Lionel’s Casserole–penne pasta with ground beef and vegetables in a creamy sauce. An easy, weeknight recipe made fast in the Instant Pot.
Lionel’s Casserole
This is one of those recipes that you grab what you have in your pantry and freezer and make it work for dinner! It all comes together nicely and the kids loved it. You can swap out the ground beef with ground turkey, use whatever kind of short cut pasta you have, use a can of cream of fill-in-the-blank and finally use a frozen vegetable that you like. It all works!
This recipe has been adapted from Lionel’s Casserole on Cooks.com.
Ingredients/Substitution Ideas
- Lean ground beef–or ground turkey
- Lemon pepper seasoning
- Chicken broth–or beef broth
- Mini penne pasta–or shells
- Cream of celery–or cream of mushroom, cream of chicken
- Frozen green beans–or fresh
- Carrots
Steps
Turn Instant Pot to saute setting. When display says HOT add in the beef and break it up. Brown for about 5 minutes, drain off excess grease. Stir in the lemon pepper seasoning.
Pour in the broth and scrape bottom of pot so that nothing is sticking. Turn off Instant Pot.
Evenly sprinkle in the penne pasta.
Dump the cream of celery, green beans and carrots on top. Don’t stir.
Cover Instant Pot and secure the lid. Make sure valve is set to sealing. Set the manual/pressure cook button to 4 minutes. When time is up let pot sit for 5 minutes and then move valve to venting. Remove the lid.
Stir, serve and enjoy!
Notes/Tips
- Serve with a green salad and garlic bread.
- Try switching the green beans in this recipe with some frozen broccoli or another frozen vegetable.
- If you use another type of pasta you may need to adjust the cooking time. Here is the formula: look at the back of the box of pasta and see how many minutes it says to boil the pasta. If it’s 10 minutes you divide that number by 2 (=5) and then subtract 2 minutes. So you would pressure cook for 3 minutes. I usually use a 5-10 minute natural pressure release for pasta.
- I used my 6 quart Instant Pot*. You can also make this in a 3 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 lemon pepper seasoning are Instant Pot Lemon Herbed Chicken and Red Potatoes and Instant Pot Chicken Gyros.
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.
Lionel’s Casserole
- Prep Time: 20 minutes
- Cook Time: 4 minutes (plus 5 minute NPR)
- Total Time: 24 minutes
- Yield: 4–6 servings 1x
Description
Penne pasta with ground beef and vegetables in a creamy sauce. An easy, weeknight recipe made fast in the Instant Pot.
Ingredients
- 1 pound lean ground beef
- 1 tsp lemon pepper seasoning
- 2 cups chicken or beef broth
- 8 ounces mini penne pasta
- 1 (10.5 oz) can Campbell’s cream of celery soup
- 1 (12 oz) package frozen green beans
- 2 carrots, peeled and sliced
Instructions
- Turn Instant Pot to saute setting. When display says HOT add in the beef and break it up. Brown for about 5 minutes, drain off excess grease. Stir in the lemon pepper seasoning.
- Pour in the broth and scrape bottom of pot so that nothing is sticking. Turn off Instant Pot.
- Evenly sprinkle in the penne pasta. Dump the cream of celery, green beans and carrots on top. Don’t stir.
- Cover Instant Pot and secure the lid. Make sure valve is set to sealing. Set the manual/pressure cook button to 4 minutes. When time is up let pot sit for 5 minutes and then move valve to venting. Remove the lid.
- Stir, serve and enjoy!
- Category: Beef
- Method: Instant Pot
More Instant Pot Pasta and Beef Recipes…
California Casserole
Penne pasta with tomatoes, spinach, corn, mushrooms, peppers, cheese and more! Make it fast in one pot, your Instant Pot.
Cruncheroni Casserole
An easy Instant Pot pasta dinner with ground beef, Rotel tomatoes, cheddar and crispy fried onions.
Babysitter Casserole
Ground beef and spaghetti noodles with vegetables, an amazing sauce and cheese. An easy Instant Pot weeknight dinner recipe.
*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.
Would double the recipe fit in a six quart pot?
yes it will
this is a really good recipe. I used frozen mixed vegetables. turned out so good there was enough for both me and my husband and for lunch the next day for us. I really enjoy all your recipes. i have tried several and will try many more. thank you for the recipes.
Thank you so much Kim! So glad to hear it 🙂
I made this dish last night 5/18/24. It turned out very tasty. I think I will skip the frozen green beans next time… they weren’t my favorite… LOL, I think I’ll try broccoli or spinach next time, It was very creamy and we ate the whole pot! 🙂 Thaks Karen for another yummy recipe I could make in a jiffy! 🙂
That should read – “Thanks, Karen! LOL
You’re welcome Theresa!
Thank you for this recipe, Karen! I had a pound of ground beef defrosting and was running around with end of the year stuff for the kids. When you sent this recipe today, I knew my dinner dilemma was solved. I only had two carrots, perfect. I used a bag of frozen mixed veggies instead of green beans, and I used a can of cream of mushroom soup instead of celery. I only had a cup of broth, so I just used water for the second cup. I didn’t have lemon pepper seasoning so I used half tsp of pepper and a half tsp of lemon juice. Like I said, it’s been one of those days. It was a great dinner! I think having the fresh carrots and the cream soup is key.
To answer the question about the canned green beans, I’ve learned to add those after the pressure is released. Otherwise the green beans will turn mushy. Drain them and add them and stir around until it’s heated through.
Thanks so much JC! I love this review. It’s so great that you made it work with what you had on hand!
Can I use canned green beans?
Yes, but I would stir them in after the pressure cooking time is up.