How long to cook frozen ground turkey in instant pot

Cooking frozen ground beef in the Instant Pot is a convenient way to quickly cook frozen beef to use for dinner time! Ready in under 20 minutes, it’s no biggie if you forgot to thaw your meat for dinner!

On busy days (which is all of them, right??), we need this Instant Pot hack! We can use our Instant Pot to quickly cook frozen meat and we only have to wash the inner pot.

Use the cooked ground beef and add taco seasoning to make Taco Meat or beef dinners like Instant Pot Stuffed Pepper Soup or Healthy Instant Pot Ground Beef recipes!

No more setting ground beef on the counter to thaw, no more scrambling at meal time because you don’t have thawed ground beef.

How to Cook Frozen Ground Beef in Your Instant Pot

My method to quickly thaw and cook ground beef is super easy. All you need is water, frozen ground beef and your Instant Pot.

Trust me, you won’t find many recipes that simple, right?

As an added bonus – no an added necessity – the meat cooks up juicy and tender, not tough and dry.

We raise our own beef here on the farm and it is absolutely out of this world. So I have absolutely no interest in ruining perfectly fabulous meat, you know??

And we have a freezer full of frozen meat so it goes without saying I use this cooking method all the time!

Here’s how we’re gonna cook our frozen ground beef.

How to cook frozen ground beef in an Instant pot without a trivet

Place one pound of frozen ground beef in your Instant Pot. Add about a cup of water.

Close and set it to pressure cook time for eight minutes. Do a quick pressure release to let the steam out of the pot.

At this point, your beef is about halfway cooked through. Drain the fat & water and return to the pot.

Okay, not so appetizing at this point but bear with me, it’s working!

Set the Instant Pot to the saute function and continue to cook the ground beef. Break it up with a spoon or spatula until the beef is fully cooked through. Drain if necessary and use the ground beef for your recipe!

Unlike the microwave defrost function, thawing and cooking frozen ground beef in the Instant Pot keeps the flavor of the meat AND you only have one dish to clean up.

That, my friends, is a win in my book!

And of course, it goes without saying, the pressure cooker is pretty awesome for cooking fresh ground meat, too.

Tips for cooking frozen ground meat in your Instant Pot:

• You can also use this Instant Pot method to cook frozen ground turkey, ground chicken, venison or pork.
• If you have two pounds ground beef to cook, increase the cooking time by about five minutes. Some of this is just experimenting with your Instant Pot.
• Use the meat in any ground beef recipes like One Pot Chili Mac and Cheese, Instant Pot Chili Mac, Pressure Cooker Spaghetti with Meat Sauce, Cheeseburger Sliders or Sloppy Joes
• If you want to make this but you still haven’t taken your Instant Pot out of the box (yes, I’m talking to you friend), you may want to give my post about Instant Pot fear first and I’ll walk you through getting started in Instant Pot Basics.

Can I cook frozen ground beef in the slow cooker?

Actually, no. I mean, you could because it’s a free world and you can do you.

But I wouldn’t because you’re compromising food safety and trust me, you don’t want to do that.

So stick to the method outlined. I even have a handy dandy recipe card for you!

Easy Instant Pot Recipes

• Classic Chili Recipe for a Crowd
• Instant Pot Taco Meat Recipe
• Instant Pot Whole Chicken
• Chile Verde Pork Burritos
• Instant Pot Egg Bites

Continue to Content

Yield: 8

Instant Pot Frozen Ground Beef

Prep Time: 8 minutes

Time to come to pressure: 10 minutes

Total Time: 18 minutes

Instant Pot frozen ground beef is every busy person's solution! Ready in under 20 minutes, it's no biggie if you forgot to thaw your meat for dinner!

How long does it take frozen ground turkey to cook?

How long do you cook ground turkey if frozen? Depending how you plan to use the frozen meat, plan on adding about 15 minutes to 30 minutes for any recipe that starts with frozen rather than fully defrosted raw ground. Just be sure to cook the finished dish to an internal temperature of 165 F for food safety.

Can you cook ground turkey from frozen?

Yes, you can. It is safe to cook frozen ground turkey, but the cooking time will be longer than it should be. Of course, it is more recommendable to thaw it before use or to buy it fresh.

How long does it take to cook frozen meat in an Instant Pot?

Know up front that cooking frozen meat IS going to take a bit longer than cooking thawed meat in your Instant Pot..

This seems obvious, right? ... .

As an example, a thawed roast should be cooked under pressure for 15-20 minutes per lb., while a frozen roast should be cooked under pressure for 22-30 minutes per lb..

Do you need to add time for frozen meat in Instant Pot?

Do Expect Cook Times to Vary: A frozen piece of meat will not only take longer to cook, but it will also take longer for the Instant Pot to come to pressure. Because of this, be prepared to add a few extra minutes to your overall cook time.