Below we’re sharing our recipe and tips for Easy Instant Pot Sloppy Joes.

Is anyone else in need of easy meals for back to school and activity nights? We are! On busy nights we find ourselves cooking a lot of easy prep meals. Often times we’ll even batch prep meals on the weekend so that meals are even easier during the week.
One of our current favorite easy meals is sloppy joes made in our Instant Pot.
Sloppy Joes is the perfect meal when no one has any energy to figure out a complicated meal. It’s perfect for nights when you are busy with sports practice or music lessons (or nights when you just want a break).

Reasons to love Instant Pot Sloppy Joes
- It’s popular
- It works well for serving a crowd (or if you just want leftovers)
- It freezes, travels, and reheats well (been there, done that)
- the recipe is easily adaptable
Using Ground Beef Instead of Ground Turkey
For this Instant Pot Sloppy Joe’s recipe, we used ground turkey (I have the alpha-gal meat allergy), but ground beef would work just as well. The only additional thing you might have to do is drain off any extra fat/liquid produced while cooking the beef before adding the spices and other ingredients.
All in all, this recipe is super easy. Chop up a few of your favorite vegetables, add some of your favorite spices, take advantage of your Instant Pot’s saute mode to get things started (or saute on the stovetop) and then close things up and let a final Instant Pot cycle finish things off.
The resulting Instant Pot Sloppy Joes is a meal that is likely to please your whole family.
Side Dishes for Sloppy Joes
It goes well with a number of sides. We have a 2nd Instant Pot so sometimes we’ll pair it with our Instant Pot Potato Salad, but here are some other great side dishes you might want to try with sloppy joes:
You can also just vary how you serve your sloppy joes. The traditional way is to serve it as a sandwich of some sort, but we also love serving sloppy joes on top of a sweet potato.

Freezing and reheating Sloppy Joes
We love making large batches of sloppy joes so that we get a few meals out of it. It also freezes and reheats well if you have leftovers you don’t get to or if you just want to stock your freezer with easy meals. I’ve even frozen batches and taken them on vacation week; it makes for a really easy meal that everyone likes.
A few tips freezing tips:
- Allow it to cool down before freezing. You don’t want freezer items around it to partially thaw and then refreeze
- label bag/container with a date so you know when it was frozen. We’ve read you can freeze it for up to 6 months, but we tend to try to use up things like this with a few months
- You can reheat in the microwave, but we prefer to reheat on the stovetop over low heat. Give it some, cover the pot to trap in the heat. Stir and break apart occasionally.
So, if you are looking for an easy meal, try making Sloppy Joes in your Instant Pot and let us know what you think? Are there any extra ingredients you like adding when you make sloppy joes?

Ingredients
- 2 tbsp olive oil
- 1 onion chopped
- 2 bell peppers chopped
- 3 lb ground turkey
- 1 tsp salt
- 1 tbsp chili powder
- 1/4 tsp ground black pepper
- 2 tbsp yellow mustard
- 3 tbsp ketchup
- 3 oz tomato paste
- 1 tbsp cider vinegar
- 1 carrot shredded
- 8 rolls
Instructions
- Press saute and pour oil into pressure cooker.
- Add onions and peppers and saute.
- Add turkey, stir periodically, and cook through.
- Add chili powder, salt, and pepper and cook 1 minute.
- Add all other ingredients and stir.
- Close lid and vent, and pressure cook for 15 minutes.
- Let pressure naturally release for 10 minutes. Carefully release pressure and open lid. Press saute, stir, and cook for 4-6 minutes to cook off liquid.
- Serve on a roll or over roasted sweet potatoes.
12 Comments
Gloria
September 20, 2019 at 8:51 amI don’t have an Instant Pot, but we do love sloppy joes. I will make this work in my regular pressure cooker. I will also pass this along to my daughter…she has an Instant Pot.
mywifecancook
October 3, 2019 at 9:41 amThank you!
Lisa
September 20, 2019 at 3:16 pmI can’t tell you how long its been since I’ve had sloppy joes. We’re talking decades. This recipe sounds straightforward and so adaptable. I appreciate being able to swap out turkey for ground beef (for the guys) and your tips on freezing and reheating. Whenever I make too much, we freeze it for another meal down the road. This one is happening!
mywifecancook
October 3, 2019 at 9:40 amIt had been years for me until a family gathering this past summer. We love freezing and saving some for later!
Jenni LeBaron
September 23, 2019 at 11:29 amWe love sloppy joes at my house, but I’ve never done them in the pressure cooker. What a brilliant shortcut ot use so I don’t have to be standing over the stove! Great recipe!
mywifecancook
October 3, 2019 at 9:40 amThank you!
Dana
September 24, 2019 at 3:41 pmOhhhh gosh. I was JUST thinking about sloppy joe’s yesterday and how it’s been ages since I’ve had them. I can’t wait to give this IP version a spin! I can taste them now…
mywifecancook
October 3, 2019 at 9:39 amI hadn’t had them in years until a recent family gathering. So good!
Donna
September 25, 2019 at 6:19 amSuch a great meal for a busy night!! We are just gearing up for spring sports and surfing on this side of the world so this is perfect timing when we get home and everyone is starving!!
mywifecancook
October 3, 2019 at 9:39 amYes! We love making this during busy weeks!
Trish Bozeman
September 26, 2019 at 12:31 pmI’m ready to bust out our Instant Pot for this! So much flavor and it’s way more hands off than hovering over the stove top. SO GOOD!
mywifecancook
October 3, 2019 at 9:38 amI really enjoy not having to stand at the stove! Especially since fall has not shown up here yet and it is way too hot!