If y'all follow me on instagram, then you know I'm borderline obsessed with my InstantPot. Like...should Quentin be concerned? No, but almost!
But seriously, we received the InstantPot as a very generous holiday gift from Quentin's family two years ago, and since then, it's easily become my favorite kitchen appliance. It even beats out the dishwasher, and I HATE doing dishes.
One of my go-to InstantPot "recipes"--which is less a recipe and more a method-- is this Salsa Chicken. It's quick, easy, versatile, and scrum-didily-umptious (remind me never to say scrum-didily-umptious again please...). I often eat it on salads, or as the main with a yummy side but today, I used it as the in some yumm-o tacos(ok, same thing, no more yumm-o) . The meat ends up shredded, much like pulled pork, but the total cook time is ~20 min! Can't really beat that!
For those considering an electric pressure cooker, or those that maybe already have one but aren't as comfortable using it, I have the step by step for this specific recipe along with photos below!
InstantPot Salsa Chicken
- Plug your pot right in! There is no on/off switch, it just needs to be plugged into an outlet. More on setting it to cook later!
- Add your meat to the pot (no need to grease the pot).
- Pour your salsa over the meat. Work to distribute it evenly over the meat. Add some salt!
- Close lid and lock the top (turn it to the right--it will beep once it's locked)!
- Be sure the vent is on tightly and set to sealing. You'll know if this wasn't done correctly if you start to hear/see A LOT of steam once the pot is running. You can fix this by adjusting the vent to fit correctly on the pot and turning to sealing.
- Press the manual button then adjust the time to read "20" minutes.
- That's it! Let the pot do its thang. It may take ~5 min for the pot to get up to pressure, at which point the timer on the front of the pot will start counting down to 0.
- Once the chicken is done and the pot reaches 0, manually vent the pot by turning the vent to the left to open it to "venting." I always cover my vent with a dish towel when I do this. The steam is hot! Be sure the pot isn't under anything; quite a bit of steam will be released.
- Move the chicken to a separate bowl and shred with two forks. Add some (or all, depending on your preference) of the cooking liquid back to the chicken.
- Serve on salads, tacos, or straight out of the tupperware! Ta-da!
Salsa Chicken Tacos
Ingredients
- 2-3 lbs boneless,skinless chicken thighs (can use breasts)
- ¾ c salsa of choice (I used Trader Joes)
- salt to tast
- 6-8 tortillas of choice (I used Siete Foods)
- ½ chopped onion
- ¼ c roughly chopped cilantro
- ¼ c sour cream or greek yogurt of choice (I used cashew sour cream)
- 1 ripe avocado
Instructions
- Add chicken to InstantPot.
- Add salsa to InstantPot. Sprinkle with salt. Two large pinches usually does the trick for me but this varies with your choice of salsa.
- Lock lid and program the instant pot to cook under high pressure for 20 minutes (additional detail on this step within blog post).
- Once the chicken is done cooking, manually release the pressure from the instant pot and move the chicken to a clean bowl with a slotted spoon.
- Shred the chicken with two forks. Add as much of the salsa cooking liquid from the pot as desired. I typically add ALL of it, but I like things nice'n juicy!
- Slice avocado, dice onion into a small dice, and roughly chop cilantro.
- Top your tortillas with chicken, avocado, cilantro, onion, and sour cream. Chow down!