Name: Creamy Instant Pot Pasta
Prep time: 15 min
Cook time: 5 min
Total time: 20 min
Cuisine: Italian
Ingredients: 1 1/2 cups water; 28 ounce can crushed fire roasted tomatoes (or best quality crushed tomatoes); 2 tablespoons olive oil; 1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar; 2 teaspoons garlic powder; 1 teaspoon dried oregano; 1 teaspoon kosher salt; 2 cups baby spinach leaves, tightly packed (or chopped spinach); 8 fresh basil leaves; 8 ounces penne pasta (regular, not whole wheat); 4 ounce goat cheese log

Can you cook pasta in an Instant Pot? You bet. This recipe is a seriously creamy Instant Pot pasta recipe that you’ll make again and again.

Ever tried making Instant Pot pasta? Alex and I have owned our Instant Pot for a year, but it wasn’t until recently that we’ve tried cooking pasta in it. Honestly, we were a little wary of pasta: would a pressure cooker be able to cook pasta without turning it to mush? Turns out, it works: and it’s absolutely delicious! Here, we’ve made a creamy Instant Pot pasta with a marinara sauce mixed with creamy goat cheese. It’s so seriously flavorful, it might just be one of our favorite Instant Pot recipes yet. And it’s a perfect easy weeknight dinner recipe: as simple as throwing a few things in the pot and cooking for 5 minutes. Our toddler Larson is obsessed…and so are we!

Want a stovetop version instead? Creamy Goat Cheese Pasta

How to make Instant Pot pasta

If you’re looking for fast and easy dinner recipes, this one is for you! This vegetarian Instant Pot pasta recipe could not be easier: the concept is to cook the pasta and make a homemade marinara sauce at the same time: directly in the pressure cooker. Then you’ll stir in goat cheese to make the sauce creamy: kind of like a vodka sauce, but using goat cheese instead! The cool thing is that it takes only 5 minutes of cook time! If you’re familiar with Instant Pot cooking you’ll know it takes a few more minutes than just the cook time: but not much!

The ingredients required for this Instant Pot pasta are simple:

Crushed fire roasted tomatoes: using fire roasted tomatoes is helpful for their sweet flavor; if you can’t find them, use the best quality crushed tomatoes you can find!
Extra virgin olive oil
Balsamic vinegar
Spices (garlic powder, dried oregano, salt)
Spinach leaves: baby spinach is easiest, or you can use chopped spinach
Whole basil leaves
Penne pasta, or any short pasta shape
Goat cheese, to make the creamy sauce

Now, to make the Instant Pot pasta, you literally dump all the ingredients into the Instant Pot (except goat cheese) and pressure cook on High for 5 minutes. If you’re experienced with cooking with a pressure cooker you’ll know there’s a “preheat” time to add to that where the Instant Pot is heating up. For this recipe it takes about 10 minutes to preheat (a bit longer than most recipes, since there is so much volume inside the pot). Then you’ll do a quick release, where you immediately let out all the steam in the Instant Pot. Stir in the goat cheese and the pasta is ready to go!

This one got VERY high marks in our household: from all of us, and our toddler Larson! I know we’ll keep making it for years to come.

Related: This pasta calls for fresh basil — and it’s easy to grow at home! We’ve also got a trick for storing it. Here’s How to Grow Basil and How to Store Fresh Basil.

Does pasta cook to al dente in an Instant Pot?

Good question! If you’re rigorous about your al dente pasta like we are, take note: Instant Pot pasta does taste a bit softer than the al dente you can achieve on the stovetop. If you’re a stickler for perfectly al dente pasta, this might not be the recipe for you. However, we tested this against a stovetop version: Creamy Goat Cheese Pasta. And we loved the Instant Pot pasta almost even a little more! While the stovetop pasta was firmer, the pressure cooker pasta had the flavor of the sauce really soak in: which was just as satisfying for us.

Leftovers of this Instant Pot pasta do become quite soft, so that’s another difference that you’ll notice versus leftovers of stovetop pasta. You’ll want to eat your pasta as soon as possible, or just be ready for softer than normal leftovers. However, knowing both of these caveats, the Instant Pot pasta was as huge hit in our household.

What Instant Pot do you use?

Alex and I use an Instant Pot brand Instant Pot, though there are lots of other great pressure cookers out there! The Instant Pot we use is the Instant Pot DUO60 6 Qt 7-in-1 Multi-Use Programmable Pressure Cooker.

There are some variations between pressure cooker brands, so we can’t speak to the way that other brands cook. For example, we’ve heard that the Instant Pot Mini is pretty different and does not work as well as the standard size. So, only use the Instant Pot Mini for this recipe at your own risk!

Looking for Instant Pot recipes?

Outside of this Instant Pot pasta recipe, here are a few more of our Instant Pot recipes:

This Instant Pot pasta recipe is…

Vegetarian