Instant Pot Spaghetti Sauce With Home-Canned Tomatoes
This Instant Pot spaghetti sauce is one of those recipes that works especially well in a homestead kitchen because it can start with what you already have: home-canned tomato sauce, home-canned spaghetti sauce, or store-bought sauce when that is what is on the shelf.
In This Article
Why I Like Making Spaghetti Sauce in the Instant Pot
The Instant Pot cuts down on the amount of active stove time and gives me one pot to clean instead of watching a sauce simmer in several stages. That is useful on busy days when I still want a homemade meal but do not want dinner tied to the stove.
I start with cooked hamburger on the bottom, then add the remaining sauce ingredients. Keeping the meat at the bottom helps distribute it through the finished sauce instead of leaving one dense layer on top.
Once the lid is locked and the cooking cycle is finished, let the pressure release according to the recipe directions before opening the pot. Thick tomato sauces can spit or foam, so I do not rush that step.
Using Home-Canned Tomato Products
This is a good recipe for moving preserved tomatoes from the pantry into an actual meal. If I have jars of tomato sauce, I can season them into spaghetti sauce. If I already canned spaghetti sauce, the Instant Pot lets me add meat and other ingredients and turn it into dinner quickly.
Because home-canned sauces can vary in thickness and seasoning, taste the finished sauce before serving and adjust herbs, salt, or other seasonings as needed. If the sauce seems thinner than you want after pressure cooking, use the sauté function briefly with the lid off to reduce it, stirring so the bottom does not scorch.
Instant Pot Spaghetti Sauce Recipe
Here is my recipe.
Print Instant Pot Spaghetti Sauce
- Total Time: 20 minutes
Ingredients
- 1 quart jar (or 105 ounce can) tomato sauce
- ½ pound hamburger
- ¼ cup grated parmesan cheese
- 1 Tablespoon Italian seasoning
- 2 teaspoons garlic powder
- 1 teaspoon black pepper
Instructions
- Sautee the hamburger in the Instant Pot until it is brown.
- Pour the tomato sauce on top of the hambuger. Do not mix them together!
- Sprinkle the parmeasan cheese and spices on top of the tomato sauce.
- Place the lid on the Instant Pot and set it to high pressure for 10 minutes.
- Allow the pressure to release naturally when the timer goes off.
- Remove the lid, rinse it off right away, then stir the contents of the spaghetti sauce together to combine.
- Serve immediately.
- Prep Time: 10 minutes
- Cook Time: 10 minutes
- Category: Pasta
- Method: Instant Pot
Why I Cook the Pasta Separately
I prefer to cook the spaghetti separately on top of the stove and spoon the sauce over each plate. I do not cook the pasta in the sauce or stir all of the cooked pasta into the pot.
There is a practical reason for that: if I have more sauce than we need, I can save the sauce by itself for another meal. Freshly cooked pasta gives me better texture later than freezing everything together.
Freezing Extra Spaghetti Sauce
If there is too much sauce for one meal, I let the extra cool promptly and freeze it by itself in meal-size portions. Freezer-safe bags are handy because they can be frozen flat, stacked, and thawed more quickly than one large container.
On another busy day, I can thaw the sauce safely, heat it thoroughly, cook fresh pasta, and have dinner on the table without starting from scratch. That makes this recipe useful not just for tonight's meal but for building a small freezer stash from pantry ingredients.
Ways to Use Extra Sauce Beyond Spaghetti
Extra sauce does not have to wait for another spaghetti night. It can go over stuffed shells, baked pasta, meatballs, or a quick skillet meal. A smaller amount can also become the tomato base for another dish when you need dinner to come together quickly.
That flexibility is one reason I prefer freezing sauce separately instead of freezing it already mixed with pasta. One container can become several different meals depending on what else is available in the pantry or freezer.
More Instant Pot and Pantry Cooking Ideas
- Instant Pot Pressure Cooker Bone Broth Recipe
- How To Use The Instant Pot
- Instant Pot Recipes
- Apple Crisp Instant Pot Recipe
- Instant Pot Pork BBQ Ribs
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