When I go to Italian restaurants, I always order Italian beef ragu with pappardelle pasta when it’s on the menu. It’s seriously one of my favorite dishes. Hearty and comforting, it’s the best dish for enjoying in the winter. I absolutely love beef ragu.
I’m always on the hunt for recipes to make with beef chuck roast too. It’s a really cheap cut of meat, and you can often get 2-lbs for under $10 at my local supermarket. This is enough to feed everyone in my small family. Sure, I could make a pot roast or roast beef, but that gets old fast. So I thought why not try my hand at beef ragu?
Beef ragu tastes best if it’s slow cooked, but I don’t have the patience for slow cooker meals. I often don’t have time to throw ingredients in a slow cooker in the morning (I’m always running late – It’s a bad Vietnamese trait of mine), so slow cookers are often not for me. And when I am home, I don’t want to wait hours and hours before I eat the food I’ve cooked. So the Instant Pot is more my speed.
This recipe for Instant Pot Beef Ragu is adapted from the Recipe Tin Eats “Slow Cooked Shredded Beef Ragu Pasta.”
I didn’t have Pappardelle Pasta on hand and I didn’t feel like heading to the store to buy any. So I homemade my own pasta using Bon Appetit’s Fresh Pasta Dough recipe. Josh, my husband, loved the homemade pasta, but I thought it wasn’t as smooth as pasta you can get at the store.
Honestly, you can serve this Beef Ragu over any pasta. It also tastes delicious over spaghetti noodles.
This Instant Pot Beef Ragu recipe takes a little bit more time than my other recipes, but it’s well worth it. You cook the ragu in the Instant Pot, then you’ll cook down the sauce until its the consistency that you want using the “Saute” function. Tender, full of flavor, and delicious. Dinner in under one hour.
Instant Pot Beef Ragu with Pappardelle Pasta
Equipment
- Instant Pot / Pressure Cooker
Ingredients
For the Beef Ragu
- 2 lbs chuck roast, cut into 4 pieces
- garlic powder, to taste
- salt and pepper, to taste
- 1 tbsp cooking oil
- 6 garlic cloves, minced
- 1 onion, chopped
- 2 carrots, diced
- 1 rib celery, diced
- 1 (14.5 oz) can of diced tomatoes
- 3 tbsp tomato paste
- 1 tbsp salt
- 1 tsp black pepper
- 1.5 cups water
- 2 beef bouillon cubes
- 1 cup dry red wine
- 1 tsp Italian seasoning
- 3 bay leaves
Pasta
- 1 package Pappardelle or your favorite dried pasta
Instructions
- Pat dry the roast with a paper towel. Sprinkle both sides with salt, pepper, and ground garlic. Cut into 4 pieces.
- Using the "Saute" mode on the Instant Pot, add olive oil. When the oil is very hot, sear the beef until it is very brown on both sides. Remove from heat and let rest on a plate.
- Saute the chopped onion, minced garlic, carrots and celery in the Instant Pot until they are soft.
- Add the rest of the ingredients (diced tomatoes, tomato paste, salt and black pepper, water, beef bouillon cubes, dry red wine, Italian seasoning and bay leaves). Cook until the bouillon cube has fully dissolved.
- Put on the lid. Pressure cook (Manual, High) for 45 minutes.
- Manually release the pressure. Remove the lid.
- Remove the beef pieces and shred the meat with a fork. Then, return the shredded meat to the Instant Pot.
- On "Saute" mode, cook the sauce until it has reduced and thickened. This may take up to 20 minutes, depending on how thick you want your sauce to be.
- Taste the sauce, and add more salt and pepper if desired. If you prefer your beef ragu to be on the sweeter side, add 1/2 teaspoon to 1 teaspoon of sugar.
- Serve with cooked Pappardelle pasta (or your favorite type of pasta). Sprinkle fresh grated Parmesan cheese on top.
Leave a Reply