Instant Pot Penne Pasta

This tomato penne pasta is a simple and quick recipe made in an Instant Pot. Pasta is comfort food, and you can make this vegan tomato sauce penne pasta in under 30 minutes using one pot.

You can make this recipe in a stovetop pressure cooker or using an open pot also.

If you do not have time to cook the meal, you should try this quick recipe, and I'm sure you will not regret it.

This recipe doesn't use any tomato sauce or pasta sauce, and you can make this recipe from scratch in less time that tastes delicious.

How to make penne pasta in an Instant Pot

• Wash and pat dry tomatoes, red bell pepper. Apply few drops of oil to them and roast them on an open flame.

• Once these are cooled down a bit, peel the skin of the peppers and tomatoes.
• Add these peeled tomatoes, bell pepper, chopped carrots to the mixer grinder.
• Now grind these ingredients into a smooth paste using a half cup of water. This will yield around 2 cups of tomato sauce.

• Now start an instant pot in sauté mode.
• Once it is hot, add a teaspoon of oil, chopped garlic, chopped onion, dried thyme, and oregano. You can add fresh herbs if you have them.

• Let these ingredients fry for a couple of minutes.
• Now add the tomato bell pepper sauce and a cup of water.

• Add pepper powder, salt and mix it well.
• At this stage, you can taste the water and adjust salt accordingly. Water should taste a little salty.

• Now add the pasta of your choice. I used penne pasta.

• Mix it well and make sure that pasta is submerged completely.

• Cancel the sauté mode, close the instant pot with the lid and seal it.
• Now select manual or pressure cook mode and pressure cook on high pressure for four minutes.
• Once an instant pot beeps, wait for 5 minutes and do a pressure quick pressure release.
• Open the instant pot and check the pasta for doneness.

• The pasta will be al dente, and if you like it to be softer, you can pressure cook for five minutes or do a quick pressure release after 10 minutes of cooking.
• Now add nutritional yeast, cashew cream and mix it once, and the penne pasta is ready to serve!

Pressure cooker instructions:

• Follow the steps same as Instant Pot except that it should be cooked on a medium to high flame for 2 whistles.

Open pot instructions:

• For this method, all steps will be the same as Instant Pot except for the pressure cooking step.
• Instead of pressure cooking, cook the pasta on an open pot with the lid closed for about 10 minutes. If required, you can add more water.
• The cooking time will be the same as mentioned in the packet.

Recipe Notes and variations:

• Roasting tomatoes, bell pepper on open flame is optional, but it will give a nice flavor to the tomato sauce, and we can peel the skin of tomatoes and bell pepper easily by roasting them.
• As this is a vegan pasta recipe, I used cashew cream. But you can add any cheese or cream to make this pasta.
• Nutritional yeast is optional but will a cheese flavor to this vegan pasta.
• I try to sneak in veggies in everything, and adding carrots will balance the tartness of tomatoes. You can skip them if you don't have or like them.
• Pressure cooking time will be half the total cooking time on the packet minus 1 minute.
• If the package says to cook on an open flame for 10 minutes, pressure cook time will be 10/2 - 1, i.e., 4 minutes.
• This recipe will give you al dente pasta. If you like it to be soft, pressure cook time will be half that of the time mentioned on the packet.
• I used penne pasta as it will hold the juicy sauce. You can even use macaroni pasta or shell pasta.
• To make Indian style pasta recipe, you use my onion tomato curry sauce instead of this fresh tomato sauce. Use 1 cup of onion tomato curry sauce and dilute it with 1 cup of water. All other ingredients remain the same.
• You could use store-bought sauce to make this penne pasta in an Instant Pot. For 2 cups of pasta, use 1 cup of tomato sauce and 2 cups of water.

Are you looking for more vegetarian pasta recipes? Then try these out.

• Mixed vegetable pasta - quick whole wheat penne pasta with lots of veggies.
• Pasta e Fagioli - one-pot pasta and beans recipe with staple ingredients that you can quickly make for your dinner.

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