My whole family loves this Instant Pot Spaghetti! Silky, flavorful, and delightfully clingy. Easy enough for my kids to make it too!
Instant Pot Spaghetti
My Kindergartener Can Make This Recipe – And I Actually, Genuinely Love It
It’s a parenting first!
I love the idea of matching your kid’s age to a number of goal recipes – for example, when you’re 5 years old – you learn how to make 5 recipes. (I got this idea from Nita and Jess at Healthy Happy Eaters – they are wonderful.)
My daughter’s favorite dinner is spaghetti, so I thought making it in the Instant Pot might help it feel more manageable:
- it’s one single pot.
- no cutting board required.
- it has higher sides so there’s less splattering.
- no draining of boiling water.
We started making it this way “to help her” but quickly realized… Instant Pot spaghetti is actually kinda special. It’s silky, flavorful, and extra clingy. Makes for an ideal combo with house favorite garlic bread and air fryer broccoli.
These days, when my family requests spaghetti for dinner (made by me, or my daughter), THIS is the spaghetti they are asking for. Some people might be offended by the breaking of the noodles, which you have to do to get them to fit – but in our house we roll with it and the shorter noodles work great for kids.
The ratios are just how I like them: meaty, saucy, so comforting. A home run hit with my kids and my husband every time.
(But I’d make this for myself even if I didn’t have kids!)
Hope you love it! If you love easy dinner recipes – check out this mega page of all my favorites!
Watch How To Make This Instant Pot Spaghetti
Instant Pot Spaghetti
- Total Time: 35 minutes
- Yield: 6 servings 1x
Description
My whole family loves this Instant Pot Spaghetti! Silky, flavorful, a delightfully clingy. Easy enough for my kids to make it too!
Ingredients
Units
Scale
Instant Pot Spaghetti:
- 1 tablespoon olive oil
- 1 pound ground beef (I use 85/15)
- 1/2 teaspoon each garlic powder, onion powder, and Italian seasoning
- 1 clove garlic, minced (optional)
- 1 teaspoon kosher salt
- 1 (24 ounce) jar pasta sauce
- 1 3/4 cups water
- 1 teaspoon Better Than Bouillon (I use the chicken base)
- 8 ounces spaghetti, broken in half (1/2 pound)
Extras / Toppings:
- 4 tablespoons butter
- Parmesan cheese
- parsley or basil
- red pepper flakes
Instructions
- Meat: Turn the sauté function on in the Instant Pot. Add oil, ground meat, garlic powder, onion powder, Italian seasoning, garlic, and salt to the Instant Pot. It should sizzle. Sauté until the meat is browned and cooked through.
- Sauce: Add the jar of sauce, the water, Better than Bouillon, and the noodles. Make sure the noodles are tucked underneath the liquid.
- Cook: Cover, seal, and cook on high pressure for 8 minutes.
- Release Steam: Lay a towel over the vent to avoid splatters; release the steam right away to avoid overcooking the noodles.
- Rest: When you open the cover, the noodles will be cooked and it will look very saucy / wet. Use tongs to stir it up and distribute the sauce; let everything rest for 10 minutes. This is important because the noodles will absorb the sauce and everything will cling together just right!
- Done! Stir the butter in until melted and a little creamy. Top with Parmesan, serve with house favorite garlic bread to dunk in the sauce, and get a simple green salad on the side. Oooh so good.
Notes
Personally I love making this with Italian sausage! It has more flavor (you can even skip the salt because the sausage itself has a lot of salt in it). So, sausage is my pick – however, my family loves it with the classic ground beef so that’s what I am including in the recipe. 🙂
- Prep Time: 5 minutes
- Cook Time: 30 minutes
- Category: Dinner
- Method: Instant Pot
- Cuisine: Italian
Keywords: instant pot spaghetti, easy spaghetti recipe, kid-friendly recipe, instant pot pasta recipe
Frequently Asked Questions
Can you make this on the stove instead of in the Instant Pot?
You can make this as a one-pot spaghetti right on the stove! Follow the directions as-stated, but instead of cooking it via pressure in the Instant Pot, let it simmer covered on the stovetop until the noodles are cooked, stirring occasionally.
What other meat can you use?
Typically, we make this with ground beef, but I love this with Italian sausage even more. You could also use ground turkey for a healthier option!
What if I don’t have Better Than Bouillon?
Just replace with 1/2 teaspoon of salt, or replace the water with chicken broth.
How could I add onions?
When the ground beef is almost cooked through, add some diced onion and sauté until softened.
Can you make this vegetarian / meatless?
Yep! Just skip the meat. I would maybe reduce the water by just a bit so it’s not overly saucy.
More Favorite Kid-Friendly Recipes
Filed Under: All Recipes Dinner Instant Pot Kid-Friendly Meat and Chicken Pasta Quick and Easy Recipes Tomato
July 31, 2025
Nice to meet you!
I’m Lindsay and I ♡ FOOD. I used to be a teacher, and now making food and writing about it online is my full-time job. I love talking with people about food, and I'm so glad you're here.
Did you make a recipe? Tag @pinchofyum on Instagram so we can find you!
Have you made this with a pasta like Banza?
We haven’t tested it with a gluten-free pasta yet, let us know if you do!
I’m going to try with with Gluten Free Rummo brand pasta! Banza always falls apart for me – but this brand holds up really well always!
Hi! If I am making this without meat, would you suggest adjusting the cooking time at all? Thanks!
Is it possible to make this in a crockpot?
Also highly recommend making it with frozen meatballs. SO good.
Oh! I was just thinking that I’d like to make this tonight, but all I have is frozen meatballs. How do I sub those in? Use them frozen? Thaw and break them up like ground beef? Thanks!
I made this last week and it turned out amazing! I have to admit I was skeptical at first… when I took the lid of the Instant Pot off and saw lots of saucy liquid! But I was happily surprised how the spaghetti absorbed the excess liquid! I loved the plump noodles so much that I will probably only make spaghetti this way in the future! The addition of the butter at the end was really good too. This was even better because it was easy to make and easy to clean up! Just the lid and the pot. Usually I have two pots to clean and the colander!
Yep, it needs that standing time after cooking and turns into the best spaghetti! Glad you enjoyed it.
This looks like a perfect weeknight meal for a busy family. Love that your daughter helps too! Quick question: if we are trying to eat more vegetarian meals, could we omit the beef but keep the spices etc? Do you think it would all pull together still? Thanks so much!
Hmmm… we wouldn’t know that without testing it. If you wanted to substitute something like Impossible Burger, I think that would be your best for it to turn out right.
Does it work to double this recipe?
We haven’t tested that, but it seems like that amount of ingredients might be too much for the Instant Pot to handle. If you do decide to try it, make sure you don’t go past the max fill line inside the pot.
It worked great!! I have a 6 qt. Instant Pot. I doubled the recipe and it worked exactly as written.
Oh awesome! Thanks for reporting back!
My kiddo is entering K this year in STP and this recipe caught my eye. We had it for dinner tonight and subbed 1/2 the water with bone broth and added some onion from the farmers market. So yummy! The butter makes it.
Yes, that last addition butter gives it the extra yumminess!
This feels silly to ask but when does the bouillon go in? When sautéing with the meat/spices or with the sauce/water/pasta?
Thanks!
Not silly, it was missing! Now updated, thanks for catching – goes in with the water.
Love the ease of this but what if you don’t have an Instant Pot? (Want to get one but the kitchen (and husband) cannot take one. More. Appliance!) Is there any other “instant” way to make this?
I’m going to try this with the one-pot-pasta method and see what we get! https://www.budgetbytes.com/italian-wonderpot/
I dearly miss my instant pot and will be repurchasing one soon (we just moved countries and it wouldn’t have worked here), but most things can be made with a little more time on the stovetop! We just made Lindsey’s chicken and dumplings recipe with the stovetop instructions on the bottom of the recipe card and it was perfection.
This seems like a great mini series: foods your five year old can make! SOS was great for the toddler years, but man I’d for sure tune in for the newly-independent skills! We’re for sure trialing this with our kids!
This was delicious, and SO easy! I always have frozen Italian sausage because it defrosts so easily in water when I’ve forgotten to take anything out for dinner (read: we eat a LOT of Italian sausage 😆). I freeze my marinara in 3 c containers. Supper was DONE – and so good!
Yay, so glad it was enjoyed!
I made this the day it came out! It was so easy! I did modify by not doing the meat (or its seasonings) and instead tossed in a handful of Lindsay’s chicken meatballs I had in the freezer before sealing up to cook. I used 12oz of sauce, 2cups of water, and 1/2lb of pasta. Delicious!
Oh, awesome! Thanks for the notes on your modifications!
If I don’t have Better than Bouillon, should I just make 8 oz of the water chicken broth instead?
Yep!
I’ve got a spaghetti loving 6 year old but don’t have an insta-pot. Any suggestions on how to do this in a slow cooker?
Whoa! I don’t normally leave reviews, but this was just SO crazy delicious and easy, plus two of my three picky eaters just totally went for it. Amazing! 100% going into our regular rotation. Thanks for the awesome recipe!
I made this twice, and it was such a hit. My husband and I devoured it! I followed the recipe to the T. I did get the burn sign once. I quickly released the pressure, scraped the bottom of the pot, and turned the settings again as per instructions. I didn’t get any burn sign the next time. I paired it with some salad on the side. There were leftovers for us! Such a quick, delicious, and versatile recipe! Thank you!
Could you do a post with more recipes that your 5 year old can make? I’d love that!
This is so easy and really good! I love that it uses the instantpot which gives me more hands off time to do other things in the kitchen. It was super saucy and flavorful. We served it with steamed broccoli and garlic bread. It was a hit for the whole family.
So I came here to leave an angry review because I thought I had followed the instructions exactly except for adding more water because the sauce didn’t even come close to covering the noodles. And when the time was up, they were still mostly uncooked. I was like, “WTH?” Then I reread the ingredients. I used twice as much spaghetti as I was supposed to.
My bad. I ended up being able to (mostly) fix it, and my family thought it was fine. Next time I hope to do it the right way!
This was soooooo good! Made it for myself and hubby, and granddaughter who was visiting. There was enough left for us to have another meal. We could have had more, but really wanted it again another day! Thanks for the recipe!
Thanks for making this one, Rita!
I don’t like spaghetti and have only made it once in the 11.5 years I’ve been married. Until tonight. I saw this recipe this week and couldn’t stop thinking about it. Doubled everything except the beef and it was perfect. Don’t skip the butter at the end. It made it smooth and just oh so good. I am even looking forward to leftovers tomorrow, what has happened to me haha
Yay, so glad to hear you loved it!
I’m a little confused on the spaghetti amount. Is it a total of 8 oz of pasta, so you are cutting in half a pound package, or do you actually cut in half 8 oz of pasta?
Correct, if you have a pound of dried pasta, that equals 16 ounce. So you use half of the dried pasta to equal 8 ounces.
Looking forward to trying this. 🙂 But do you have a recommendation of a favourite jarred sauce?
Yes, Rao’s!
We had noodles stick together and not fully cook even though they were immersed. Any suggestions to avoid this?
This was really good! I made it mostly because it was kid friendly, but then my husband and I really liked it too. For anyone curious about meatless options, I used half a pound of Impossible ground and it worked perfectly. I would defy anyone to even know it was meatless in this dish. I used the stovetop instructions and it took about 25 minutes to cook through. Kept everything else the same. Will make again!