in mayo and then the beef is topped with cheese, tomato and avocado. All the flavors in this sandwich are like a party in your mouth.
A few notes:
- This recipe is great to serve a crowd and so easy to double, triple or quadruple in your 6 quart Instant Pot.
- The meat is a bit spicy because of the chipotle pepper and the adobo sauce. If you’re a little scared of the spice then cut down on the amount of chopped pepper you add in and/or the amount of adobo sauce you add in. This is also where a lot of the flavor comes from so don’t cut it all out!
- I used extra lean ground beef where there was hardly any grease at all. So I didn’t need to drain the grease. However if you’re using a fattier ground beef you may need to drain off the grease before adding in the rest of the ingredients.
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What Pressure Cooker Did You Use?
To make Instant Pot Southwest Tavern Sandwiches 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.


Instant Pot Southwest Tavern Sandwiches
- Prep Time: 15 mintues
- Cook Time: 5 minutes (plus 10 minute NPR)
- Total Time: 40 minutes
- Yield: 4–6 servings 1x
Description
A loose meat sandwich seasoned with southwest flavors and then topped with cheese, avocado and tomato. A perfect dinner or lunch to feed a crowd.
Ingredients
- 1 pound lean or extra lean ground beef
- 1 tsp kosher salt
- 1/4 tsp pepper
- 1/2 cup diced onion
- 1/2 cup beef broth
- 1 chipotle pepper canned in adobo sauce, diced
- 1 Tbsp adobo sauce (from the chipotle chili can)
- 1 tsp garlic powder
- 1/2 tsp cumin
- 1 (8 oz) can tomato sauce
- 1/3 cup chopped cilantro
- 1 Tbsp lime juice
- Mayo, sliced tomato, sliced avocado, sliced cheese (I used colby jack)
- Buns, for serving
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 salt, pepper and onion. Brown for about 4-5 minutes. Turn off the saute setting. Add in the beef broth and scrape the bottom of the pot.
- Dump in the diced chipotle pepper, adobo sauce, garlic powder, cumin and tomato sauce. Don’t stir.
- Cover the pot and secure the lid. Make sure the valve is set to sealing. Set the manual/pressure cook button to 5 minutes. When time is up let the pot sit there for 10 minutes and then move the valve to venting. Remove the lid.
- Stir in the cilantro and lime juice.
- Slice the buns in half and toast them. Spread a little mayo on each bun. Scoop some of the meat mixture on top of each of the buns. Top each sandwich with tomato, avocado and cheese. Eat and enjoy!
Notes
You can easily double or triple this recipe to serve a crowd.
If you want to make it a little less spicy then leave out the adobo sauce.
- Category: Beef
- Method: Instant Pot
- Cuisine: Southwestern
*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.
Do you mean 1 chipotle pepper or 1 can ?
Just 1 chipotle pepper
The flavor was excellent, but it was too liquidy. Do you think it would still come to pressure if only 1/4 cup broth is used? If not, my other idea is to serve it over rice with chopped tomato, avocado and shredded cheddar.
★★★★
I’m not sure if it would come to pressure. You could add in a quarter cup of white rice into the pot and it would help soak up some of the liquid. That’s what I do for my lettuce wraps recipe.
Thank you for the suggestion. I’ll try adding rice.
Adding 1/4 cup of long-grain rice did the trick. The consistency was just right. Thank you for the suggestion.
★★★★★
Awesome! Glad to hear it worked well 🙂
Mine does have the photo? And it looks delicious! Adding to my shopping list immediately!
I haven’t actually tried this recipe – yet! But I wanted to say that I wish your emails included a picture of the finished recipe? Is this possible? I always click through to the recipe often just to see the picture. Maybe that’s why you don’t include the photo?? I also, very often, cook up a Karen Petersen Instant Pot recipe for dinner!
★★★★★
Hi Jaclyn, I realized that when I include a photo a lot of the emails go to people’s spam boxes. In order to get my emails to more people I removed the photo. Thanks for visiting my site though! I appreciate that.