Looking to create a delicious and easy meal with minimal ingredients? Instant Pot Shredded Beef is the perfect dish for you. With only 7 simple ingredients, you can have flavorful and tender shredded beef ready in no time.

This shredded beef is perfect for tacos, burritos, salads, grain bowls, sandwiches and more!

Let’s dive into how you can make this mouth-watering dish in just a few simple steps.

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Instant Pot Shredded Beef (Only 7 Ingredients!)

The 7 ingredients for 7 ingredient instant pot shredded beef

You’re only 7 simple ingredients away from deliciously tender, juicy, and flavorful shredded beef.

Here’s what you’ll need:

Chili powder – Use a mild chili powder to keep the spice in check if you’re cooking for kids. However, if you’re a spice love, give a spicier chili powder a try.
Tomato paste – This gives you a quick depth of flavor without needing to put in a lot of extra effort. A great option is to buy your tomato paste in a tube. You can just squeeze out the amount you need, then put the cap back on and you’re all set.
Garlic – The recipe calls for 4 cloves, but you can do more or less, depending on your preference. Even when I put in four good sized cloves, I don’t find the beef to come off as garlicky. So if the you follow the recipe exactly, you don’t need to worry about garlic breathe.

Cumin – This one ingredient adds so much flavor and aroma to whatever you add it to. Cumin is really a heavy hitter when it comes to amping up a recipe and giving it that south-of-the-border vibe.
Salt – You’ll add just a bit at the beginning of the recipe to help bring out the flavors of everything.
Beef broth – Since this is a beef recipe, beef broth is the preferred broth to use because it just lays down that foundational beefy flavor of the dish. Vegetable broth would also work. And if you’re in a pinch, just use water (fyi, if you do use water, you’ll definitely need to add more salt at the end of cooking).
Chuck roast – This cut of beef is a great choice because it’s widely available, relatively inexpensive, and becomes incredibly tender and juicy in the instant pot.

How to make instant pot shredded beef

The best part about this recipe is that it’s made entirely in the instant pot, making it a convenient, delicious dish that doesn’t make a lot of dishes to wash afterwards. Now if that doesn’t make you want to make this recipe, I don’t know what will.

Make and bloom the spice paste. Mix together the tomato paste, garlic, and spices. Add this spice paste to a preheated instant pot that is set on the sauté function. Mix the paste around and bloom those spices for a couple minutes.
Deglaze the instant pot. Pour in the beef broth and scrape any browned fond from the pot. Whisk the paste and broth together to make a sauce.
Coat the beef in the sauce. Add the cubed beef to the instant pot and coat the beef cubes in the sauce.
Pressure cook. Place the lid on the instant pot and pressure cook on high for 35 minutes.
Shred the beef and thicken the sauce. Once the meat is cooked, carefully release the pressure then shred the beef. Turn the instant pot back on the sauté function and thicken the sauce.
Enjoy! Enjoy this shredded beef on tacos, in burritos, on nachos, in salads, or on it’s own. It’s so good!

Tips for the best easy shredded beef

Follow the following the tips so you can make the best instant pot shredded beef of your life.

Trim off extra fat from the chuck roast. While fat is indeed flavor, it’s important that you trim off the excess fat from the roast to help keep the shredded beef from being overly greasy and messy.
Cut the chuck roast into 2” cubes. This helps the meat cook faster which enables it to become extra tender than if it were left whole.

Bloom the spices for more flavor. Since the ingredients list is so short and fairly straightforward, you’ll want to get the most out of everything you put in this recipe. Adding the spice paste to the hot instant pot blooms the spices and is a simple way to bring out their full flavor.
If you want to use a hand mixer to shred the beef, remove it from the sauce first. Using a hand mixer is a great way to quickly and thoroughly shred meat. However, this meat is so saucy that using the hand mixer method was super messy. If you’d like to use a hand mixer to shred the meat, simply remove the meat from the instant pot, put it in a large bowl, shred with the hand mixer, then place it back in the instant and continue with the recipe.
Cook down the sauce. After shredding the beef, cook down the sauce using the instant pot sauté function for 3 – 5 minutes. This thickens the sauce and concentrates the amazing flavor.

Serving ideas

You can add this 7 ingredients instant pot shredded beef into lots of different types of dishes. It’s flavor profile is versatile and pairs well with lots of meals.

Tacos – Use it to fill warmed corn tortillas for delicious tacos
Burritos – Put this meat in flour tortillas for tasty beef burritos
Nachos – Imagine shredded beef with ooey gooey cheese and sour cream on crispy chips, mmm
Quesadillas – Add some shredded beef to your next quesadilla
Sandwiches – Slap this flavorful beef on some toasted bread with dijon and horseradish and you’ve got a crazy good sandwich
Grain bowls – Give your grain bowl some delicious heft by spooning in some shredded instant pot beef
Salad – Get some protein in your next salad by topping it with this beef

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