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Instant Pot Taco Soup - Dump and Go Dinner

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Instant Pot Taco Soup - Dump and Go Dinner

Tricia
The Cook
4 Servings
11 Ingredients
64 Comments

This Taco Soup is an addictive Instant Pot meal in part because it's as easy to make as it packed with savory Mexican flavor.

4 Servings
11 Ingredients
64 Comments

Ingredients

  • 1 cup cook Ground Beef
  • ½ cups dice Onion
  • ⅓ teaspoons Salt
  • ⅛ teaspoons Black Pepper
  • 3 teaspoons Ranch Dressing Mix
  • 2 teaspoons Taco Seasoning
  • 5 ⅛ ounces Whole Kernel Corn, Canned
  • 5 ⅛ ounces Diced Tomatoes, Canned
  • 3 ⅓ ounces Diced Tomatoes with Green Chiles
  • 15 ounces Pinto Beans, Canned
Serving Day Ingredients
  • 1 cup Water

Containers

Supplies

  • Labels

Cooking Instructions

Freeze For Later Cooking Day Directions

Easy Assembly/Dump and Go

These directions help you cook or prepare this meal PRIOR to being frozen for serving later (see Serving Day Directions when you are ready to prepare it to eat).

Why would I want to freeze this?

  1. Divide all ingredients among indicated number of round freezer containers. Label and freeze.

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Make From Frozen Serving Day Directions

Prog. Pressure Cooker

These directions help you cook or reheat this meal AFTER it's been frozen for when you are ready to eat it.

  1. Prep from frozen
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Make It Now Cooking Directions

These directions are for cooking this recipe to serve immediately and NOT to freeze for later.

  1. **Due to the nature of pressure cooking there is always room for inconsistency. The times given here are based on 4 servings fresh. If you are using more servings you may need to increase your cooking time.**
  2. Place all ingredients into inner pot.
  3. Lock cover into place and seal steam nozzle.
  4. Cook on high pressure for 10 minutes.
  5. Let pressure release naturally for 10 minutes, then release any remaining pressure.

Nutrition Facts

Servings Per Recipe
4 Servings
Serving Size
about 1 cup
Amount Per Serving
Calories
319
Total Fat
8g
Saturated Fat
3g
Trans Fat
0g
Cholesterol
49mg
Sodium
1231mg
Total Carbohydrates
25g
Fiber
7g
Sugar
5g
Protein
21g
WW Freestyle
5

64 Comments

Join the discussion
    1. Hi Candy! Thanks so much for catching that! We will change the recipe to reflect that we do actually mean 15 1/2 ounces. Let us know how it turns out! It’s one of our favorites!

  1. If I want to make this now, would I divide by 3 and freeze the other 2 portions? Would all this this fit in IP at once?

    1. Your plan to freeze 2 and serve 1 sounds good. All the ingredients will fit when you are preparing for the freezer and after freezing, you could probably fit 2 containers worth in the IP at once, but it may slightly alter the reheat time.

        1. The recipe above is portioned out to fit in 3 different containers. One container should feed 4 servings.

      1. The freezer container section is always confusing to me. It always says 64oz round container. But in the comments you say there should be two or three. I wish it would say 2 – 64oz. Round Containers. It would eliminate a lot of confusion.

        1. I am confused as well. In the Containers section, jr says 1 64 ounce. Nowhere does it say you need three. All of the recipes I have written down so far say one….how do we know actually how many we need??

        2. Hi Karen, We updated this recipe so you no longer need 3 64 oz containers. The rule of thumb is you can fit 4 servings in a 64oz container. The original recipe has 12 servings, so that is where the 3 containers came from. I hope this helps.

  2. If I use a different pressure cooker than IP brand, what would an equivalent pressure and time be to the soup reheat setting given?

  3. I was hunting for a good taco soup recipe and happened to find your page.I’m new at cooking with a pressure cooker and have read several other places the same as you have stated. **Due to the nature of pressure cooking there is always room for
    inconsistency. The times given here are based on 4 servings fresh. If
    you are using frozen or more servings you may need to increase your
    cooking time.**Lets say you put in one chicken breast and the cook time is 10 minutes after it comes to temperature.
    If you put in 10 chicken breasts, wouldn’t the cooking time still be 10 minutes after it comes to temperature? Yes, it takes longer for the 10 to reach temperature, but wouldn’t the cooking time remains 10 minutes? Something to think about.

    1. You are correct, in most cases, the time does take the same. However, when it is 10 chicken breasts frozen together it takes more time because the steam that is cooking the dish can’t get to the inner parts of the frozen chunk in the same way that it can if it is just 4 frozen breasts. We want people to set their expectations accordingly and realize they may need to break the chicken up a bit and set it for another 5 minutes if that is the case. Does that make sense?

  4. Do you cook a round in the instant pot before you then separate it in to 3 containers to freeze? Then cook again in the IP for dinner the night you want to eat?

    1. Above there are THREE sets of directions based on how you are preparing this recipe:Set 1 – Directions = cooking it to serve for dinner WITHOUT freezing that night, fresh!
      Set 2 – Freezing Directions = directions for freezing the recipe WITHOUT cooking.
      Set 3 – Serving Directions = directions for COOKING the FROZEN product you created in Set 2.Set 1 is to serve tonight for dinner. Set 3 is if you did set 2 and froze.I hope that makes sense now. Enjoy!

      1. Sorry for my confusion… this is my first time using my 3 quart instant pot . As I read the recipe above for the same day serving, it says one cup of water. This reply, it states you don’t need to add extra liquid as the liquid from the cans is enough. Then in another comment /reply it refers to two cups of water. Just want to make the recipe correctly. Thanks for your reply!

        1. We’re sorry for any confusion! The recipe as written is correct – you do not need to drain the cans, but you will need to add 1 cup of water (as listed under make it now/serving day ingredients).

  5. I am making this recipe for a luncheon at work this week, although I may need to double the ingredients. What would you suggest for the cooking time if I double the recipe? Thanks in advance!

    1. Hey Geri, with membership comes the option to customize the serving size. If you have questions about membership, we’d love to chat with you in the bottom right-hand corner of the site! Happy cooking!

    2. The cooking time should remain the same. Due to more ingredients, it will take longer for everything to get up to pressure, but the cooking under pressure is the same.

  6. This looks delicious! Am I supposed to add water if I am serving this when I cook it? Thanks for your recipes – I have used several with great results!

  7. Your recipe calls for 5 1/8 ozs canned corn but in the comment section I see you say use a 15 1/2 oz can. Which one is it?
    Also is this recipe for 1 – 4 person serving? In the comments it states it is for 3 meals? One cup of ground meat for 12 servings?

    1. Great questions Carla. This recipe was originally written for 12 servings. Because of the many questions we received about converting down, we updated the recipe to be for 4 servings, not 12. Hence the discrepancies you see in the comments about servings and amounts. This recipe and its ingredients is now set to feed 4 people, one time. I hope that helps! Sorry for any confusion that may have caused!

        1. You can feel free to convert it if you like. All you’ll need to do is multiply everything by 3 to get a recipe that serves 12.

  8. we love taco soup. This is close to my recipe except i season meant with garlic and onion powder, leave out the onions and I use two cans of Diced Tomatoes (instead of one) and add in a can of white hominy and a can of garbanzo beans (chick peas) ? Makes it go further with my family of six plus we can eat half that night and then freeze the other half for another week!!

  9. Any suggestions on how to alter cooking time if I choose to use boneless skinless chicken breasts in place of the ground beef? Will I have to precook the chicken?

    1. You will want to precook the chicken and I would suggest starting with the same amount of time. How long it would take to heat up throughout will also depend on the size of the chunks of chicken. The larger the pieces, the more time it may take. If you find the chicken isn’t warmed through after 10 minutes cooking and a 5 minute natural release you can put the lid back on and turn it on for another few minutes.

  10. I’m new to pressure cooking. I have a stove top cooker . Can I use any pressure cooker in the stove top cooker? Mine doesn’t have all the fancy stuff like the instant pot does..would the cooking times be any different?
    Thank you,Kathy

    1. Kathy, While I’m sure you could cook the meals in your stove top pressure cooker, the directions would not be the same. And because I am not familiar with the stove top pressure cooker, I am not able to give you clear directions about adapting them. Sorry for that inconvenience!

  11. If I used the recipe but did 12 servings, what would cooking time be and would it fit in 6 quart instant pot. I plan on using the fresh recipe.

    1. As a loose rule of thumb, we recommend increasing the cook time by 2-3 minutes for every 2 servings you increase a recipe.

  12. I’ve never seen one of those handy freezer bag holder thingys. Do you know where I can get one and what is it called? Thanks…

  13. This recipe had great flavor. I liked it *almost* as much as my tried and true recipe I’ve been making for years (which I got from a freezer cooking cookbook). However, even with the low fat, low cal aspect (particularly using venison instead of beef), I found this to be *incredibly* salty. I calculated over 1200mg sodium!! I will likely make this again, but will probably modify by draining the corn and beans and refilling the cans with fresh water to the same volume or just use low-sodium variety. I can usually handle (and like) salty food, but this was a bit much, even by my standards.

    1. That’s a great adaptation to make if the recipe was too salty for your taste. Please let us know how it turns out if you decide to make it with water next time!

  14. The volumes on the ingredients, in particular the tomatoes, don’t seem correct. One can of tomatoes is a little less than two cups in volume, this calls for about a half a cup regular tomatoes and even less in rotel. And I don’t think they make cans of corn or crushed tomatoes that are 5 Oz.

    So my suggestion to anyone else making this is to triple the recipe, since the tomato amount tripled is equivalent to one can of crushed tomatoes and one small can of Rotel.

    1. Hi Larissa, the original recipe used the slow cooker and not the Instant Pot. It was 12 servings – however, since we are freezing this recipe and then placing in the IP – we cut down those recipes to servings of 4. This would be a huge frozen chunk if making 12 servings. So there is no mistake in the sizes or amounts of ingredients, we have simply scaled this recipe down to ensure proper cooking time in the IP. Thanks!

    1. Hi Joan! Those are called Jokari Bag Stands. They are a complete game-changer when it comes to freezer cooking! There are several knock offs but we have found that the Jokari brand are the best and stick to the counter the best.

    1. Hi Cynthia, these recipes were all written to be used with a 6 qt. However, they are tested in a variety of models. It may require less/more time if you use the smaller or larger IP.

    1. They are correct. They are scaled down from 12 servings down to 4 servings. 12 servings would be the amount of full cans/ full packages and work in some Instant Pots and slow cookers however when we are freezing and then cooking from frozen, it is too much so we have scaled this recipe down which yields smaller amounts.

    1. It’s correct. This is scaled down from originally being 12 servings (which used a full can). However, our Instant Pot versions of these recipes have all been scaled down in size.