We got a NINJA FOODI!!! OMG!! I was so excited to take this thing out of the box and try it! I’m not going to lie, it was a bit overwhelming at first. How does it work? Why are there two lids? What should I cook first? So, I decided to try to cook something that was fairly easy and mistake proof!
My very first meal that I cooked in the NINJA FOODI was spaghetti! I have never cooked spaghetti in any pressure cooker before so I wasn’t 100% sure what to expect. Let me tell you…..it was fantastic! The pasta was cooked perfectly, there was the perfect amount of sauce and the flavor was great. Cooking the spaghetti in the NINJA FOODI helped all of the flavors come together nicely. I highly recommend giving it a try whether it’s your first attempt at using your NINJA FOODI or if you are just looking for a family friendly weeknight meal. So impressed!
Tips for this recipe:
1.It’s tempting to want to stir this recipe before starting to cook under pressure. Don’t do it! Resist the temptation! If you stir this recipe after you have added the pasta, you will end up with a burn or error message.
2.Buy lean ground beef when cooking under pressure in the Ninja Foodi. If you buy a higher fat content, you will need to drain the grease if you don’t want to end up with a greasy finished product. That’s a lot of extra work in my book, so I buy 93% lean ground beef and skip the grease draining step. Saves time and is much easier.
3.To make this a quick meal, use jarred sauce and frozen onions. If you have more time, you can make the sauce from scratch and use fresh onions. But, if you are looking for a quick weeknight meal, jarred sauce and frozen onions work great!
How to make Ninja Foodi Spaghetti:
- Turn the Ninja Foodi on the high “sauté” option. Once hot, add the ground beef, salt, Italian seasoning and onion to the coated inner pot.
- Stir ground beef, salt, Italian seasoning and onion constantly until the ground beef is broken up into small pieces and is lightly browned.
- If you use lean ground beef, you do NOT need to drain the grease from the pot. If you use a high fat content ground beef you will need to drain the grease. You can do so by either using a ladle to scoop the grease out or you can CAREFULLY remove the inner pot and pour the grease out. I HIGHLY recommend using a low fat ground beef to avoid this step all together.
- Once ground beef is lightly browned, add garlic and sugar. Stir together
- Add 24 ounces of beef broth. Save the last cup of beef broth for a future step. DO NOT STIR! If you stir, you are likely to get a burn or error message.
- Pour in 24 ounces of pasta sauce.
- Pour the remaining cup of beef broth into the pasta sauce bottle, put the lid on and shake. This will help get every last bit of sauce out of the jar. Pour into pot.
- Sprinkle red pepper flakes into pot.
- Add in fresh basil and stir.
- Turn off the Ninja Foodi. You no longer need to sauté anything in the pot.
- Add in ½ pound of spaghetti or fettuccine noodles (Half of a box). Do so by breaking the noodles in half, over the pot. Place noodles on top of other ingredients in a criss cross pattern. You want to alternate directions of the pasta so that they are not all stacked on top of each other in the same direction. Create a # pattern with the pasta noodles. DO NOT STIR!
- Make sure that all pasta is covered by liquid (or as much as possible). I just pushed down on the noodles with a spatula until they were covered with liquid.
- Pour in 6 ounces of tomato paste or thick pasta sauce right on top of the pasta. DO NOT STIR!
- Close the pressure cooker lid, turn Ninja Foodi back on and cook on high for 3 minutes.
- Once the timer goes off, natural release pressure for 3 minutes. Quick release remaining pressure. Turn off Ninja Foodi.
- Open the pressure cooker lid and stir pasta together. Be sure to stir well and ensure no pasta is clumped together.
- Top with parmesan or mozzarella cheese if desired.
- Put the pressure cooker lid back on but do not turn the Ninja Foodi on. Let pasta sit for up to 8 minutes.
- If you used spaghetti noodles, let sit for 3 minutes.
- If you used linguini, let sit for 5 minutes.
- If you used fettuccini, let sit for 8 minutes.
- Remove pressure cooker lid, stir and serve! Enjoy!
Ingredients:
- 1 Pound of lean ground beef (93% lean recommended)
- ½ Cup diced onions- I used frozen
- 1 Teaspoon salt
- 1 Tablespoon fresh basil- chopped
- 1 Tablespoon italian seasoning
- 1 Tablespoon garlic- minced
- 1 Teaspoon sugar
- ½ Teaspoon red pepper flakes
- 32 Ounces beef broth
- 24 Ounces pasta sauce- I used store bought in a jar
- ½ Pound spaghetti or fettuccine noodles
- 6 Ounces tomato paste or thick sauce
- 1 Cup of parmesan or mozzarella cheese if desired
Ninja Foodi Spaghetti
Rate this Recipe Print Recipe Pin RecipeServings: 8 Servings
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Ingredients
- 1 Pound of lean ground beef (93% lean recommended)
- ½ Cup diced onions- I used frozen
- 1 Teaspoon salt
- 1 Tablespoon fresh basil- chopped
- 1 Tablespoon italian seasoning
- 1 Tablespoon garlic- minced
- 1 Teaspoon sugar
- ½ Teaspoon red pepper flakes
- 32 Ounces beef broth
- 24 Ounces pasta sauce- I used store bought in a jar
- ½ Pound spaghetti or fettuccine noodles
- 6 Ounces tomato paste or thick sauce
- 1 Cup of parmesan or mozzarella cheese if desired
Instructions
- Turn the Ninja Foodi on the high "sauté" option. Once hot, add the ground beef, salt, Italian seasoning and onion to the coated inner pot.
- Stir ground beef, salt, Italian seasoning and onion constantly until the ground beef is broken up into small pieces and is lightly browned.
- If you use lean ground beef, you do NOT need to drain the grease from the pot. If you use a high fat content ground beef you will need to drain the grease. You can do so by either using a ladle to scoop the grease out or you can CAREFULLY remove the inner pot and pour the grease out. I HIGHLY recommend using a low fat ground beef to avoid this step all together.
- Once ground beef is lightly browned, add garlic and sugar. Stir together
- Add 24 ounces of beef broth. Save the last cup of beef broth for a future step. DO NOT STIR! If you stir, you are likely to get a burn or error message.
- Pour in 24 ounces of pasta sauce.
- Pour the remaining cup of beef broth into the pasta sauce bottle, put the lid on and shake. This will help get every last bit of sauce out of the jar. Pour into pot.
- Sprinkle red pepper flakes into pot.
- Add in fresh basil and stir.
- Turn off the Ninja Foodi. You no longer need to sauté anything in the pot.
- Add in ½ pound of spaghetti or fettuccine noodles (Half of a box). Do so by breaking the noodles in half, over the pot. Place noodles on top of other ingredients in a criss cross pattern. You want to alternate directions of the pasta so that they are not all stacked on top of each other in the same direction. Create a # pattern with the pasta noodles. DO NOT STIR!
- Make sure that all pasta is covered by liquid (or as much as possible). I just pushed down on the noodles with a spatula until they were covered with liquid.
- Pour in 6 ounces of tomato paste or thick pasta sauce right on top of the pasta. DO NOT STIR!
- Close the pressure cooker lid, turn Ninja Foodi back on and cook on high for 3 minutes.
- Once the timer goes off, natural release pressure for 3 minutes. Quick release remaining pressure. Turn off Ninja Foodi.
- Open the pressure cooker lid and stir pasta together. Be sure to stir well and ensure no pasta is clumped together.
- Add in fresh basil and stir again.
- Top with parmesan or mozzarella cheese if desired.
- Put the pressure cooker lid back on but do not turn the Ninja Foodi on. Let pasta sit for up to 8 minutes. If you used spaghetti noodles, let sit for 3 minutes. If you used linguini, let sit for 5 minutes. If you used fettuccine, let sit for 8 minutes.
- Remove pressure cooker lid, stir and serve! Enjoy!
Notes
!Tips for this recipe:
1. It's tempting to want to stir this recipe before starting to cook under pressure. Don't do it! Resist the temptation! If you stir this recipe after you have added the pasta, you will end up with a burn or error message. 2. Buy lean ground beef when cooking under pressure in the Ninja Foodi. If you buy a higher fat content, you will need to drain the grease if you don't want to end up with a greasy finished product. That's a lot of extra work in my book, so I buy 93% lean ground beef and skip the grease draining step. Saves time and is much easier. 3. To make this a quick meal, use jarred sauce and frozen onions. If you have more time, you can make the sauce from scratch and use fresh onions. But, if you are looking for a quick weeknight meal, jarred sauce and frozen onions work great!
1. It's tempting to want to stir this recipe before starting to cook under pressure. Don't do it! Resist the temptation! If you stir this recipe after you have added the pasta, you will end up with a burn or error message. 2. Buy lean ground beef when cooking under pressure in the Ninja Foodi. If you buy a higher fat content, you will need to drain the grease if you don't want to end up with a greasy finished product. That's a lot of extra work in my book, so I buy 93% lean ground beef and skip the grease draining step. Saves time and is much easier. 3. To make this a quick meal, use jarred sauce and frozen onions. If you have more time, you can make the sauce from scratch and use fresh onions. But, if you are looking for a quick weeknight meal, jarred sauce and frozen onions work great!
Nutrition
Serving: 1.5g
Nutrition information is provided as a courtesy and is an estimate only.
Have you tried this recipe? Let us know how it turned out in a comment below!
Kim
I will be making a version of this for a holiday potluck: frozen meatballs vs ground beef, jarred spaghetti sauce, pot-sized pasta (already broken in half). I would like to increase the amount of ingredients to serve more people. I have the 6.5 qt, and know I can’t double everything, as my pot is too small. What about increasing amounts by 1.5? Would it fit? What ingredients can be increased, or should not be? Would all temps and time stay the same?
Lauren Cardona
Hi Kim- I haven’t tried this with frozen meatballs before. Generally, you can double a recipe and just double the ingredients but keep the cook time and temp the same. If 1.5 times the recipe fits in your pot, then I would just multiply the ingredients by 1.5 (maybe use just a little less than 1.5 X the water that is called for in the recipe, since twice as much water won’t come out of the vent when the pressure is released).
Amanda
Made this tonight as per recipe (with Jarred Spaghetti Sauce)Except-I didn’t have any tomato paste so I used some corn starch to thicken it up a little (more like a soup without it)my bad for not making sure I had all the ingredients(tomatoes paste) however my husband did say the paste would have made it sweeter(which he doesn’t like sweet spaghetti) so when it was all done it came out just fine- Thanks for another yummy recipe
Amanda
Forgot to add in my prior comment & don’t know how to go back & edit it!! So I used 1.5 Tbsp of cornstarch in 6ozs of water & I put in when your supposed to put in the tomatoe paste. Let it set for about 8 minutes after everything was completed & it thickened up nicely!! Thanks again 😉😉
TheTastyTravelers
Hi Amanda- I’m so glad it worked out for you!! Next time, you can just omit the tomato paste part and reduce the liquid by just a little bit. I usually don’t have issues with it being too “soupy” when I add in the tomato paste. But, there is a lot of liquid in the recipe that helps the pasta all get cooked.
Emilie
I’m still super new to the Ninja foodie, but your recipe was easy to follow. I was skeptical at the use & quantity of beef broth but the sauce turned out rich & thick, & delicious! I didn’t have the basil, but I will definitely try it next time! I used Rotini noodles, which were done after the 3 minute pressure cook & they didn’t need to sit any extra time. Even my super picky kiddo had 2 servings!! This would be a great dinner to throw together for company or double to quickly feed a crowd! I’m definitely saving this recipe.
Nancy k
My ninja foodie combination air fryer and Insta pot came without a recipe book that was supposed to be there all I have is a two page cheat sheet. So I tried this recipe and it was very good only I didn’t use hamburger, I waited till it was done and added frozen meatballs and close the lid and also then I added small chopped up mushrooms and it tasted excellent
TheTastyTravelers
Hi Nancy! I’m glad to hear that you enjoyed our recipe for Ninja Foodi Spaghetti! It’s one of our favorites too!
Lori Gray
This is delicious!, Thank you for sharing 🙂
Nigel Garnett
Ninja foodie Spaghetti. Serving ……. 2
The ingredients indicate 8oz beef broth and 6oz pasta sauce.
The instruction:-
Item 5 …….. Add 24oz of beef broth, I assume this should be 8oz.
Item 6 ……. Pour in 24 oz of pasta sauce, I assume this should be 6oz.
I’m a novice with the Ninja foodi, so dont want to assume.
Regards
Nigel
TheTastyTravelers
Hi Nigel,
The recipe calls for a total of 32 ounces of beef broth and 24 ounces of pasta sauce. Is it showing differently for you? Did you adjust the number of servings to 2 instead of 8? If so, The recipe card will only change the amount of the ingredients and not the written out steps. For 2 servings, I would recommend only 6-8 ounces of pasta sauce and 8-12 ounces of beef broth. You don’t want to fully cut the liquid into quarters because you will still lose a substantial amount of liquid when the pressure is released. Does that make sense? Let me know if you have any questions. Apologies for the confusion.
KGMyers
I don’t see any way to change the serving size.
I’m making this for my family of 5 big eaters, and we typically use 16-24oz spaghetti pasta when I’ve made it the “traditional” way, on the stove. 8 ounces of pasta called for in your recipe doesn’t seem like anywhere near enough for 8 servings. Any advice?
TheTastyTravelers
Hello! You can double the recipe if you have the 8 quart pot. If you have a smaller pot it might not fit. Double everything except the liquid. Use the initial 32 ounces of beef broth and then add in an additional 24 ounces of beef broth (instead of an additional 32 ounces).
Onika
My partner loves spaghetti, I make it once a week or every two weeks. He loves it. I love the one pot, between this pot this recipe, I won 😄😄😄😄