A hearty meat-and-potatoes meal in under an hour.
How to make pot roast in the instant pot.
Remember pot roast? It’s a dinner recipe from an older, slower time, when Mom could afford to spend three hours tending a dish in the oven. She’d brown the meat, let it stew for a couple of hours in a big pot surrounded by broth, and then add potatoes and carrots to the pot and cook it for another hour. By the time everyone came home for dinner, the meat would be falling-apart tender, and the potatoes and veggies would be soaked in those rich juices.
But these days, things have changed. Mom and Dad are both working all day, and neither of them has the time to babysit a pot. So today, you can only enjoy pot roast only on weekends, if at all.
Unless, that is, you have an Instant Pot.
With one of these babies, you can have an entire pot roast dinner, complete with potatoes and carrots, ready in under an hour. The browned meat, carrots, and potatoes can all go in the pot at the same time, and the Instant Pot cooks them all to the same tender perfection. And it’s got all those beautiful juices right in the pot to spoon on top.
Easy Instant Pot Pot Roast Dinner …an old-fashioned meal, on a modern schedule.
Easy Instant Pot Pot Roast Dinner
Printable ingredients list and directions at bottom of page
Directions:
- Set the Instant Pot to saute. Add olive oil to the pot and wait for it to heat up. Cut the roast into 3-4 smaller pieces and season liberally with salt and pepper. Place one piece of the roast in the pot at a time, searing on all sides. When all the meat has been seared, place all pieces in a single layer in the bottom of the Instant Pot.
- Whisk the brown gravy mix and onion soup mix packets in to the beef broth and pour mixture over the meat in the Instant Pot.
- Add the potatoes on top of the meat, followed by the carrots and then the onion to the Instant Pot. Close the lid, set the valve to seal and cook on manual for 35 minutes. When the time is up let the Instant Pot do a natural release for 10 minutes and then quick release the rest of the pressure.
- Spoon the onion, carrots, and potatoes on the a serving platter and top with the roast. Use remaining liquid in the Instant Pot to pour over the roast, if desired. Garnish with fresh chopped parsley.
Looking for more free recipes? Subscribe to my newsletter and follow along on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and Instagram for all of the latest updates.

Easy Instant Pot Pot Roast Dinner
Ingredients
- 2.5 lb roast
- 2 Tablespoons olive oil
- 2 cups beef broth
- 1 envelope brown gravy mix
- 2 envelopes onion soup mix
- 6 potatoes quartered
- 1 large onion cut in to chunks
- 1 lb carrots peeled and cut in to chunks
- 2 Tablespoons fresh chopped parsley for garnish
Instructions
- Set the Instant Pot to saute. Add olive oil to the pot and wait for it to heat up. Cut the roast into 3-4 smaller pieces and season liberally with salt and pepper. Place one piece of the roast in the pot at a time, searing on all sides. When all the meat has been seared, place all pieces in a single layer in the bottom of the Instant Pot.
- Whisk the brown gravy mix and onion soup mix packets in to the beef broth and pour mixture over the meat in the Instant Pot.
- Add the potatoes on top of the meat, followed by the carrots and then the onion to the Instant Pot.
- Close the lid, set the valve to seal and cook on manual for 35 minutes. When the time is up let the Instant Pot do a natural release for 10 minutes and then quick release the rest of the pressure.Spoon the onion, carrots, and potatoes on the a serving platter and top with the roast.
- Use remaining liquid in the Instant Pot to pour over the roast, if desired. Garnish with fresh chopped parsley.
Save this recipe for later! Click the heart in the bottom right corner to save to your recipe box!
Nutrition Disclaimer
Family Fresh Meals is not a dietician or nutritionist, and any nutritional information shared is only an estimate. We recommend running the ingredients through an online nutritional calculator if you need to verify any information.
Vanessa Catto says
My famiily loves this–so easy and a one pot meal
Sherri T says
My family loves this recipe! Do you have any suggestions on how not to get the burnt message. I didn’t get it the first time but now I keep getting it. Not sure what I’m doing different.
Corey says
I haven’t had that issue with this recipe Sherri, so I can’t say for sure.