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Room-temperature, pulsed-operation lasing of 8.5  μm-emitting InP-based quantum cascade lasers (QCLs), with low threshold-current density and watt-level output power, is demonstrated from structures grown on (001) GaAs substrates by metal-organic chemical vapor deposition. Prior to growing the laser structure, which contains a 35-stage In 0.53 Ga 0.47 As/In 0.52 Al 0.48 As lattice-matched active-core region, a ∼2  μm-thick nearly fully relaxed InP buffer with strained 1.6 nm-thick InAs quantum-dot-like dislocation-filter layers was grown. A smooth terminal buffer-layer surface, with roughness as low as 0.4 nm on a 10 × 10  μm 2 scale, was obtained, while the estimated threading-dislocation density was in the mid-range × 10 8  cm −2 . A series of measurements, on lasers grown on InP metamorphic buffer layers (MBLs) and on native InP substrates, were performed for understanding the impact of the buffer-layer's surface roughness, residual strain, and threading-dislocation density on unipolar devices such as QCLs. As-cleaved devices, grown on InP MBLs, were fabricated as 25  μm × 3 mm deep-etched ridge guides with lateral current injection. The results are pulsed maximum output power of 1.95 W/facet and a low threshold-current density of 1.86 kA/cm 2 at 293 K. These values are comparable to those obtained from devices grown on InP: 2.09 W/facet and 2.42 kA/cm 2 . This demonstrates the relative insensitivity of the device-performance metrics on high residual threading-dislocation density, and high-performance InP-based QCLs emitting near 8  μm can be achieved on lattice-mismatched substrates.