Making spaghetti sauce at home just got a LOT easier. When you use the Instant Pot to make it, you can throw all of the fresh ingredients in the pot, press a button and walk away until it’s done!
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My Go-To Instant Pot Spaghetti Sauce
What’s great about this easy spaghetti sauce is that it’s oil-free with no added sugar. Instead, it gets a little natural sweetness from the addition of a carrot. This recipe is from my first cookbook, Everyday Detox, but it’s made even easier in the Instant Pot!
Because tomatoes have so much natural moisture, you don’t add any water to this recipe. If you’re used to cooking with your Instant Pot, you know how unusual this is, because the Instant Pot requires liquid to bring the pot to pressure.
How Do You Keep Tomato Sauce from Burning in the Instant Pot?
If you’re familiar with Instant Pot cooking, you may know that sometimes tomato products can cause a “burn” error while pressure cooking. This is more typical with prepared tomato sauces that are thicker in texture, because the Instant Pot needs plenty of liquid to build up steam pressure.
In the case of this recipe, the tomatoes contain more than enough liquid to bring the pot to pressure because they will release their moisture as the pot heats up, without burning or sticking to the bottom. Be sure to closely follow the directions, though. The spices can NOT touch the bottom of the Instant Pot or they may burn to the bottom, so sprinkle them on top of the tomatoes without stirring.
How to Make Fresh Spaghetti Sauce in the Instant Pot
This Instant Pot spaghetti sauce couldn’t be easier. I like to quarter my fresh tomatoes and onions to help their liquid release faster, but there’s not a ton of chopping involved, because everything can be left in rather large chunks. (I don’t even bother mincing the garlic at all.) Add the veggies to the pot, sprinkle some seasonings over the top, and then let the Instant Pot do its thing.
When the cooking time is up, let the pressure naturally release for 10 minutes– which means that you essentially don’t touch the pot until 10 minutes after the pot has beeped, letting you know the cooking cycle is over. (The screen will read L0:10 when it’s time to release the pressure.)
Once you remove the lid, use an immersion blender to puree the ingredients into a smooth sauce. I like to stir in a little tomato paste at the end to thicken the spaghetti sauce and boost the tomato flavor, but feel free to season the final sauce to your tastes. It’s hard to go wrong with this easy homemade version!
If you enjoy this recipe, I think you’ll love my new book, The Fresh & Healthy Instant Pot Cookbook. It’s loaded with EASY recipes for your electric pressure cooker, using easy-to-find whole food ingredients. There’s nutrition information and a photo for every recipe, so I hope it will become your go-to resource for more healthy Instant Pot recipes.
Instant Pot Spaghetti Sauce (with fresh tomatoes!)
Ingredients
- 2 pounds fresh tomatoes , cut into quarters
- 2 small yellow onions , cut into quarters
- 2 large carrots , cut into large chunks
- 2 cloves garlic (whole)
- 2 teaspoons dried oregano
- 2 teaspoons dried basil
- 1 teaspoon sea salt
- 6 ounces tomato paste (no salt added)
Instructions
- Add the tomatoes, onion, carrot, and garlic to the Instant Pot. Sprinkle the oregano, basil, and salt over the top of the vegetables, but don't stir. (You don't want the seasonings to touch the bottom of the Instant Pot or you could get a burn error.)
- Secure the lid and move the steam release valve to Sealing. Select Manual or Pressure Cook (the name of the button will vary by machine) and cook at high pressure for 20 minutes. It will take roughly 10 minutes for the pressure to build in the pot before the cooking cycle begins, so the pot will say "On" until then.
- When the cooking cycle completes, allow the pressure to naturally release for 10 minutes. When the screen reads L0:10, move the steam release valve to Venting to release any remaining pressure. When the floating valve drops, it's safe to remove the lid.
- Use an immersion blender to blend the cooked vegetables into a smooth sauce. Add in the tomato paste and blend again to make sure it's fully incorporated. It should thicken the sauce. Adjust any seasoning to taste, then serve warm over your favorite pasta.
- This sauce should keep well in an airtight container for up to a week in the fridge, or you can freeze it for up to 3 months.
Video
Nutrition
Per 1/4 cup: Calories: 35, Fat: 0, Carbohydrates: 7g, Fiber: 2g, Protein: 1g
Recipe Notes:
- I use this 6-quart Instant Pot Duo for my recipes, but I think this would work in the 8-quart pot, too. (You may want to double the recipe in that case, to have plenty of liquid to bring the pot to pressure.)
- This recipe makes roughly two jars of tomato sauce. (Around 20-22 oz. each; it will vary based on the size of your fresh produce every time.)
- The seasoning in this recipe is totally up to you– feel free to double the basil, add thyme, or even a pinch of red pepper flakes for a spicy kick. Sometimes I add a splash of syrupy balsamic vinegar and simmer it at the end using the Sauté function on the Instant Pot.
- If you need a spaghetti sauce without tomatoes, try my Tomato-less Marinara Sauce recipe instead!
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Reader Feedback: Do you make your own spaghetti sauce? Let me know what you’d like to see me make in the Instant Pot next!
Super easy compared to my old ways of preparing homemade sauce. Made a double batch which filled the 6quart instapot. Very tasty, used Italian seasoning instead of oregano and basil.
Delicious
I was incredibly sceptical and even set up a poll on my IG to see if people thought I would get the burn message! Turned out brilliantly. I used up some tomatoes and carrots that were getting close to being past their prime and it is now in the freezer awaiting I think to be the base of a wonderful soup or pasta sauce. I think it would be wonderful with marinara. I’ve now just loaded the IP with the last of my san Marzano tomato and will process them the same way to freeze as tomato puree. Thank you! 🙂
Thank you for posting this easy and delicious recipe! To answer some questions below, I use frozen tomatoes. It takes a bit longer for the instant pot to get to temperature and pressure, but works well. I also leave the skin on. After you puree you can not tell the skins are there.
This is a keeper! Bella! thank you Simple and perfect, I learned a trick add some butter in the mix when cooking,
Thanks for the recipe. It tastes so much better than what you can purchase at the store!
This was so darned easy but tastes amazing! Just went out to the garden to pick tomatoes, threw in my garlic that I grew, added baby carrots (because that’s all I had) and a large onion. Used my 8qt so I doubled up on everything. Even the husband said it smelled so good! It’s thin enough that I’m canning it right now. 🙂
Very Tasty but, mine came out like tomato SOUP. I guess I should have removed most of the liquid! Yes, I did add the tomato paste.
Today is the second time I’m making this recipe. I was so pleased with the results the first time. It was so easy to make. I had a bumper crop of small, round tomatoes. What I was totally amazed about the first time is by using my emersion blender all the skins got stuck in the small holes in the blender part. I saw that there was a bunch of peel there, so I pulled them off and blended again. I got all the small tomato peel out of the sauce without any issues. Hopefully, that will happen very soon when this batch is done. Thanks for the recipe and instructions.
This recipe is so easy & healthy & delicious! I’m keeping this one.!
Sauce was great!!! I was worried about getting a burn notice, but it didn’t happen! I used a corn starch slurry instead of tomato paste and Sautéed on low for 20 minutes to thicken it up.
I can’t say what specific kind of tomatoes I used, I know there were some Romas, a friend brought a bucket full over so I used them up!
I haven’t made this recipe yet but I want to do it but it looks watery,how do I make it thicker? what would you suggest?
For a thicker sauce, I would add more veggies, like extra carrots or a red bell pepper. Hope you love it!
I have made several batches of this just in the last week with our home grown tomatoes! I also added parmesan and other hard cheese mix, beef to make bolognese. Excellent recipe!
I just made this again!!! And canned it. This time I added fresh basil
Now, to just print this off so I don’t have to search for the recipe again
I almost feel guilty about how EASY and DELICIOUS this recipe is. ALMOST.
I’m about ready to try this! Just picked my tomatoes from my garden 😊 My question is about removing the seed core. Do you remove it or just quarter the tomatoes leaving everything intact?
We did empty the fridge sauce with this recipe adding, from our garden: peppers (hot and bell), other varietal tomatoes, zucchini, fresh mint & xtra fresh basil, and finally, freshly grated parm. We adjusted the recipe to one and a half times. Also, I added 2 cans of paste to thicken the sauce and added 3 minutes to cook time. It was delicious!
This is a great sauce! I used all frozen tomatoes and was skeptical about the lack of liquid at the start of the process, but it turned out beautifully. I always add a bit of cinnamon to my tomato sauce because it helps cut the acidity without using sugar. I did that with this recipe and it worked beautifully. Thanks for a great IP recipe!
Love this recipe. Have lots of home grown tomatoes that I wanted to use and I’m not great with my Instant Pot. So this was great for both.