Instant Pot Salsa Verde Chicken
- PREP 5min
- COOK 15min
- TOTAL 20min
We love this Instant pot chicken breasts recipe with a creamy salsa verde sauce. The Instant Pot is a programmable pressure cooker, if you don’t have one, this recipe can be adapted to be used by any pressure cooker. You can use any cut of chicken for this, chicken thighs will make the most tender shredded chicken, but chicken breast works nicely.
You Will Need
1 teaspoon olive oil
2 garlic cloves, minced
2 cups salsa verde or green enchilada sauce, try our homemade salsa verde, see notes
Salt, to taste
1 pound boneless, skinless chicken breast or thighs
1/2 cup sour cream
Handful fresh chopped cilantro
Directions
Add oil to the bottom of the Instant Pot (or electric pressure cooker). Select the “Sauté” setting and choose high heat. When the oil is hot and shimmering, add the garlic and stir it around the pot for 10 seconds. Pour in salsa verde and cook until warmed through. Taste the salsa and season with salt if needed. Cancel the “Sauté” function.
Nestle the chicken into the warmed salsa then secure the lid. Select the “Pressure Cook” or “Manual” function and cook on high pressure for 8 minutes. Note that the timer will not start until there is enough pressure inside the pot so the timer may not start for a few minutes.
When the cook time is up, do not immediately open the lid and instead let the pressure naturally release for about 5 minutes. After 5 minutes, release the remaining pressure by using the quick release button (be careful to keep your hands and face away from the venting steam).
Transfer the chicken to a cutting board and use two forks to shred it (you can also do this in the in the pot itself). Stir the shredded chicken, sour cream and the cilantro into the salsa verde sauce. Serve over rice, cooked grains or in tortillas.
Adam and Joanne's Tips
- Salsa verde: We love our homemade version, but when we don’t have time to make it, use store-bought. So far, our favorite brands are Frontera by Rick Bayless and Hatch. If you buy canned salsa, you’ll find you have about 1 2/3 cups of sauce. Don’t bother opening an extra can, just fill the measuring jug to the 2 cup line with a little water.
- If, when you remove the chicken, the chicken is not all the way cooked through, turn the Sauté function back on and simmer until the chicken is cooked through.
- Nutrition facts: The nutrition facts provided below are estimates. We have used the USDA Supertracker recipe calculator to calculate approximate values. Nutrition provided is for the lemon garlic version of the recipe. We assumed chicken breast.
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