This is our easy homemade Instant Pot spaghetti sauce with meat! It's the most flavorful Ninja Foodi pressure cooker sauce ever made in 20 minutes and then you can make Instant Pot spaghetti from there.

A bowl of homemade spaghetti sauce garnished with chopped herbs sits on a wooden table near a patterned yellow and white towel, while an instant pot spaghetti sauce simmers nearby, enhancing the cozy kitchen ambiance.

This homemade Instant Pot spaghetti sauce is probably the easiest thing we've made. It happened kind of by accident. Of course we planned to make this in our pressure cooker so we could add it to our collection of Instant Pot recipesand it went from there.

Here's the story. We was at the grocery store when we noticed the rolls of spicy sausage in the meat department were $.99. It's seriously the best, and use it a multitude of recipes so we took one and thought “we're going to figure out something to make with this today.” My initial thought was an easy homemade pasta sauce!

You see when we met our husband this was one of “his recipes” meaning if we asked him to cook there were a few choices and this was one. Hamburgers, pasta with scallops, or he would make his own sauce in a huge pot. There was so much for the two of us that it was ridiculous, but early on we couldn't break his heart to tell him that.

An open Instant Pot reveals a hearty sauce simmering with tomatoes and ground meat, reminiscent of a robust spaghetti sauce.

It was like he was cooking for 12 people and a lot of it go wasted. Took him like all day nursing it to his liking. Although it was good, we wanted it paired down to a normal amount and have the cook time for spaghetti be a lot less.

We remembered what he added and worked on that. A pot full that was more for about 6 people so we could make dinner for the now 4 of us and then save some for later. This is what we came up with, and at the end we had enough for a small meal later. Freezing it for later worked quite well, we will talk about that later…..

Ingredient notes

We like starting with a big can of Whole peeled tomatoeswill give it more texture than sauce being used.

Tomato sauce We used is listed below, use more or less depending on how thick you want it to be.

A can of tomato paste will help to thicken all of it together. You can adjust this amount according to how thick you want the end result.

Diced tomatoes can be bought Italian style, spicy, or plain. We personally like the canned version that is petite with roasted tomatoes.

A small white or yellow Onion We add to everything, diced finely for flavor and added texture.

As far as seasonings go we always add minced garlic in everything around here Garlic salt is a must always Basil and oregano are traditional Italian seasonings and Saltto taste at the end

Now everyone has different preferences when it comes to this classic dish, and this is no different. Typically most want to add ground beefthat is safe and delish. You do want a bit of fat in it so 80/20 is usually what we use to add more flavor.

Swaps

You can use Jimmy Dean's spicy (HOT) sausage instead, or half and half with beef will give it a ton more flavor with a bit of heat. We love this if we have it on hand or think ahead of time to pick some at the store.

Can you make spaghetti sauce without meat?

Of course this is an option, marinara is what that would be called. If you didn't want to add any proteins then you could skip that sauteeing step and continue after that to the high pressure stages in the recipe card below. Another tweak is to add some puree like we did with our pumpkin spaghetti recipe.

How Long to Cook Spaghetti Sauce in Instant Pot (with Meat)

It's quick in a pressure cooker!! It takes a few minutes to cook until meat is no longer pink, then make sure to scrape bottom with wooden spoon to avoid burn notice. Then we simmered it on the soup setting for 20 minutes!! If you were in a hurry you could set it for 10 minutes and we think it would still be great too. You are warming everything together at that point because the meat is already cooked.

Ninja Foodi Spaghetti Sauce

Want to make cheesy?? Follow our Ninja Foodi spaghetti and then when done add a layer of cheese on top and let it melt. We like the Mexican cheese blend at the store that has a few types mixed together with taco seasoning too.

Some people prefer to boil the noodles separately and others love one pot spaghetti because it gives the pasta so much more flavor, so it's totally your choice. Either way making homemade spaghetti sauce is now so easy to make all the things with it now and later.

Homemade Instant Pot Spaghetti Sauce Recipe

By Easy homemade Instant Pot spaghetti sauce recipe with ground beef or without. We threw this together in 10 minutes and 20 minutes later it was done. Way better than any jarred and can be made in Ninja Foodi or any pressure cooker. Prep: 15 minutes minsCook: 20 minutes minsTotal: 35 minutes minsServings: 8 Save Recipe Saved! Pin Recipe Comment Print Recipe

Equipment

Ingredients

1 can tomatoes, whole peeled 28 oz
1 roll spicy sausage, 12 oz
8 oz tomato sauce
6 oz water
6 oz tomato paste
1 small onion, diced
1 can diced tomatoes petite 14.5 oz
1 tbsp minced garlic
1 tbsp garlic salt
1 tbsp basil
1 tsp oregano
1 pinch salt, to taste

Instructions

Put Instant Pot on saute, medium. Spray inside of pot with non stick spray. Add onions and sausage.
Cook until sausage is completely cooked.
Turn Instant Pot off by pushing cancel. Deglaze your pot by scraping stuck on meat off bottom with a bit of your water, if not you may get the burn notice.
Add all other ingredients into your pot and stir. (we cut up the whole peeled tomatoes into smaller chunks).
Close lid and steam valve and set to soup function, medium setting, for 20 minutes.
Quick release, stir and put on top of noodles….or add about 8 oz of spaghetti noodles broken in half, submerge in liquid and set to manual, high, for 8 minutes to cook everything together.

Nutrition

Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.

Additional Info

Course: Entree, Main CourseCuisine: American, Italian Tried this recipe?Mention @thetypical_mom or tag #thetypicalmom!

Kitchen questions

How do you thicken spaghetti sauce?

You could put it in on saute. In a small dish whisk together a few tbsp of cornstarch with cold water until smooth. Pour in and stir. Another option is to add a bit of tomato paste, that is quite thick but a strong flavor so more seasonings may be necessary with this one.

Should you freeze noodles in sauce?

Do not add noodles into the mix if you are going to freeze it, those will get mushy and a super weird texture if you do. the sauce freezes well. If you have some with noodles in it, put in a container with a lid and in the fridge. Reheat in the microwave the next day for lunch for the best results overall.

How do you save leftover homemade spaghetti sauce?

Ok so when you are done and it is sitting off the burner you will need to wait until it is room temperature. You never want to transfer hot or even warm food from a pot into the fridge right away. It will have a strong chance of growing bacteria because of the dramatic temp. difference.

How do you freeze leftover homemade spaghetti sauce?

Use a ladle to transfer it into a large or pint sized freezer bag, depending on how much you have. Zip it tightly and lay it flat in the freezer. Once it is rock hard you can move it around to a different location but flat will save space in there and you can stack them if you have a few. Always remember to mark the date and contents on the outside too.

Spaghetti Recipes

One of our earliest recipes was homemade Instant Pot spaghetti, and later Instant Pot penne pasta with, well penne noodles. They're two of our most popular pressure cooker recipes on our site. As far as noodles go you can use about anything.

If you prefer homemade sauce though, you can start with this and make baked spaghetti with meatballs. You can use this to make crockpot spaghetti and meatballs recipe too.

For a lower carb option, make air fryer zoodles and serve this sauce on the top. If you haven't tried this you'll be surprised at how good it is. cook until slightly tender with still some texture to it and toss with this sauce. Even our kids were surprised at how good this option was.