Smothered in sticky sweet beer BBQ sauce, these Instant Pot meatballs and rice is a satisfying dinner for the whole family in less than 30 minutes. Another complete meal in an Instant Pot!
Sweet and savory beer BBQ meatballs and fluffy white rice, all cooked in Instant Pot at the same time!
These sweet and tangy meatballs are a perfect weeknight meal!
Meatballs go on the bottom, then a bowl of rice is placed on a trivet over the meatballs. Set the pressure cooker for 5 minutes and wait until “dinner is ready”-beep.
I took this beer bbq meatballs recipe and converted into an Instant Pot complete meal. This beer BBQ sauce is sweet and sticky, and absolutely addicting!
You can totally use homemade meatballs, but in a pinch, store-bought meatballs work great too!
We’ll use cornstarch slurry to thicken the sauce!
Instant Pot Beer BBQ Meatballs and Rice
Ingredients
- 1 cup long grain white rice
- ½ tablespoon olive oil
- ½ teaspoon salt
- 28 oz homestyle meatballs frozen and fully-cooked
- 1 cup beer I use golden ale
- 1 cup BBQ sauce
- 1 tablespoon cornstarch
- Fresh parsley for garnish optional
Instructions
- Place the rice in an oven-safe bowl. (Make sure the bowl is big enough for rice to expand.)
- Add 1 cup of water and stir in olive oil and salt.
- Place the frozen meatballs in inner pot of Instant Pot.
- Pour in the beer and bbq sauce.
- Put a trivet over the meatballs and place the bowl with rice on top.
- Close the lid and make sure the valve is set to “sealing”.
- Set the Instant Pot to Pressure Cook/Manual for 5 minutes on high. (NOTE: It took 15 minutes for my IP to come to pressure.)
- Once the time is up, allow the pressure to release naturally for 10 minutes, and then carefully turn the valve to venting. Once the pin drops, carefully open the lid.
- Using silicone mitts, carefully take the bowl with rice out. Fluff it with a fork. Remove trivet.
- Set the Instant Pot to sauté.
- In a small dish, mix together cornstarch with 1 tablespoon of water.
- Once the meatball sauce start bubbling, stir in cornstarch slurry, and cook until the sauce is thickened.
- Serve the meatballs over rice. Garnish with fresh parsley, if desired.If you tried this recipe, I’d love to read your feedback. Please leave your comment and rating below, or share on Instagram with #busycooks and tag us @busy_cooks. Thank you!!
Notes
Nutrition
* Disclaimer: All nutrition information are estimates only. Read full nutrition disclosure.
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Reader's Reviews
Jodi says
This is delicious. So easy! Cooked perfectly. 2nd time making it tonight. I am from Michigan and used a Bell’s Tropical Oberon as the beer and Original Sweet Baby Rays BBQ Sauce. Will be using this recipe as a go to many more times. I was nervous about glass inside the pot. But turned out well.
Jodi says
Adding this comment- 1st time making it i mixed the salt and olive oil with the rice first( which was an accident) this time I made it by the recipe and put the water over the rice and then stirred in the oil and salt. The rice cooked better the 1st time by stirring the oil and salt with the dry rice.
Shinee says
So happy you tried and loved this recipe, Jodi! Thank you so much for sharing your feedback and experience.
Logan says
I’m no chef, nor do I drink, so I didn’t have any alcohol on hand to make this late on a Sunday evening. I ended up substituting out the alcohol for a cup of Sprite, and I think it tastes great! It was definitely easy to put together, especially since I was able to do it. I’ve also never seen the trivet placed on top of meat like that, nor have I ever thought to cook something above it at the same time like that. All in all a wonderful recipe, one I will definitely continue to make on sundays to meal prep for the week.
Shinee says
Hi, Logan. So glad you tried and loved the recipe. And thank you for sharing your tweaks!!
Amy says
It was quite delicious. The rice was slightly undercooked. I will probably cook it 8 minutes next time. I did cut the BBQ sauce with 1/4 cup of ketchup. I don’t typically like a lot of BBQ sauces. I think it would have been good without the ketchup.
Shinee says
Hi, Amy. So happy you tried and liked the recipe. Thank you for your feedback!
Autumn says
Hi there, could I use fresh (uncooked) meat balls rather than frozen and cooked ones? adjusting the time to maybe 8-10 minutes?
thank you in advance if I get a response
Shinee says
Hi, Autumn. Yes, you can totally use uncooked fresh meatballs. I think 5 minutes would be sufficient, but just to be sure, do 8 minutes, followed by 10-minute NPR. Let me know how they turn out. Thanks!
Corrie says
This sounds amazing! What are your thoughts about the alcohol boiling off (or not) if we are going to serve the dish to kiddos?
Shinee says
So, I’ve read that alcohol doesn’t boil off completely during cooking. Longer you cook it, more alcohol burns off. In this case, I imagine there’s still some alcohol left, but it’d be very little amount. But ultimately, it’d be up to you. I, personally, wouldn’t mind serving it to my kid, but he doesn’t like saucy food, so he didn’t eat it.