Wandering through the store I saw that ground turkey was on sale, and I love discount meat, so it went in my fridge. After a few days, I’m thinking I need to cook it, and I don’t want to have to go to the store for ingredients and I want more than turkey burgers or turkey taco filling. I tracked down this Instant Pot turkey and pasta recipe and had all the other ingredients in the pantry.
For 15 minutes of work, it was really good. If I was serving it as a main dish with sides, I’d call it more like 4 real servings.
Instant Pot Creamy Tomato Pasta with Ground Turkey & Spinach
Quick and easy Instant Pot Creamy Tomato Pasta is packed with tangy tomatoes, ground turkey, and spinach for a quick and hearty weeknight meal.
Servings 6 People
Equipment
- Instant Pot
Ingredients
- 2 TBSP olive oil
- 3 cloves garlic grated or minced
- 1/2 yellow onion diced (about 1.5 cups)
- 1/2 cup sun-dried tomatoes optional
- 1 lb ground turkey
- 1 TBSP tomato paste
- 2 tsp Italian seasoning
- Kosher salt and cracked black pepper to taste
- 4 cups vegetable broth
- 14.5 oz can of fire roasted tomatoes; don’t drain
- 1/2 cup marinara
- 1 lb short pasta rotini, penne, rigatoni, etc.
- 3-4 handfuls of baby spinach ribboned or roughly chopped
- 1/4 cup heavy cream; more if you want your pasta even creamier
- 2 TBSP cream cheese
Instructions
- Set your Instant Pot to sauté mode. Drizzle the olive oil into the Instant Pot and let it heat up for about a minute or so.
- Place the onions and garlic into the Instant Pot. Simmer for for about 5 minutes or until the onions are soft and translucent, stirring often. Then, add the sun-dried tomatoes, ground turkey, tomato pasta, Italian seasoning, and a sprinkle of sea salt and ground black pepper. Stir well to break up the ground turkey and evenly distribute the tomato paste and the spices. Simmer, stirring occasionally, until the ground turkey is cooked, about 5-7 minutes. If the Instant Pot seems to be getting dry, simply add a splash of the vegetable broth.
- Once the turkey is cooked, turn off the sauté function. Add the vegetable broth, the entire can of fire-roasted tomatoes, juices and all, and the marinara. Finally, add the pasta. Give everything a quick stir and lock the Instant Pot lid in place; set the valve to “sealing”.
- Set the Instant Pot to cook on manual high pressure for half the time it states on the package’s instructions (cooking pasta in the IP seems to work best when you halve the regular cooking time and round it down. So if the package says 11 minutes until al dente, round down to 10, and go for five minutes. If it says 15 minutes to al dente, round down to 14, and go for 7 minutes, etc.)
- When the Instant Pot beeps notifying you that it’s done, carefully do a quick release.
- When you open the Instant Pot, stir in the ribboned spinach. It will wilt into tender spinach very quickly once it’s stirred into the heat. Stir in the cream and the cream cheese, mixing until all of the cream cheese has melted evenly into the pasta.
- Taste, and season with more salt and pepper if needed.
- Serve with fresh sprigs of basil.
