There’s so much to love about this pressure cooker chili mac! It’s unbelievably flavorful for such a simple recipe, lower carb and higher protein thanks to chickpea pasta, and requires one pot and about 30 minutes.
I used a 6.5-quart Ninja Foodi to make this chipotle chili mac, but I’ve included notes for both Instant Pot and stovetop prep. I’ll walk you through the recipe and touch on ingredient modifications below. And you can find the printable recipe card at the bottom of this post.
Pressure Cooker Chipotle Chili Mac Ingredients
This recipe is really as easy as throwing things in the pot. You can break it down to three groups of ingredients:
- onion, garlic, ground beef, spices
- diced tomatoes, tomato paste, chipotle peppers, green chiles, beef or chicken broth
- the pasta
Cook ’em up, top with shredded cheddar, and you’re done!
As far as modifications go, feel free to customize spices and the vegetables you include. If you want to up your spice game, check out my homemade chili powder. Just be aware that you’ll need enough liquid to cook the pasta in when pressure cooking.
Compare your chili mac before pressure cooking to the photos below and you should be perfectly fine!
Chipotle Chili Mac Recipe Walkthrough
Add the onion, garlic, ground beef, and spices to the pressure cooker and cook the beef completely using its sauté function. Nothing fancy here!
The only thing you’ll need to do before adding the second group is to roughly chop the chipotle peppers. If you’d rather run them through a food processor like in my chipotle black bean chili or pineapple chipotle crockpot chicken, that’s perfectly fine.
Hot tip: The spice in this recipe isn’t as strong as you’d think. The acidity in the tomatoes and volume of beef do a great job at balancing things out. Chopping instead of blending seems to tone it down as well.
Give everything a stir and add the pasta. Stir, seal, and cook on high for five minutes.
Make sure the pasta is cooked to your liking before topping with cheese and broiling for two minutes (if you’re using a Foodi) or covering to melt the cheese. You can also reserve the cheese and top each serving individually. I’ve included the nutrition facts sans cheese in the notes below.
Final Recipe Notes
If you’re unfamiliar with the Ninja Foodi, it’s an all-in-one pressure cooker, air fryer, slow cooker, and a few more things. You can use it for everything from crispy air fried rosemary parmesan potatoes and breakfast pizza to pressure cooker cheeseburger soup and 20-minute mac and cheese.
I’ve found the Foodi’s pressure cooker function cook times to be almost identical to my 6-qt Instant Pot. You can learn more about the Foodi on my Amazon storefront.
You might notice the recipe calls for 93/7 ground beef as opposed to 96/4 like I used in my recent ground beef and potatoes skillet or sweet chili ground beef and brussels sprouts. I went with 93/7 mainly because there’s really no other source of fat in the recipe. Feel free to use 96/4 to reduce the fat content in your chili mac.
Okay, that should cover it. If you have questions about this chipotle chili mac, drop a comment below.
Pressure Cooker Chipotle Chili Mac
Ingredients
- 2 lbs Ground Beef, 93/7
- 2 medium White Onions, diced
- 6 cloves Garlic, minced
- 1 Tbsp Chili Powder
- 1/2 Tbsp Cumin
- 1 tsp Kosher Salt
- 1/2 tsp Black Pepper
- 1/2 tsp Ground Coriander, optional
- 2 15 oz cans Diced Tomatoes
- 2 C Beef or Chicken Broth
- 7 oz can Chipotle Peppers in Adobo, roughly chopped
- 6 oz can Tomato Paste
- 4 oz can Diced Green Chiles
- 8 oz Banza Pasta Elbows
- 3/4 C 84g Shredded Cheddar (optional)
Instructions
- Set your pressure cooker to its high heat sauté function and spray the pot with nonstick cooking spray. Notes for stovetop prep included below.*
- Add the onion, garlic, beef, and dry spices to the pot. Use a spatula to break the beef into small crumbles as it cooks. Cook until no pink remains in the beef, about 6-8 minutes.
- Add the diced tomatoes, green chiles, chopped chipotle peppers, tomato paste, and broth to the pot. Stir everything together evenly before adding the pasta and stirring again.
- Seal the pressure cooker and cook on its high pressure for 3 minutes with quick release pressure (vent as soon as it's finished cooking).
- Stir and make sure the pasta is cooked before topping with the shredded cheddar.
- If you're using a Ninja Foodi, use the broil function for 2 minutes. If you're using an Instant Pot or another pressure cooker, cover the chili mac and let the heat melt the cheese. (You can also add the cheese to each individual serving.)
I was looking for the serving size or how many servings total for this recipe and macros listed? I LOVE YOUR RECIPES!
Thank you!
Amy DeHaven
Hey Amy, it’s on the bottom of the recipe card in the grey box right after the notes section.
I am always searching for macro friendly recipes and this one is a 5 star! Will make again
This recipe is so, so good! I used my crockpot because I don’t have an instapot and it turned out delicious!! I love anything chipotle so I had it make this ASAP. The creaminess and flavor is unreal. I would eat it everyday if I could! Everyone needs to make this dish!!
I grew up in an Italian household, so chili is not something we ever had. But throughout the years I’ve now had my share of chili, and love it, but have always been intimidated to make it. This was so easy and delicious!!!! However I will say that I didn’t make mine with beans.
Has so much flavor and good portion sizes. If you want it EXTRA spicy you can add the liquid from the Chipotle Peppers (did it not realizing I wasn’t supposed to and it was a bit too spicy for me). Added plain Greek yogurt to cut down on the spice and it was perfect!
I made this last week, and it was delicious. 10 servings did come out of it, and did take a little longer since I did do it on the stove top. The one thing I would do differently would be adding less Chipotle peppers, since it came out a tad spicier than I was hoping. It tastes better when it’s reheated! 8/10
It was too spicy for me but i would make it again with less peppers. Thanks for sharing.
I made this with the same Banza pasta and really liked it. Super friendly for weight watchers and heats up great for when I do it at the start of the week. Like that I can adjust the flavor a little based on if I use mild or medium diced Chiles
This is so yummy! The only change I made was using adobo spiced canned tomatoes since I couldn’t find the actual canned Adobo peppers. It had plenty of spice for us & found it to be a good substitute.
I grew up eating a dish similar to this (we called it goulash) but I love the spicy spin on this and the banza substitution! Was very easy to modify, I made mine completely on the stove top. Also, I misread and only bought 1 LB of beef but it was still beefy enough for us! Simple, quick and flavorful!
Another day, another Mason recipe. I made this on the stovetop, following the directions (add everything, simmer, then add the pasta). After I split and weighed everything out, I added the cheese. The cheese melted once I reheated it for dinner tonight. I added mini club crackers, because why not? Definitely one of my favorites so far (although that list is getting rather long).
I’m here for any and all things Banza pasta – keep em coming!