Dad’s favorite food in the world is his Mom’s recipe for “Spaghetti with Italian Sauce”. Unfortunately to make it using the recipe that was handed down from his Nana, it takes 6 plus hours. Now, thanks to Dad's Instant Pot Spaghetti with Italian Sauce recipe, he can have it anytime he wants it.

The long cook time relegated this authentic Italian dish to a weekend only or special occasion dish. Dad is big fan of the Instant Pot, or “Instapot” as the kids call it.

So, Dad decided to see if he could modify the family recipe to make it work in the Instant Pot. Spoiler alert, the experiment was a resounding success. Some variations were needed, but the result is a pretty damn close match to the authentic recipe. The kicker, it only takes about 1 hour!

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Sauce vs Gravy, the great Italian fight!

You call it gravy, I call it sauce. I think this argument goes back to the beginning of time. In our house we called it sauce, it is written right on the index card that the recipe is on. "Sauce with Meat" is the name of the recipe. I am not here to fight anyone, but in my opinion, gravy goes on a turkey and not pasta. Also, to be "sauce" you need to have meat in it. If it does not have meatballs, sausage or both, then it is just Marinara.

San Marzano Tomatoes or nothing.

This Italian Sauce recipe is dependent on using the proper kind of tomato. Dad doesn't know if it's the soil, the air, the water or even magic but the tomatoes from the Valle del Sarno are just better for making sauce. There are all kinds of regulations for what is allowed to be called a San Marzano tomato, in fact there are even counterfeit varieties of them.

Why are these tomatoes so good that people are actually selling knock offs? Well, the flesh of a San Marzano tomato is thicker, they have less seeds, the flavor is less acidic, stronger and sweeter than your average plum tomato. Dad has always gone with the "yellow can". The brand is Cento and they are certified "Pomodoro San Marzano".

Trust Dad on this one, get the right tomatoes and your sauce will shine. If you cannot find them at your local grocery you can actually Get them on Amazon.

Use homemade Italian Meatballs

The best food starts with the best ingredients. Homemade Italian meatballs are so easy to make that there is no reason to use pre-made meatballs. Please, NEVER use those little frozen meatballs in your sauce. Do yourself a favor and use Dad's recipe for Authentic Italian Meatballs.

I can throw it all in at once?

Dad loves "dump and go" recipes as much as anyone. Although, he originally thought it not work for this recipe. In the traditional recipe that was handed down from his Italian Nana you need to cook the sausage for 3 hours before you even put the meatballs in. This is because the sausage takes about 5 hours to reach the perfect doneness.

If you added the meatballs at the same time as the sausage they would disintegrate after the 5-hour cook. This is the reason that the meatballs are added in the final 2 hours of the cook in the authentic traditional recipe. This staggering of the meatballs and sausage makes sure both are cooked to the perfect doneness.

When Dad was developing his Instant Pot version of "Spaghetti with Italian Sauce" he figured he had to do the stagger also. In the first version of this recipe Dad cooked the sausage for 10 minutes before he added the meatballs to cook for another 10 minutes. The result was delicious, and there is nothing wrong with doing it that way.

However, after some suggestions from fellow "Instant Potters", Dad tried an all at once cook. Dad was shocked because it worked. The meatballs were still together, and everything was cooked right. Nothing really changed in the taste, but it cut out about 20-30 minutes of time.

About That 1 Cup of Water

In the recipe it tells you to add 1 cup of water. In the video that never happens. Dad has received some feedback and apparently in certain models of cookers the liquid in the canned tomatoes is not enough to allow the unit to pressurize.

Some models will display a "Burn" notice if this happens and some like Dad's, the 6qt Lux, will just begin to count down like normal but not be pressurized.

It is easy to tell if your cooker pressurized though. There is a small hole near the toggle on the lid. When the unit comes to pressure it will "pop up".

If yours did not pop then it did not come to pressure, and you are not actually pressure cooking. If this happens you can hit cancel, open the lid (you would not be able to if it was at pressure) and add more water. Then you can select manual and set it to 20 minutes.

In the video I mentioned that there may not be a lot of steam when releasing the pressure, this was due to the fact I had done a natural release of at least 10 minutes. If you released the pressure right after the unit beeped you would have steam released.

Not Sure about the Instant Pot?

If you are unfamiliar with the Instant Pot and would like to know more about it, Dad Got This. Dad has an entire page with information and resources for the Instant Pot.

Click Here to Learn About the Instant Pot.

Now you can make Spaghetti with Italian Sauce anytime!