Instant Pot Velma’s Chili is an easy, hearty dish will become your favorite cold-weather dinner.
Chili is one of our favorite dinners for chilly nights. This Instant Pot version boasts all the flavors you love, made faster thanks to pressure cooking. It’s a perfect way to get that simmered-all-day taste on a weeknight!
This starts the same as any other chili – browning your ground beef, but thanks to the sauté function on the Instant Pot, you’ll still only have one pot to clean. After the grease is drained, the remaining ingredients are added and the pressure cooker time is set. It’s so nice that this lets you step away from the kitchen instead of monitoring a simmering stove-top pot!
This chili is a great base recipe, which means it’s really easy to adapt too. Try switching out the ground beef for turkey or venison, or adding in some more vegetables. Get creative with toppings, too! Shredded cheese and diced green onions are always our go-tos. But you can always try cream cheese which turns out even creamer than a dollop of sour cream. And how about fritos? The possibilities are endless!
If you don’t have an instant pot, this can also be made on the stove top or in the slow cooker. It’s always nice to have cooking process options to fit the schedule of your day.
You can find the entire collection of my best Instant Pot Soup Recipes on the blog to help make your winter cozier!
Be sure to check out my free Instant Pot School for more recipes that move beyond soups. It includes video lessons, printable recipes, a meal plan and color-coded grocery list and a giveaway that you won’t want to miss!
Instant Pot Velma's Chili
Ingredients
- 1 lb. ground beef
- 1 small onion, chopped
- 2 cloves garlic, minced
- 1 small green pepper, chopped
- 1 stalk celery, chopped
- 2 cans kidney beans, drained and rinsed
- 2 cans diced tomatoes
- 15 oz. can tomato sauce
- 1 cup water
- 1 bay leaf
- 2 Tbsp. chili powder
- 1 Tbsp. sugar
- Salt and pepper, to taste
- ½ cup red wine
Instructions
- Hit the saute button.
- Add the ground beef, onion, garlic, and celery to the pot and cook until the meat is browned, breaking it up as it cooks.
- Remove the pot and drain as much grease as possible.
- Return the pot to the Instant Pot and add all other ingredients, except wine.
- Taste for seasoning and adjust if necessary.
- Stir in the wine.
- Set the manual cook time to 25 minutes under high pressure.
- Let the pressure release naturally for 10 minutes, then release remaining pressure.
Who is Velma? That was my Grandma’s name & she made a similar recipe. Jeff
Velma is one of the characters in Jan Karon’s Mitford series of books. I love how recipes can so quickly remind us of special people and moments – like you Grandma!