This simple and healthy Instant Pot Sloppy Joes recipe uses fresh or frozen ground beef and vegetables for tons of flavor in your pressure cooker!
What is it about sloppy joes that remind us of our childhood? I grew up eating sloppy joes pretty regularly, so I decided to try my hand at making an insanely quick and easy sloppy joes recipe in the Instant Pot!
Instant Pots can be a little intimidating, but starting with a simple recipe like this one is a great way to get used to working with it!
Instant Pot Sloppy Joes are actually really tasty. I’ve never had a good Sloppy Joe that didn’t come from a Manwich can until now. Around our house, they’re lovingly referred to as “Sloppy Megan’s”.
Plus, they’re packed with veggies, and healthy, whole foods instead of that salty, canned sauce that’s packed with preservatives, and who knows what else!
Jump to:
What do Instant Pot sloppy joes taste like?
Healthy Instant Pot sloppy joes taste a lot like traditional sloppy joes, only slightly sweeter and way less salty. The ketchup and carrots add a little more natural sweetness, and the Worcestershire sauce adds a smokiness that can’t be imitated.
With all the ingredients pressure cooked in one pot, all the flavors combine so well in the Instant Pot and help to create an amazingly cozy, and fast dinner meal.
Ingredients
Avocado oil – One of the heart healthiest oils you can buy because it’s so high in unsaturated fats! Plus, it has a super high smoke point, so it can be heated to just over 500 degrees without burning!
Ground beef – The base of this recipe. I buy organic, grass-fed beef, and as lean as I can afford. Beef, when raised sustainably and fed the correct diet, is actually incredibly healthy.
Yellow onion – Adds a nice texture to these Instant Pot sloppy joes, and helps to flavor the beef as it cooks.
Green bell pepper – It’s the most inexpensive bell pepper, but still adds a slight sweetness and a nice color to break up all the brown in these healthy sloppy joes.
Garlic – This adds a ton of flavor to these Instant Pot sloppy joes.
Carrots – Shredded up, so you can barely taste them. They provide some fiber and added nutrition to these sloppy joes, and help to make the sauce healthier than traditional sloppy joes sauce.
Ketchup – Use natural, minimal ingredient ketchup to keep this sloppy joes recipe healthy. Most ketchup brands have way too many preservatives and added sugar. Try this ketchup brand!
Worcestershire sauce – This sauce has so much flavor and adds a slight smokiness without having to actually use liquid smoke. Don’t skip this ingredient!
Low sodium soy sauce – Still very salty, but a necessary component to these Instant Pot sloppy joes. Soy sauce adds salt but also helps the sloppy joes sauce develop a deeper flavor in the Instant Pot.
Chili powder – Adds a little spice to the sloppy joes and a ton of natural red color! You can’t make these healthy sloppy joes without chili powder.
Substitutions
Ground beef – You don’t have to use ground beef for these sloppy joes! Both ground turkey and ground chicken would work just as well in these Instant Pot sloppy joes.
Instructions
Can you put frozen ground beef in the Instant Pot?
This Instant Pot Sloppy Joes recipe can be made using fresh or frozen ground beef. Just in case you forgot to thaw out your beef like I do all the time, here are some instructions on what to do.
If you’re using frozen ground beef, you’ll need to defrost it slightly before you use it. Simply fill your sink with room temperature water and let the frozen ground beef thaw in the water for 20-30 minutes before using. That will soften up the outside of the beef, making it easier to cook.
Once you’ve slightly defrosted your ground beef, you can saute it in the Instant Pot, scraping the browned beef off the frozen chunk of meat with a spatula and rotating it as it cooks. It’s not the easiest way to cook ground beef, but it works!
Can I freeze sloppy joes?
Of course! If you have leftovers that you’d like to freeze, simply put the mixture into a zip lock bag or airtight container. Label and date it, and freeze it for up to 3 months.
Thaw overnight in the fridge, then microwave or cook on the stovetop until the sloppy joes are heated through. Don’t re-freeze though, so make sure you only reheat what you and your family will eat!
Tips & FAQ
Manwich is just a brand name of sloppy joes sauce! Sloppy joes are the type of sandwich you make with the meat, sauce, and hamburger buns.
You’ll get about 4 really good-sized, meaty servings from this sloppy joes recipe using one pound of ground beef.
Yes! For this Instant pot recipe, you’ll need to drain the excess oil off the beef before moving on to the next step. Otherwise, you may end up with a really thin or greasy sauce.
Absolutely yes! This recipe keeps really well for a few days in the fridge. In fact, these healthy sloppy joes can be made up to 3 days in advance. Simply refrigerate them, then reheat when you’re ready to eat them.
If your sloppy joes sauce is too thin, it may be because you didn’t drain the oil off the beef, or possibly that you added too much liquid in the first place.
Either way, sloppy joes sauce can be thickened really easily by mixing 1 tbsp cornstarch with 3 tablespoons of cold water until the cornstarch is completely dissolved. Gradually add the mixture into the sloppy joes sauce, stirring as you pour it in.
Nutritional Info
This Instant Pot sloppy joes recipe is naturally healthy because it’s full of natural ingredients, and vegetables, too!
One of the easiest ways to pack this recipe with veggies is to shred up a couple of carrots. The texture of the carrots blends perfectly with the ground beef, and you hardly notice them. Plus, they add a natural sweetness to the sauce.
I also throw in green bell pepper, which goes really well with tomato-based sauces like Sloppy Joes.
On top of the veggies, I like to use natural ketchup that’s not packed with all that high-fructose corn syrup like traditional ketchup.
Total nutritional content per serving is:
- Calories: 380 calories
- Total Fat: 19 grams
- Protein: 31 grams
- Sodium: 398 mg
- Carbohydrates: 22 grams
- Fiber: 3 grams
*This nutritional information is an estimate and calculated based on the ingredients used to create the recipe. The nutritional value of your ingredients may differ slightly. Furthermore, this food is not intended to prevent, diagnose, cure, or treat any disease.
Pricing Info
Sloppy Joes are just one of those delicious, cheap meals that are almost always crowd-pleasers, aren’t they? Even with the healthy additions and natural ingredients, this one is no different!
This is what I personally paid to make this recipe:
- 2 tsp avocado oil
- 1 lb ground beef
- ½ yellow onion diced
- 1 green bell pepper diced
- 2 cloves garlic minced
- 2 carrots shredded
- ¾ cup ketchup
- 2 tbsp Worcestershire sauce
- 1 tbsp low sodium soy sauce
- 2 tsp chili powder
This recipe comes out to be just under $6 for the whole pot, or about $1.49 per serving. That’s a really cheap dinner!
What’s a good side dish with sloppy joes?
Some great side dish options are:
- Roasted Frozen Vegetables
- Air Fryer Asparagus
- Sweet Potato Wedges
- Air Fryer Delicata Squash
- Acorn Squash Salad
- Boursin Mashed Potatoes
Other Instant Pot Recipes:
Shop my recipe:
Tried this recipe? Please leave a ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ rating in the comments below! I would really appreciate your feedback!
Recipe
Instant Pot Sloppy Joes
Ingredients
- 2 tsp avocado oil
- 1 lb ground beef
- ½ yellow onion diced
- 1 green bell pepper diced
- 2 cloves garlic minced
- 2 carrots shredded
- ¾ cup ketchup
- 2 tbsp Worcestershire sauce
- 1 tbsp low sodium soy sauce
- 2 tsp chili powder
Instructions
- Add oil to your 6 qt or larger Instant Pot and push "saute".
- Once oil is heated, add beef. Saute 5-6 minutes until browned. DRAIN.
- Add onion, bell pepper, garlic, and carrots. Saute for 3-4 minutes, until onion is softened.
- Add remaining ingredients to the Instant Pot and stir. Push "cancel".
- Close lid, and set the valve to "sealing". Press "manual", and set to cook for 5 minutes.
- After the 5 minutes is complete, allow the Instant Pot to sit for about 10 minutes with the valve set to "sealing". Once the 10 minutes is complete, change the valve to "venting" and allow all the steam to be released before opening the lid.
- Serve on buns and topped with cabbage or cheese!
Video
Nutrition
Pin me for later!
If you end up making this and loving it, take a photo and tag me on Instagram! I’d love to see your versions of my recipes! And feel free to rate it down below in the comment section. I would really appreciate it!
Instant Pot sloppy joes are a fast and easy dinner meal that is much healthier than Manwich sauce, and is just as flavorful! Loaded with vegetables and other healthy ingredients, it makes for the perfect addition to a weeknight!
xoxo Megan
I’m on a quest to get my four year old to eat more veg, so I thought this recipe would be a winner, but none of my family liked it. It was the kids’ first time with sloppy joes, so they weren’t biased. I’m guessing that the reason is that I used matchstick carrots I bought at the store to save prep time. I finally minced every veg to hide them, but those carrots tend to have a processed flavor. I’m willing to try again, because the recipe makes sense to me.
I’m sorry to hear this didn’t turn out! Definitely use fresh carrots instead of the precut, matchstick style carrots. That makes a huge difference! Let me know what everyone thinks when you try it again 🙂
This is SO easy to make and full of flavor. Plus it makes so much that we will be able to make taco salad for dinner the next night. We paired it with sweet potato fries and even my toddler couldn’t say no. I added extra bell peppers for some crunch.
Yay! I’m so glad you love these! What a great idea using the extra meat for taco salad!