Add onions, ground beef and garlic. Continue to sauté until beef is evenly 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.
Turn off the Instant Pot. You no longer need to sauté anything in the pot.
Add sugar, Italian seasoning an red pepper flakes
Pour in pasta sauce
Pour 1 cup of water into pasta sauce jar- shake- pour water mixture into Ninja Foodi pot. This will help you get all of the sauce goodness out of the jar! No waste!
Pour 2 cans of beef broth into Instant Pot.
Stir beef and liquid until well combined
Pour in mostaccioli pasta
DO NOT STIR! If you stir, you are likely to get a burn or error message.
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.
Close the lid, turn the Instant Pot 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 Instant Pot.
Open the lid and stir pasta together. Be sure to stir well and ensure no pasta is clumped together.
Add in 1 cup of shredded mozzarella cheese and stir.
Sprinkle remaining 1 cup of mozzarella cheese on top.
Close lid and let sit for 5 minutes- this will help the cheese melt into gooey gooey goodness on top! If you prefer, you can remove mostaccioli from Instant Pot and put in baking dish and place under the broiler for 5 minutes. If you choose this method, wait to add the last cup of cheese until you have all of the mostaccioli in the baking dish.