Instant Pot Mediterranean Beef is a tender and flavorful beef recipe made with chuck shoulder roast in a delicious balsamic red wine sauce.
*This post for Instant Pot Mediterranean Beef is part of my role as a compensated member of the Beef Expert Bureau. However, all opinions are my own and not influenced in any way.
The Instant Pot has become my new favorite kitchen gadget. Have you joined the Instant Pot craze yet?! I put off buying one of these trendy multi-cookers for a really long time, but I kept hearing how life-changing it was from busy friends that hate to cook. I actually love to cook, but I don't usually have time to make elaborate meals these days.
The Instant Pot can make gourmet meals seem effortless and taste like you've slaved over the stove for hours. It's also a lot less intimidating than a traditional pressure cooker like your grandmother used.
This is starting to read like a sponsored post for Instant Pot, but I actually purchased mine after experimenting with one at the NCBA test kitchen in Denver, CO. I had to order one as soon as I got home from that trip!
I love that you can sear, steam, pressure cook, and slow cook in one kitchen appliance. I tend to be a bit of a kitchen gadget hoarder anyway. What's one more appliance in my kitchen?!
This recipe was the first dish that I made in my Instant Pot and it turned out to be a big success. It inspired by a Mediterranean Braised Beef recipe on the Beef It's What's For Dinner website. I added a few ingredients and adapted it for the Instant Pot and it turned out fabulous!
Recipe Ingredients
- Boneless Beef Chuck Shoulder Roast-trimmed of any fat
- All-purpose Flour- you can also use gluten-free all-purpose flour
- Spices: salt, pepper, and dried oregano
- Onion
- Shallots
- Garlic
- Extra virgin olive oil
- Beef broth- intensifies the beef flavor and serves as a base for the sauce
- Red wine- use a good quality red wine that you would drink. Cabernet Sauvignon, Pinot Noir, and Merlot are all great options. If you are not a wine drinker, you can use more beef broth but the wine adds great flavor and richness to the sauce
- Balsamic vinegar- it's also important for the best flavor to use good quality balsamic vinegar for this recipe, like the varieties you find at an oil and vinegar shop.
- Medjool dates- pitted and chopped
- Optional garnished- fresh parsley and fresh oregano
Recipe Steps
Tips For Serving Instant Pot Mediterranean Beef
This recipe makes plenty of rich sauce to pour over rice, mashed potatoes, couscous, or mashed cauliflower. I served it with mashed cauliflower, so it turned out to be a nice low-carb and nutrient-packed healthy dinner.
You could easily adapt this recipe to a traditional pressure cooker. What I love about pressure cooking is that you get really tender and juicy meat in a very short amount of time. The muscle fibers aren't broken down as much in pressure cooking as they are when slow cooking meat for hours.
You want the connective tissue to break down just enough to concentrate the gelatin within the meat, this thickens the juice inside creating a more pleasurable eating experience. Also, too much cooking time can actually pull moisture from inside the meat.
Pressure cooking yields the best texture in a lot less time. Pressure-cooked lean beef cuts is right up there with braising for my favorite preparation methods, it seems to intensify the flavors in your dish.
I added fresh oregano to this dish for a flavorful garnish, fresh parsley works nicely here, too. If you have a favorite Instant Pot recipe, please share it in the comments below or on my social media. I love hearing from you!
More Delicious Beef Recipes
Instant Pot Mediterranean Beef
Equipment
- Pressure Cooker
Ingredients
- 2 lb boneless beef chuck shoulder roast trimmed of any fat
- 3 tablespoon all purpose flour can use gluten-free
- ½ teaspoon salt
- 1 teaspoon black pepper
- ½ teaspoon dried oregano
- 1 large onion finely chopped
- 4 shallots sliced
- 2 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
- 1 garlic clove minced
- ½ cup beef broth
- ¼ cup red wine Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot or Pinot Noir works well here *if you don’t have wine, just use more beef broth
- ¼ cup good quality balsamic vinegar
- ½ cup chopped pitted Medjool dates
- *optional: parsley or fresh oregano for garnish
Instructions
- Whisk together flour, salt, pepper and dried oregano
- Chop roast (slicing against the grain) into 2" size cubes
- Place roast cubes inside a plastic bag and add flour mixture
- Seal bag and shake to coat the meat
- Turn Instant Pot on to "Sauté" mode and add olive oil
- When the pot is hot, add beef mixture, onions, shallots and garlic
- Sauté for 4-5 minutes until lightly browned, stirring occasionally to prevent burning
- Add broth, wine, balsamic vinegar and dates and gently stir well to mix
- Put the lid on top and lock to seal
- Press "Cancel" to stop sauté, then press "Manual" and set the timer for 40 minutes on high pressure setting
- When cooking time has finished, use the "Natural Release" and allow the pressure to release on it's own (takes about 15 minutes)
- Serve over cauliflower rice, mashed potatoes, couscous or brown rice
Notes
Nutrition
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Lani
Made this the other day and have to say it was THE BOMB!!! I forgot to add the dates, so I opened the cooker (I used a Fagor multi cooker which I LOVE) added the chopped dates and turned the pressure back on for an additional; 10 min. The flavor is out of this world. I served it with Bob's Red Mill brown and wild rice.
If you were asking, I'd give it 10 stars.
Thanks for sharing!
Amee Livingston
Love this!!! Thank you so much for the awesome feedback Lani! I'm so glad that you loved the recipe! I love the Bob's Red Mill rice, too!
Dawn Anderson
This was my first atempt at an instant pot meal, and this dish is AMAZING! I don’t usually eat meat but the flavor in this dish was out of this world! Thank you! I will definitely make this again!
Amee Livingston
So glad that you enjoyed the recipe Dawn! I love my Instant Pot!! I made a roast in mine tonight, too. 🙂
Lisa
I just got an Instant Pot last night and I am searching recipes to try out. This one looks delish! I do not think I am a date fan...do the dates cook out or are they pronounced in the dish.
Thanks!
Amee Livingston
Hi Lisa! The dates aren't strong in the dish, just adds a nice hint of sweetness.
Stephanie
I've got this in the instant pot right now and it smells wonderful. I used a bit more than 2 lbs of beef so I did about 1-1/2X the sauce ingredients and a few more dates. Can't wait to see how it turns out. 🙂
Amee Livingston
Thanks for the feedback Stephanie! I hope that you enjoy it!!
Debbie
Hi Amee!
I'm making this today, and wanted to make a suggestion: It would be super helpful if you would include measured amounts for things such as onions and shallots. The shallots I have right now are about 2 1/2 times the size of the ones I had last time, for example. By offering equivalencies, you help make the recipe tighter and more reproducible.
1 Large Shallot = 1/2 cup minced or sliced
1 Medium Shallots = 1/4 cup minced or sliced
1 Small Shallots = 2 tablespoons minced or sliced
The recipe looks delicious and we can't wait to taste it!
Amee Livingston
Thank you for the suggestions Debbie and I hope that you enjoyed the recipe!!
Valerie
Hello, I made this recipe and followed it exactly - about 10 minutes in to the pressure cooking phase, it showed ''burn''. Even if I scraped and added liquid, it kept doing that. Wondering what I did wrong? Thanks!
Amee Livingston
Hi Valerie! I'm sorry to hear this. There are several things that can trigger this code. It's a safety code to prevent overheating. It can be from not enough liquid, but that wouldn't be an issue here since this recipe included plenty of liquid to create a sauce for the beef. Other things that can cause it are: steam release valve not being properly sealed, sealing ring improperly installed, food that got spilled onto the heating element, or browned bits of the meat weren't scraped up when the liquid was added so it didn't properly deglaze when it switched to pressure cook mode.
Lucy
I've made this twice now -- tonight I've added some chopped jalepeno that I had on hand to give it a kick of heat. BUT ... both times my Instant Pot gives me the Food Burned error message. Seems the sugars in the thick sauce of the dates carmelizes on the bottom of the pot and starts to char. Only reason it's 4 stars instead of 5 for me is that . I just now added another batch of the wine / balsamic vinegar / beef
stock to thin it. Hope it works. Suggestions welcome!!
Amee Livingston
Hi Lucy! I am going to add this note to the recipe card because I had someone else inquire about this issue:
There are several things that can trigger the "food burning" message code. It's a safety code to prevent overheating. It can be from not enough liquid, but that wouldn't be an issue here since this recipe included plenty of liquid to create a sauce for the beef. Other things that can cause it are: steam release valve not being properly sealed, sealing ring improperly installed, food that got spilled onto the heating element, or browned bits of the meat weren't scraped up when the liquid was added so it didn't properly deglaze when it switched to pressure cook mode. I hope that helps!
chimp
AMAZING BASE- I felt it was lacking spice so i added around 1.5-2 tablespoons of crushed red pepper and GODDAM it was amazing. i also wanted to add a crunch instead of a mushy starch, so i boiled potato quarters, rolled them in beef tallow, baked at 450 and they were the perfect compliment to this dish. this combo is going in my recipe book. thank you!
Amee Livingston
I love your mods! I'm going to have to try your method next time! 🙂