This Instant Pot Creamy Pasta and Meatballs is pure comfort food with almost no effort! Easy to make and really delicious, perfect one-pot meal even for busy evenings!
Combine all the ingredients for the chicken meatballs in a small food processor.
Pulse a few times until everything is well mixed and blended. It's ok if it's not totally smooth.
Shape into 10-12 meatballs.
Make Instant Pot Creamy Pasta and Meatballs
Press sauté button on your Instant Pot, add the Canola oil and wait until it heats up. The display should read hot.
Add the meatballs to the hot Instant Pot and sauté for a couple of minutes on one side and then flip and sauté on another side. You don't need to fully cook the meatballs, just brown them lightly.
Turn sauté mode off.
Splash a little bit of broth into the pan with the meatballs to deglaze the bottom of the pot. Scrape to make sure that none of the bits of meatballs are stuck to the bottom of the pot.
Add the chopped onion, minced garlic, fresh thyme, canned diced tomatoes, and cream cheese on top of the meatballs.
Season with salt and pepper to taste. I do not add any extra salt at this point because I find there's enough in chicken broth, cream cheese, and mozzarella.
Break the fettuccine noodles in half and spread on top of the vegetables and meatballs. Spread them as much as possible and when you add the second layer of pasta, add it on a diagonal, so that the noodles are criss-crossed. This will help with getting them to cook evenly and not stick.
Pour the rest of the chicken broth and milk over noodles. Do not mix.
Close the lid of your Instant Pot and turn the valve to Sealing.
Press Manual or Pressure Cooker button (depending on your model) and use the arrows to select 5 minutes.
It should take about 7-9 minutes to come to pressure. Might be a bit less or more depending on your model and the temperature of the ingredients.
Once the Instant Pot beeps that the 5 minutes of cooking are done, do a natural pressure release for 2 minutes (it means that you need to just wait for 2 minutes). Then do a quick release. This should take another 2 minutes.
Carefully open the lid. You'll see that the milk most likely separated into some milk solids. It is totally fine and nothing to worry about!!
If you have automatic Keep Warm function, then turn it off. Then turn sauté mode on again.
Mix everything well with a spatula or tongs, make sure to separate the noodles that stuck together.
Add the shredded mozzarella cheese and cook stirring occasionally for another 5-7 minutes or until the sauce has thickened. Note: the sauce will continue thickening as the pasta cools.
Serve with extra fresh thyme and parmesan cheese.
Video
Notes
The sauce will look a bit too thin but it'll thicken as it cools. You can sauté for longer and reduce it more if you'd like thicker sauce.You can use your favourite meatball recipe or even use frozen cooked meatballs.