Instant Pot Brisket in BBQ Sauce is easy melt in your mouth beef brisket recipe! In the most amazing and flavorful Barbecue sauce, made completely from scratch. The brisket is tender, the sauce is out of this world, and this is one of the easiest meals you’ll ever make! And minimal clean-up!
The perfect Sunday afternoon is making Instant Pot Beef Brisket. This is one pressure cooker recipe where you want to enjoy a glass of wine waiting for its arrival at your dinner table.
We made this juicy brisket for our New Year’s Eve celebration and it was an absolute hit! Pressure cooking the brisket allows the connective tissues to slowly dissolve into the meat. As a result, the meat is amazingly tender. We served it with Instant Pot Mashed Potatoes.
What to serve with Instant Pot Brisket?
I usually enjoy my brisket with Instant Pot Mashed Potatoes. But you can also choose Spicy Maple Sweet Potatoes or Cheddar, Thyme and Beer Au Gratin. And don’t forget about this sweet cornbread recipe.
Pressure cooking instructions
- First of all, you will select PRESSURE COOK setting
- Next, set the time for 90 minutes. Simply press + or – to adjust time.
- Finally, use 15 minutes of natural release.
This Instant Pot Beef Brisket will be the easiest meal on your menu, whether it is a celebration or just a regular dinner. Besides, it makes a great sandwich meat too. The wonder of this beef brisket is not only about the texture of the brisket itself, but also the amazing flavor of the barbecue sauce. Let’s also talk about all juices of the instant pot!
How to slice the brisket
- Let’s make sure that your knife is very sharp. Otherwise, it will not be able to produce the thinly sliced meat that we are aiming for here. You should use either a carving knife or a chef knife. The blade must be SHARP! If you don’t have a sharpener at hand but have a cabinet full of coffee mugs like we do, run a sharp edge on your knife along the bottom of a ceramic mug. This should temporarily sharpen your knife.
- Next, find the direction of the grain. It’s basically the way the muscle fibers are aligned. Then slice across the grain rather than parallel with it. Now put the blade of your knife perpendicular to the grain and start slicing at an angle. Go with the short strokes. Make sure to slice your slow cooked beef brisket thinly.
Hint: When you slice with the grain as opposed to across the grain, you will get these long, shredded pieces. This is a good indication that you are cutting the wrong way.
Recommended Tools
What’s in the Rub?
First, beef brisket is rubbed with the special rubbing mixture. that includes paprika, cumin, mustard powder, garlic & onion powders.
I recommend rubbing the brisket the night before. Then you will place the beef brisket with the rub in the resealable food-storage plastic bag. You will refrigerate it overnight.
How to make the BBQ sauce
- First, add the ingredients of the homemade barbecue sauce to the instant pot. By the way, you can use any of these kinds of vinegar: distilled, red wine or apple cider. We used apple cider vinegar.
- Next mix the barbecue sauce ingredients right in the Instant Pot.
- After pressure cooking the beef brisket, you will transfer the barbecue sauce to the saucepan in order to thicken it.
- You will simmer the BBQ sauce in the saucepan on the stove-top for 15 minutes until it’s thickened.
Tender and flavorful leftovers anyone?
If you love cooking in your instant pot, you will fall in love with these delicious recipes:
Instant Pot Spaghetti, Instant Pot Cajun Chicken and Rice and Instant Pot Country Style Pork Ribs in BBQ Sauce.
Instant Pot Barbecue Beef Brisket
Ingredients
- 4 lb. beef brisket (fresh or thawed, if previously frozen)
Rubbing mixture:
- 2 tablespoons brown sugar
- 2 teaspoon paprika
- 1 teaspoon onion powder
- 1 teaspoon garlic powder
- 1 teaspoon cumin powder
- 1 teaspoon ground mustard
- 1 teaspoon sea salt
- ½ teaspoon black pepper
Homemade Barbecue Sauce:
- ¾ cup beef broth
- 1 ½ cups ketchup
- 2 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
- ⅓ cup vinegar
- 2 garlic cloves minced
- ½ cup brown sugar packed
- 2 teaspoon black pepper
- 1 teaspoon onion powder
- 1 teaspoon garlic powder
- 2 teaspoon mustard powder
- 1 teaspoon ancho chili pepper
Instructions
Rubbing mixture:
- In small bowl, stir together all ingredients from the rubbing mixture. Rub this mixture over beef brisket (can be done the day before). If done ahead of time, place beef brisket in the resealable food-storage plastic bag and refrigerate.
Barbecue sauce:
- Add all the ingredients from the Homemade Barbecue Sauce ingredient section into your isntant pot and mix them all together with a whisk.
Adding Beef Brisket:
- Place beef brisket into your instant pot on top of the barbecue sauce. Using a deep metal spoon, pour some of the barbecue sauce over top.
- Select Pressure Cook, on High Pressure. Set the timer for 90 minutes. When beep sounds, turn off pressure cooker and let the pressure release naturally for 15 minutes. Quick release any remaining pressure. When valve drops carefully remove lid. Remove the brisket from the Instant pot. The instructions follow for the barbecue sauce.
To thicken the barbecue sauce:
- Remove the barbecue sauce liquid from your slow cooker and add it to the medium size saucepan. Bring to a boiling point and simmer for 10-15 minutes, stirring occasionally.
How to slice beef brisket:
- Cut a small corner of the brisket to determine the direction of the grain of the meat. The grain should be perpendicular to your knife. Start slicing across the grin.
To serve:
- Arrange sliced brisket on a plate or a bun and pour Barbecue sauce on top of the slices. Alternatively, you can also reheat sliced beef brisket in the sauce and serve it warm.
Nutritional information is provided as a courtesy only. This information comes from online calculators. Although whatsinthepan.com attempts to provide accurate nutritional information, these figures are only estimates.
Notes
Instant Pot Tips
If you frequently use your Instant Pot for a variety of recipes, it’s a good idea to have 2 different rings. One is for savory recipes and the other – for sweet recipes. This helps avoid odor exchange. I use this Genuine Instant Pot Ring as my second ring. Made by the Instant Pot manufacturer, it has over 1,000 positive reviews on Amazon.
Instant Pot Tempered Glass Lid is another useful tool to have on hand. It’s a good way to help keep the food warm without having to put the pressure lid on.
“Then you will turn the Steam handle to venting since we’re not pressure cooking here.”
“After pressure cooking the beef brisket,”
“Quick release any remaining pressure”
I am VERY confused. Should I cook this under pressure or not. If not then how do I quick release pressure at the end of the valve is already open since the start? Thanks
The first sentence should not be there – I removed it! Thank you for picking that up!
Your instructions say to keep the pressure valve on Vent, and then pressure cook on high for 90 minutes.. This doesn’t work..
We’re opening the vent because we are using instant pot as a slow cooker here.
So if you are slow cooking the brisket, the cook time is 90 minutes? Or is that the amount of time if you are cooking with pressure. The section in your article under what buttons to push says it is slow cooking, but then mentions cooking under high pressure. In the recipe card itself it does not mention slow cooking.
Cook time is the time you set on the instant pot and it is 90 minutes. Total time involves time to pressure and then natural release of 15 minutes.
What are you recommended timings for a larger piece of meat?
The timing would be the same, El. It will simply take longer to come to pressure.
I just got an instant pot and am not a big cook. I want to make brisket for daughter’s graduation party. Some folks can’t do spicy. Is this a fairly mild seasoning recipe?
Yes, it’s very mild.
What happens if I make it in medium speed? Will I be able to shred it?
Cooking brisket low and slow results in very tender meat. I recommend going with slow speed and longer time. You can go medium and adjust time slightly – check it after 6 hours.
My instant pot doesn’t look as deep as yours I made the brisket yesterday and we are enjoying it all day today thank you!!!!
I made it in the old fashioned white porcelain slow cooker that has only two settings and it smelled great it tastes great no reason to use a fancy slow cooker for this at all
This looks good.
Do you think this would work with a pork-butt to make pork BBQ?
You’re thinking about making BBQ pulled pork sandwiches… Yummy. Same thing – slow cook for 8 hours on low (same directions as in the recipe) and then of course shred it. And also do simmer the sauce after taking it out of the slow cooker – just enough to thicken it a bit.
I used supermarket bbq sauce with this very easy