This Instant Pot Ground Chicken Pasta is a simple, 30-minute dinner that's perfect for busy weeknights. Penne pasta and ground chicken are cooked together using jarred sauce, for an effortless meal. No stock!
This instant pot ground chicken pasta recipe is a weeknight winner! The pasta and chicken cook together seamlessly in the pressure cooker, making it incredibly easy and flavorful. Once you try it, you’ll find yourself making it again and again—my family enjoys it about once a week!
Instant Pot pasta dishes are a game-changer! They're quick to make, easy to clean up, and perfect for the whole family. Most come together in just 30 minutes, making them the ultimate go-to for busy weeknights, like the instant pot chicken pasta.
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Why you'll love it?
- Ready in under 30 minutes
- Pressure cooker recipe
- Using jarred marinara sauce
- Easy weeknight meal
- Perfect way to use one pound ground chicken
Ingredients
Scroll down to the recipe card below for full information on ingredients and amounts.
The ingredients for this recipe are pretty standard for a pasta with red sauce. However, I’d like to highlight a few that you might have questions about:
- Pasta – No penne on hand? Feel free to use any medium-sized pasta like fusilli, farfalle, rigatoni, or whatever you have in your pantry!
- Ground chicken - It is a great way to use one pound of ground chicken, as in all our ground chicken recipes.
- Marinara sauce – Use your favorite jarred marinara sauce—Prego is always my go-to!
How to make?
You can find full printable recipe below, but here is a quick overview of the procedure along with step-by-step photos.
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👩🍳 Pro tip: Avoid stirring the pasta! Simply layer it on top of the sauce to prevent the "Burn" warning. The sauce acts as a barrier, protecting the bottom of the pot and keeping the pasta from sticking or burning.
Step 9 - Give the pasta a stir and mix in chopped basil and grated parmesan.
Recipe tips
- Use any medium-sized pasta instead of penne.
- Adjust salt based on the type of red sauce used. I used Prego and found 1 ¼ teaspoon to be perfect in the instant pot shrimp pasta.
- The sauce may seem a bit thin when you first open the Instapot, but it thickens up nicely as it cools for a few minutes.
- Use ground turkey instead of chicken
More recipes using ground chicken
Instant Pot Ground Chicken Pasta
Equipment
Ingredients
- 3 tablespoons olive oil
- 1 pound ground chicken
- ½ cup chopped onion
- 3 cloves garlic, minced
- 2 cups marinara sauce (I used prego, tomato basil & garlic)
- ¾ cup water
- 1 teaspoon Italian seasoning
- 1 ¼ teaspoon salt or use as needed
- ¼ teaspoon red pepper flakes
- ¼ teaspoon ground black pepper
- 8 ounces penne pasta
- ¼ cup grated parmesan
- chopped basil
Instructions
- Heat instant pot to saute mode.
- When hot, add olive oil. Stir in ground chicken, onion and garlic. Saute for 3 to 4 minutes, breaking the lumps.
- Press cancel, add marinara sauce, water, Italian seasoning, salt, red pepper flakes and black pepper. Mix to combine.
- Place the pasta on top and gently press it into the sauce, using the back of a spoon, making sure that they are mostly immersed into the sauce.Pro tip: Avoid stirring the pasta! Simply layer it on top of the sauce to prevent the "Burn" warning. The sauce acts as a barrier, protecting the bottom of the pot and keeping the pasta from sticking or burning.
- Cook on manual for 5 minutes. Let it be in warm mode for an additional 4 minutes.
- Release pressure, open and stir in parmesan and chopped basil.
Notes
Nutrition
Nutritional information, based on third-party calculations, should be seen as estimates, not guarantees, as various factors like product types, brands, processing methods, and more can alter the nutritional content in recipes.
All contents and images are my original work, unless and otherwise mentioned. Please do not use my recipes or images without linking back to www.kitchenathoskins.com. If you wish to republish a recipe, please rewrite in your own words and don’t forget to include a link back to the original recipe.
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Katherine | Love In My Oven
Sounds like the perfect easy dinner for a busy weeknight this fall, Maria! I love that you used ground chicken. It's a nice change from beef sometimes!!
Jodi
Love making recipes where I have all the ingredients. But I got the burn notice twice on my Instant Pot. So I scraped the bottom and added some more chicken broth but still burned on the bottom and never got to finish cooking. But the pasta was done so we ate it.
Maria Doss
That's no good! This is a standard measurement for all our instant pot pasta recipes and they usually work out very well. You can check out a very similar, hugely popular recipe - https://www.kitchenathoskins.com/instant-pot-chicken-parmesan-pasta/. That being said, I'm very sorry about the burning part.I will go back to see if the liquid measurements was right and the valve was at sealing position. Hope it helps:)
Jennifer
I’m making this for dinner tonight and just got the burn notice too. I turned off the IP and put the lid back on to let the pasta cook a bit more. Hopefully that’ll work!
Maria Doss
Hi Jennifer, I hope it worked out for you. However, we have updated the recipe with a clever trick that avoids the dreaded BURN signal. Thanks, Maria
Zoya
Mine started to burn too and had the burn notification
Maria Doss
I'm extremely sorry that this recipe did'nt work for you. Some instant pots are better suited to not burn when the pasta is not stirred into the liquid, like in this recipe - https://www.kitchenathoskins.com/instant-pot-chicken-parmesan-pasta/#recipe. Hope it helps! Happy holidays - Maria