I LOVE these Instant Pot Chicken Zucchini meatballs – seriously, so good and filling, the seasonings are spot on, and to boot, HEALTHY! – Food Under Pressure
Healthy, chicken meatballs are just what I need in my life right now. Because… have you seen my Alabama Pot Roast recipe? Not the healthiest thing in the world.
Sometimes you just wantneed something light, healthy, full of veg. This is it.
And it’s quick. 6 minutes! Fix a big salad on the side while this is cooking and boom! You got a veg filled, healthy dinner for the fam!
Instant Pot Chicken Tacos (Chili Lime flavored) with Mango Salsa!
Light and healthy and full of fresh, yummy flavors (that mango salsa just slays me), this chili lime chicken number is such a winner.
The chicken can be pressure cooked… in an InstantPot, add the chicken and marinade ingredients plus 1/2 cup low-sodium chicken broth or water –> 7 minutes… Let the chicken rest for 5 or so minutes before slicing into strips or shredding.
As much as I love food and variety, this meal totally fits into the category of “I could eat this every night and be exceptionally happy.”
Instant Pot Honey Garlic Chicken is a Chinese-style dish bursting with honey-garlic flavor. And because you make it in the Instant Pot, it’s also really quick to make.
Step one, mix up the sauce, pour it over the meat, and cook for 20 minutes. Step two, take out the meat and thicken the sauce. And step three, cut up the meat and toss it with the sauce. Boom, done. Served over rice with a sprinkling of sesame seeds and green onions, it’s a super-flavorful Chinese meal that takes less time than ordering takeout.
Instant Pot Mongolian Drumsticks are the perfect budget-friendly dinner, that is also very easy to make and delicious. I love to prep ahead this meal and freeze it.
I make the sauce and add everything to a freezer friendly ziplock bag and when I know I want to make it for dinner, I transfer the bag from the freezer to the fridge in the morning to thaw. By the time I get home from work, all I have to do is add the marinated Instant Pot Mongolian Drumsticks to the pot and cook.
For a delicious crispy outside, I cook the drumsticks under the broiler for a few minutes. Served with the sweet and sticky Mongolian sauce, this dinner is bound to be a success.
Looking for more Asian Instant Pot Recipes? Check out more at Sweet & Savory Meals!
I am a big fan of Chicken Tenderloins, but it can be pretty easy to overcook them. You don’t want to do that – Chicken Tenderloins ain’t cheap, and overcooked means rubbery chicken (no, thanks!). I was a little hesitant to try for Instant Pot Chicken Tenderloins.
With the high pressure of the Instant Pot, I thought it might just be too much. I decided to just go for it.
Low and behold! Instant Pot WIN – again – in 10 minutes!
Ingredients
1-2 lbs chicken tenderloins
1 cup water
Seasonings of choice – enough to season liberally
Directions
Place the rack that came with the Instant Pot, or a rack of your choice, over the liquid. Place chicken on rack, then season liberally.
I used salt, pepper, garlic powder, paprika and sprigs of fresh thyme. Thyme is perfect for chicken!
Close the lid of your Instant Pot, and turn vent knob to “Sealing”. Press “manual” button, then set time using “+/- buttons to 6 minutes.
When cook time is complete, quickly release pressure (QPR) by turning vent knob from “Sealing” to “Venting”.
Open the lid of your IP, and behold the easiest chicken tenderloins EVER!
This Instant Pot Salsa Shredded Chicken made in the Instant Pot is so easy, and only takes a couple ingredients! It is great for a party, perfect for meal prep, totally freezable, and best of all, DELICIOUS.
The chicken can be thawed or frozen – you don’t need to make any adjustments to the recipe at all either way.
DOUBLE this recipe to feed a crowd – no need to change the cook time!
Instant Pot Salsa Shredded Chicken is perfect for shredding – use it for tacos, over rice, on a salad, in a sandwich, in enchiladas, in a Tex-Mex style soup, or just by itself. It really is so good and so versatile; so easy, too, thanks to the Instant Pot or another pressure cooker!
Salsa Shredded Chicken
Video by Food Under Pressure
Add Chicken to pot. Sprinkle with cumin and chili powder.
Cover with salsa. Add 2-3 T water to salsa jar and swirl with any remaining salsa; add to pot.
Close lid and close vent knob. Pressure Cook on manual/high pressure for 25 minutes.
Quickly release pressure when cook time completes. Remove lid. Turn Instant Pot off by pressing "Cancel" button. Allow to cool for 3-4 minutes.
Using hand mixer on OFF, use mixing blades to break up the chicken breasts slightly. Then, turn mixer on low setting and move around pot to shred chicken. This literally takes 10 seconds!
I was craving a good, but fast pasta dish earlier this week – Instant Pot Chicken Artichoke Pasta with Tomatoes is what came to be! Thankfully, it was so DELICIOUS!
Additional thanks goes to the fact that its a total ONE POT MEAL thanks to my Instant Pot Electric Pressure Cooker – who doesn’t love less dishes?!
Recently, I had to nix dairy from my diet (nursing a dairy intolerant infant problems…). One of my first thoughts: “Oh my Gosh, how will I live without pizza and pasta”, because naturally you put cheese on both of those, right?!
Well, of course you can make pasta without cheese (sigh), but pizza and I are still separated at the moment.
Anyhow, you can definitely create some tasty pasta dishes without cheese, including this Instant Pot Chicken Artichoke Pasta with Tomatoes.
This pasta dish is FAST & EASY – and my favorite part, it is a total ONE POT MEAL!
The less dishes, the better, right?
Instant Pot Chicken Artichoke Pasta with Tomatoes
Video by Food Under Pressure
Pasta made in your pressure cooker takes minimal effort & is done in minutes! This is an easy, one pot meal perfect for a busy weeknight or lazy Sunday!
Servings: 6servings
Author: Jessica Miller
Ingredients
2tbspolive oil
1.5lbschickendiced in 1-2 inch cubes
2-3freshgarlic clovesminced
1tspItalian seasoning
1tspsalt
1/2-1tspblack pepper
1/4tspcrushed red pepperoptional for spice
1candiced tomatoes14.5 ounce
2 1/2cupswater
2tbspolive oil
1boxpasta (I prefer rotini)
1/4cupsun-dried tomatoes
2-3tbspsun-dried tomatoes, dicedadditional as garnish, optional
parmesan cheeseoptional as garnish
1canquartered artichoke hearts14.5 ounce, drained
Instructions
Prepare all ingredients and turn on pressure cooker to sauté or browning mode.
Once heated, add 2 tbsp olive oil to pot. Add chicken, garlic and seasonings and sauté 3-4 minutes.
Add water, tomatoes including their juice, sun-dried tomatoes, artichokes and olive oil. Stir well, scraping any bits off the bottom of the pot (deglaze).
Add pasta. Press into liquid and stir very lightly.
Close lid and close vent knob (turn to sealing setting).
Press Cancel, the manual (high pressure) and adjust cook time to 4 minutes.
When cook time is complete, quickly release pressure (QPR) by carefully opening vent knob (turn to venting setting).
Open lid and stir gently, but well.
Serve immediately. Garnish with additional sun-dried tomatoes and/or parmesan cheese, if desired. Sprinkle on some crushed red pepper if you like the spice — YUM!
Ever have those times when you need to get something ready for dinner, but you have limited time – ya know… perhaps you got home from work late, your kids are screaming for dinner, there was an after school practice or event and the kids are home later than usual – and to boot, you forgot to take something out of the freezer that morning.
Never happens to you, right?
You’re staring at a package of frozen solid chicken breast & rock hard whole sweet potatoes.
A pizza delivery could get on the table faster than that, right? There goes the healthy, money saving weeknight dinner goal. Ugh…
Guess what? Think again!
With your Pressure Cooker, you CAN get that healthy meal to the table! And, you can get it there dirtying only one pot, without thawing anything, without turning on the oven, and you can do it in about 35 minutes TOTAL – including prep, cook time and pressure release time!
** have thawed Chicken breasts?Good for you for remembering to thaw them out… you can still make this! Cut sweet potatoes in half and cut cook time down to 10 minutes.
One Pot (Frozen) Chicken & Sweet Potatoes
Ingredients
about 1.5 lbs frozen, boneless chicken breast (about 3 large)
Pour 1 cup cooking liquid, water or broth, in bottom of pressure cooker insert. Place short trivet over cooking liquid.
Remove frozen chicken breast from packaging and place on trivet. Drizzle with 1-2 T olive oil and seasoning liberally with seasonings of your choice.
I used salt, pepper, onion powder, garlic powder, crushed red pepper and dried thyme, & plenty of it, on BOTH sides of my frozen chicken breast – season well!
Clean sweet potatoes well. Do not puncture skin.
Rub skin with 1-2 T olive oil and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Place around pressure cooker insert, directly over chicken.
Close lid to pressure cooker & close vent knob. Select High Pressure cook setting and adjust cook time to 15 minutes. It will take about 10 minutes for your pressure cooker to come to pressure then cook time countdown will begin.
For Instant Pot, close lid, turn vent knob to Sealing, Press “Manual” button and use “+/-“ buttons to adjust cook time to 15 minutes. Display will show as “On” until pot comes to pressure, then cook time countdown will begin.
Using thawed Chicken breast? Cut cook time down to 10 minutes and cut sweet potatoes in half for even cooking.
When cook time is complete, allow natural pressure release for 5-10 minutes then quickly release remaining pressure (QPR).
Open lid of pressure cooker and feast your eyes on your just-in-time, healthy, FAST, from FROZEN Chicken and Sweet Potatoes!
Carefully remove sweet potatoes and chicken with tongs.
Do you SEE that browning on the chicken?! I did NOT sear them beforehand – that is all from the magic of the pressure cooker! And, the generous amount of seasoning!
Serve immediately, perhaps alongside an easy salad or quickly steamed veggies.
If desired, top sweet potato with butter & a sprinkle of cinnamon – I like mine plain!
Whole Pressure Cooker Chicken If you haven’t tried whole pressure cooker chicken before, you need to – like TODAY. Specifically, you need to try Whole Bundt Pan Pressure Cooker Chicken!
Seriously – this is the best chicken you will ever have in your lifetime. I am confident in that claim. So confident that, if you don’t like it, I’ll buy you a new chicken ?
There are 2 secrets to my Whole Pressure Cooker Chicken:
1. A Bundt Pan
2. Compound Butter or Oil
The Bundt Pan allows the chicken to keep its shape, and it also allows you to capture the juices rather than them running into your cooking liquid at the bottom of your pressure cooker. Capturing the juices makes for a KILLER gravy.
The Compound Butter or Oil allows the chicken to stay incredibly moist and gives it so much flavor – compound butters are full of seasonings of your choice. Today, I will be demonstrating with my Citrus Herb Butter – it is my FAVORITE. But, you could really add anything you want to softened butter, mix it up, and call it compound – compound will flavor! More compound butter recipes to come!
Another great thing about the Compound Butter is it will be captured in the juices that are captured in the Bundt Pan – did I mention how capturing those juices make for a KILLER gravy? Oh yes, Lord.
Whole Bundt Pan Pressure Cooker Chicken
with Compound Butter
Ingredients
Whole Chicken Ingredients
Whole Roaster Chicken, thawed, up to 5 pounds (any bigger won’t fit in the 6 quart Instant Pot)
*because I used this butter, I also stuffed the chicken with the lemon and lime zested for this butter and some fresh thyme – go check out the Citrus Herb Butter!
Remove Chicken from packaging, and inspect for any feathers; they should be easy to remove if any remain. Trim some excess fatty skin, if desired.
Place small square of foil over hole in Bundt pan.
Dry chicken as best as you can with paper towels. Place chicken in bundt pan, placing hole of chicken around foiled center of bundt pan.
Rub compound butter all over chicken and let some fall inside chicken, and under the skin… everywhere you can get it. Sprinkle on a little salt and pepper (I use about 1/4 t of each)
*I also shoved a couple small pieces of the lime and lemon I zested and fresh thyme I used to make my Citrus Herb Butter inside the chicken – aromatics!
Aromatics are a good thing, and they are NOT complicated – onion, garlic, carrots, celery, ginger, herbs, citrus, apples, lemongrass… depends on what flavor you’re going for!
Pour 1 1/2 cups water in bottom of Instant Pot insert, then carefully place Bundt pan directly into Instant Pot (I solicited the help of some tongs).
Close lid. Turn Vent Knob to “Sealing“. Press Manual (high pressure) and adjust cook time using “+/-“ buttons to _____ [Whole Chicken needs 6 minutes per pound] – my chicken was just under 6 pounds (5.8 lbs), so I chose a cook time of 34 minutes.
Instant Pot will take 10-15 minutes to come to pressure, then cook time countdown will begin. When cook time is complete, Instant Pot will beep.
Allow pressure to naturally release (NPR) for 10 minutes. After 10 minutes, quickly release remaining pressure (QPR)by turning vent knob to “Venting”.
Open lid and smile at your super moist and tender chicken, and all that flavorful juice you’ve captured because of the bundt pan!
Carefully remove chicken from bundt pan, and place on cookie sheet.
Carefully remove bundt pan from Instant Pot – pour juices in small saucepan (I pour slowly and avoid getting the juice at the very bottom of the bundt pan because it usually has some fat scraps…)
If desired, use fat separator to remove some fat from the juice. Place remaining juices in a sauce pan on stove over medium heat.
Mix a slurry of cornstarch and cold water.
Pour slurry into saucepan, and whisk.
Allow gravy to simmer for 5-10 minutes or until thickened as desired.
Your gravy can simmer while you follow the next steps, browning your chicken under the broiler.
Lightly broil chicken on cookie sheet to crisp skin – this takes about 4-5 minutes. BE CAREFUL, don’t take your eyes off your chicken!
After lightly browning under broiler for about 4 minutes – you can go a little longer if you prefer, but don’t burn it!
Time to carve! In reality, you could carve this chicken with a darned butter knife or just shred it with a fork because it is SO TENDER and MOIST!
Whole Pressure Cooker Bundt Pan Chicken
with Compound Butter
Serve with your delicious homemade gravy (wasn’t that easy?!) and your choice of sides… Tonight, I roasted potatoes in the oven using the same Citrus Herb Butter and steamed broccoli in the microwave while my chicken was cooking in my Instant Pot!
My husband grew faith in my Chinese abilities, and I set out to make Honey Sesame Chicken.
Traditional Honey Sesame Chicken recipes call for frying the chicken before saucing – no thanks, and no frying in my Instant Pot.I am not a huge fan of fried food – #1, its a pain in the arse to cook at home – I hate that lingering “just fried” smell. #2, who needs all that fat?
Other recipes, including those I found specifically for pressure cookers, call for TONS of brown sugar and honey – they just seemed to be an amount I would want in dessert, not for dinner.
I set out to make my own Honey Sesame Chicken, and I have to say… Bravo. ?
This Honey Sesame Chicken is not only easy, but it is delicious. It’s the perfect amount of savory Umami-ness and the perfect amount of honey-sweet.
Ingredients
1 1/2 pounds chicken, 1-2 inch cubes, can use breast or thighs
1/4 cup soy sauce
1/4 cup honey, plus 1 T
1/2 cup chicken broth (can sub water, but add extra 1 t soy sauce)
1 t fish sauce
1 T sesame oil
2 t rice vinegar
2 t. ginger (I use jarred)
1 t. garlic, minced (1 clove)
2 t. Sesame Tahini, or sub peanut butter (yep, I use peanut butter and its delish – I don’t always have tahini on hand, but I do always have peanut butter)
1 T sesame seeds
1 T brown sugar
pinch salt and pepper
1-3 t Sambal Oelek chili paste, optional for spice
2 T cornstarch
1 T water
1-2 T toasted sesame seeds, garnish
Sambal Oelek chili paste, optional garnish for spice
In mixing bowl or Instant Pot insert, mix soy sauce, honey, chicken broth, fish sauce, sesame oil, rice vinegar, ginger, garlic, peanut butter, sesame seeds, brown sugar, salt, pepper and Sambal Oelek. Whisk until well combined. Add cubed chicken. Marinate according to how much time you have… anywhere from 15 minutes – 12 hours.
I do this the morning I plan to make Honey Sesame Chicken. I throw it all into my Instant Pot insert, cover with saran wrap and store in my fridge. When its time to cook, the insert goes right into my IP!
Place insert in Instant Pot, and add marinated chicken (if not already in your insert like mine was). Close lid, turn Vent knob to “Sealing”.
Press Manual button and adjust cook time using “+/-“ buttons to 8 minutes.
Instant Pot (IP) display will show as “On” until IP comes to pressure. Then, cook time countdown will display and begin.
While Honey Sesame Chicken cooks in your Instant Pot, toast your Sesame Seeds for your garnish. Toast sesame seeds in dry pan for 3-5 minutes on medium heat, moving seeds in pan often. Toast oil they just turn golden and fragrant. Set aside until ready to serve.
When cook time is complete, IP will beep and automatically change to “Keep Warm” setting. Allow NPR for 5 minutes.
While NPR is taking place, mix a slurry of corn starch and water in small bowl – this will act as a thickener for your Honey Sesame sauce.
After NPR, release remaining pressure by turning Vent knob to “Venting” (QPR).
Open lid.
Press “Saute” button on IP (browning button on other pressure cookers).
Add slurry while stirring. Allow sauce to thicken for 3-5 minutes, stirring every 30 seconds or so.
Turn IP Off by pressing “Keep Warm/Off” button.
Add about 1 T of honey, stir.
Why the extra honey here? I think it gives a fresh, fragrant honey taste perfect for right before you serve.
Serve and top with toasted sesame seeds & Sambal Oelek (if desired for spice)
