With hearty beef and turmeric-spiced coconut milk , this flavor-packed Instant Pot Beef Curry recipe is classic comfort food with an Indian twist. Tender bites of beef and vegetables come together in an aromatic curry adapted from the South Indian state of Kerala. This curry can also be served as a beef stew, which is how my family loves it. Make it more or less spicy by varying the quantity of green chili peppers.
[Note: this recipe was originally published in January 2017. It was completely updated with new and more detailed photographs and instructions in April 2019]
This Instant Pot Beef Curry with Coconut Milk is adapted from a beef curry recipe that comes from the South Indian state of Kerala. This Kerala beef curry recipe is sometimes referred to as ‘ishtu’ (pronounced ‘ish-too’ and derived from ‘stew’). There are vegetable, mutton, and chicken versions of the recipe.
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Tips and Substitutions
Because the curry isn’t heavy on spices, I like to add more jalapeno peppers than I normally do – it gives it that extra kick of spice which is balanced out by the coconut milk. You could easily make this a meal-in-one and serve this curry as a stew with fresh bread on the side.
To save time, you could choose to skip the browning of the beef step, but the flavor won’t be the same.
I use stew meat but you can use any cut of meat that has some fat: beef chuck, bottom roast, bottom round…. Meats with higher fat content do very well in the Instant Pot pressure cooker, but make sure your trim the fat so it’s not excessive.
When you’re browning the beef, don’t crowd the inner pot. Do it in batches so you don’t end up boiling the meat! You can even do the browning of the beef in a large non-stick frying pan.
I find that jalapeno pepper spiciness can vary and it’s hard to get a consistent level of heat and so I like to use serrano peppers which I find are fairly consistent in their spiciness.
I frequently use baby carrots rather than sliced carrots and keep the same pressure cooking time.
The recipe has an unusual ingredient, which is A1 Steak Sauce. I make another family recipe from my mother-in-law and she adds it to the beef to give it that extra oomph, that umami. That’s why I incorporate A1 into this recipe. You can omit it and still have a super-tasty Instant Pot Beef Curry Stew.
If you’d like a thicker curry with less liquid, feel free to increase the quantity of beef and vegetables and/or decrease the quantity of broth.
You can use either beef broth or chicken broth. I generally use chicken broth because that’s what I usually have on hand.
If you’re new to the Instant Pot and aren’t familiar with how to use it, please read the Instant Pot DUO Beginner’s Quick Start Guide or the Instant Pot ULTRA Beginner’s Quick Start Guide first and then come back here to learn how to make this Instant Pot Beef Curry with Coconut Milk.
Instant Pot Beef Curry with Coconut Milk Recipe Ingredients
How to Make Instant Pot Beef Curry with Coconut Milk Recipe (Step-by-Step Instructions)
- Instant Pot DUO: Select the ‘Saute’ function.
- Instant Pot ULTRA: Select the ‘Saute’ function and press ‘Start’.
- Once the Instant Pot has pre-heated, add oil and allow it to heat up.
- Working in batches, sear beef until browned on all sides, stirring frequently. Remove beef and set aside.
- Press ‘Cancel’ to turn Instant Pot off, to keep the onions from burning in the next step.
- Add onions, garlic, ginger, jalapenos and stir well.
- Press ‘Saute’ again. Add a tablespoon or two of broth and deglaze the inner pot. Saute till onion mixture is golden brown, stirring often. This will take about 3 to 5 minutes. Deglaze as needed if the onions start browning too much or sticking to the bottom.
- Add the salt, pepper, turmeric, and A1 steak sauce.
- Stir until fragrant, about 30 seconds to 1 minute. *
* If the Instant Pot becomes too hot and the ingredients are burning, turn it off to cool it down and turn back on once cooled. You don’t want to burn the spices! Again, if the mixture sticks to the bottom, deglaze by adding a tablespoon of broth and stirring to remove the browned bits.
- Stir in the remaining broth and make sure there are no brown bits stuck to the bottom of the inner pot.
- Stir in reserved beef.
Instant Pot DUO Pressure Cook:
- Close the lid and make sure steam release handle is in ‘Sealing’ position
- Press ‘Manual’ (or ‘Pressure Cook’) and ‘+’ or ‘-‘ until the display reads ‘15′ (15 minutes).
Instant Pot ULTRA Pressure Cook:
- Close the lid.
- Select Pressure Cook mode and adjust the time to 15 minutes (00:15).
- Press ‘Start’.
- Instant Pot display will change to ‘On’.
- Once the Instant Pot is pressurized, the float valve will go up.
- The display will count down from 15 to 0; it will then switch to ‘Keep Warm’ mode and display ‘L0:00’ or ’00 00′ and begin to count up.
Instant Pot DUO Quick Release:
- Move the steam release handle to ‘Venting’. I like to place a folded towel over the steam release handle and move it to the venting position. Remove the towel after turning the knob.
- When your Instant Pot is depressurized, the float valve will be in the down position.
- Press ‘Cancel’ and open the Instant Pot.
Instant Pot ULTRA Quick Release:
- Press down on the Steam Release Button until it locks into place, and steam begins to come out of the Steam Release Valve.
- When your Instant Pot is depressurized, the float valve will be in the down position.
- Press ‘Cancel’ and open the Instant Pot.
- Stir in the carrots and potatoes.
Instant Pot DUO Pressure Cook:
- Close the lid and make sure steam release handle is in ‘Sealing’ position
- Press ‘Manual’ (or ‘Pressure Cook’) and ‘+’ or ‘-‘ until the display reads ‘3′ (3 minutes).
Instant Pot ULTRA Pressure Cook:
- Close the lid.
- Select Pressure Cook mode and adjust the time to 3 minutes (00:03).
- Press ‘Start’.
- Instant Pot display will change to ‘On’.
- Once the Instant Pot is pressurized, the float valve will go up.
- The display will count down from 3 to 0; it will then switch to ‘Keep Warm’ mode and display ‘L0:00’ or ’00 00′ and begin to count up.
Instant Pot DUO Quick Release:
- Move the steam release handle to ‘Venting’. I like to place a folded towel over the steam release handle and move it to the venting position. Remove the towel after turning the knob.
- When your Instant Pot is depressurized, the float valve will be in the down position.
- Press ‘Cancel’ and open the Instant Pot.
Instant Pot ULTRA Quick Release:
- Press down on the Steam Release Button until it locks into place, and steam begins to come out of the Steam Release Valve.
- When your Instant Pot is depressurized, the float valve will be in the down position.
- Press ‘Cancel’ and open the Instant Pot.
- Stir in coconut milk.
- Heat through on ‘Saute’ mode. See above.
- Stir in chopped cilantro.
- Serve as a soup or stew with bread or as a curry with Instant Pot basmati rice or naan.
Instant Pot Beef Curry with Coconut Milk | Kerala Beef Stew
Ingredients
- 3 Tbsp vegetable oil for searing
- 2 lbs beef stew meat cut into 1-inch cubes
- 1 cup onion chopped
- 5 tsp garlic minced
- 1 Tbsp ginger chopped finely
- 1 jalapeno or serrano pepper or to taste, seeded and chopped finely *
- 2 cups beef broth or chicken broth
- 1 tsp salt or to taste
- 1 tsp black pepper or to taste
- 1 tsp turmeric powder
- 2 tsp A1 steak sauce optional
- 1 1/2 cups carrots peeled, cut into 1-inch pieces
- 1 1/2 cups potatoes cut into 1-inch cubes
- 14 oz. coconut milk unsweetened, regular fat (1 can)
- 1/2 cup cilantro chopped
Instructions
- Press ‘Saute’. Add oil to Instant Pot and working in batches, sear beef until browned on all sides, stirring frequently. Be careful not to burn. Turn off Instant Pot if it gets too hot. Remove beef with a slotted spoon and set aside.
- Turn Instant Pot off and add onions, garlic, ginger, jalapenos and stir well.
- Press ‘Saute’ again and add 1 to 2 tablespoons of broth to deglaze Instant Pot, scraping up all the brown bits.
- Saute onion mixture till golden brown, stirring often. This will take about 5 minutes. If the mixture sticks to the bottom, add a tablespoon or two of broth.
- Add reserved beef, salt, black pepper, turmeric, A-1 steak sauce and saute briefly to coat the beef with spices.
- Add broth and stir.
- Close Instant Pot Lid and pressure cook on high pressure for 15 minutes. Do a quick release of pressure (QR) and open the lid.
- Add potatoes and carrots to Instant Pot and close the lid again.
- Pressure cook for 3 minutes on high pressure and do a quick release of pressure (QR).
- Add coconut milk to the Instant Pot beef curry and stir to combine. Taste and season with salt to taste.
- Select ‘Saute’ mode and heat through.
- Turn off Instant Pot, sprinkle beef curry with cilantro and stir. Serve with crusty bread, naan or over rice
Notes
- Prep time does not include steps that are already accounted for in the ingredient list, e.g. chopped onions, minced garlic, cubed beef, etc.
- * Use jalapeno or serrano peppers with care: add them per your spice tolerance. To make this a thicker curry, reduce the liquid at the end in 'Saute' mode, or use 1 1/2 cups broth instead of 2.
- Adapted from Chef Asha Gomez in Bon Appetit.
- Please read the blog post for some useful tips.
Nutrition
I am not a certified nutritionist. I provide my best estimate of nutritional information merely as a courtesy to my readers. If you depend on nutritional information for dietary or health reasons, I suggest using your favorite online nutrition calculator to confirm the nutritional value of this recipe based on the actual ingredients that you use.
If you loved this recipe, please give it a 5 Star rating in the comment section below and please share it on social media using the social media share buttons at the top and bottom of this post. Thank you so much!
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Matthew
Hi Neena,
In step 1, when i try to brown the beef, a whole bunch of water got released. What would you recommend? Thanks!
Paint the Kitchen Red
Mathew, that can happen sometimes, especially if the meat has been previously frozen. In the future, you can saute in batches making sure not to overcrowd the pan. You can also do this in a frying pan on the stove. But in the case of the water already having been released, I would remove the beef using a slotted spoon and saute the liquid till it evaporates (should be quick), then add the beef back in and continue as usual. Hope you like the recipe – one of my faves!
Catherine
Thank you for sharing. My husband I really enjoyed this beef curry. Think I include the seeds from the jalapeno pepper to add some more spicy heat to the dish.
Paint the Kitchen Red
Catherine, glad to hear you like one of my favorite recipes. My husband also likes it spicy 🙂
TimeParadogs
Really good recipe. Everything was cooked perfectly and the flavor was quite nice, especially considering how simple it was. I ended up using a cup of broth which I reduced a bit and thickened with corn starch, and it went perfectly with rice. I’d recommend adding cayenne; the one jalapeno I used didn’t add nearly enough spiciness.
Paint the Kitchen Red
Thanks so much for your comment. This is one of my family’s all-time favorite recipes! Here’s a tip: use serrano chiles. They’re so much more consistent in their heat content (in my experience). Cayenne works too 🙂
John
Not sure…it’s pretty standard but I forget the brand. But I’ll decrease the broth. Thanks!
KS
I used white turmeric because it is all that I had. I added some flour mixed in some cold water at the end and cooked for an extra minute to thicken it up. You have to do it in the saute mode because otherwise it will gunk up your lid.
Paint the Kitchen Red
Thank you KS! I’m embarrassed to admit I don’t even know what white turmeric is! I needed to look it up 🙂
John
Do you recommend adding corn starch to thicken it a bit? I’m finding it not very thick even after reducing some of the liquid
Paint the Kitchen Red
Hi John – what kind of coconut milk did you use? Some brands and also light coconut milk can be quite watery. Also, sometimes beef can give off liquid e.g. if it’s been frozen. Yes, you could thicken with some cornstarch if you needed to. Next time, I would decrease the quantity of broth to 1 1/2 cups.
Aaron
Hi, do you think this recipe will fit in a 3-quart Instant Pot?
Paint the Kitchen Red
Aaron, as long as you don’t go over the 2/3 full mark, you should be okay. I think it will fit. Hope you like the recipe – it’s one of my family’s favorites.
Mary
Wow! Great taste! I didn’t have jalapeño so used a chipotle in adobo sauce (just one!). Gave it great heat.
Paint the Kitchen Red
Hi Mary, thanks for trying out the recipe. It’s one of our absolute favorites!
Roger senior
Very good
Emily
Delicious curry. The kids loved it.
Paint the Kitchen Red
It is such a comforting curry – I’m glad your family enjoyed it.
Joyce
A1 sauce! :O this must add another dimension of spices and flavours! This is so cool! Such a comforting dish, I love your step by steps! 🙂
Paint the Kitchen Red
I said that the secret ingredient is coconut milk, but maybe it should be the A1. My mother-in-law gave me this trick!
Romain
What a fascination fusion of styles. I have never been able to meld Indian with any other cuisine but you have taken a traditional beef stew and put an Indian twist on it with the ginger, chili, turmeric and coconut milk. Bravo. Oh, and I would never skip the browning step personally. You would lose too much flavour. Maillard reaction rules!
Paint the Kitchen Red
Thanks Romain! I hope you get to try it out.