How to Cook Chicken Breasts in the Instant Pot
Use your Instant Pot to cook chicken breast in no time. You’ll love coming home to premade protein on busy weeknights. And you won’t believe how tender and juicy it turns out.
Sure, you can pre-make chicken breast in your slow cooker, but cooking chicken breast in an Instant Pot (like this one) is one of my favorite ways to make it. Just check out the difference in an Instant Pot vs. Slow Cooker to see why. Hint: It’s so quick!!!
Why Use The Instant Pot?
I make a batch of Instant Pot chicken breasts each week to have on hand for easy meals. We use it for toppings on salads, for taco night, a quick protein option for lunches and dinner, making chicken salad and more.
Not only is it cheap for a family (or a fiancé that eats a lot like mine), but it couldn’t be easier to make in the Instant Pot. To make Instant Pot chicken, all you need is a couple pounds of chicken breast, water, and your seasonings of choice.
Fresh Or Frozen Chicken?
You can use fresh or frozen chicken breasts – it really doesn’t matter. When using frozen chicken breasts, you do need to make sure they are individually frozen and not frozen together in one big chunk. A big chunk of chicken will not cook evenly. But if they’re individual pieces, just pop them right in there as instructed. The cooking time is slightly longer for frozen, but you’ll only need an extra 2 minutes of pressure cooking.
How To Cook Chicken Breasts In The Instant Pot
To cook the chicken breasts, add about one cup of water to your Instant Pot insert. Add chicken, season with seasonings of choice, seal up the pressure cooker, set it for 10 minutes for fresh chicken breasts and 12 minutes for frozen chicken breasts. Then let it do its thing.
Once you start cooking your chicken in the Instant Pot, you won’t go back to any other way. It makes easy family meals even easier.
More Instant Pot Chicken Recipes
There’s so much that you can cook in the Instant Pot! Here are more great chicken recipes for you to try.
- Instant Pot Chicken Thighs
- Instant Pot Chicken Legs
- Instant Pot Chicken Wings
- BBQ Chicken Thighs in the Instant Pot
- Instant Pot Chicken Parmesan Recipe
Podcast Episode About Making Instant Pot Chicken Breasts
Listen to our editor, Christine Pittman, explain briefly about how to make this recipe, with some great tips along the way, by clicking the play button below:
Listen to more Recipe of the Day episodes here.
Print
Instant Pot Chicken Breasts Recipe
- Prep Time: 1 minute
- Cook Time: 22 minutes
- Total Time: 23 minutes
- Yield: 8–10 servings 1x
- Category: Entrée
- Method: Instant Pot
- Cuisine: American
DESCRIPTION
Use your Instant Pot to cook chicken breast in no time. You’ll love coming home to pre-prepped protein on busy weeknights. And you won’t believe how tender and juicy it turns out.
Ingredients
- 1 cup water
- 2 – 2 1/2 lbs. boneless skinless chicken breasts, fresh or frozen
- Salt and pepper, to taste (or seasonings of choice)
Instructions
- Pour water into the insert of your Instant Pot.
- Add chicken breasts and sprinkle them with seasonings.
- Close the lid and make sure it is locked and the valve is set to sealed.
- Select ‘Poultry’ then select 10 minutes for fresh chicken breast or 12 minutes for frozen chicken breasts.
- Once the chicken has completed the cook cycle, let the pressure release naturally for 10-15 minutes. Then turn the valve to venting.
- When the pressure button is lowered, open the lid and remove chicken breasts. Save liquid to use as broth or stock, if desired.
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This post originally appeared in September 2018 and was revised and republished in November 2023.
I love my Instant Pot.
Thank you for this recipe
You’re welcome, Sherri! 🙂
Oh, this was so easy and great for meal prepping chicken! Thank you!
So glad to hear it! Thanks, Rebekah.
Is this recipe the same for 2 brest or 4 ?
Yes, it should take the same amount of time for 2 or 4 breasts. Enjoy, Cherie!
So right into the pot, no trivet?
Correct, Mila. Some of our IP recipes do use the trivet, but it will be clarified in the instructions. Enjoy!
Can I just use barbecue sauce in my instant to cook my chicken breast? If so how should I do this?
I think you can try cooking the chicken in BBQ sauce but it could end up giving you a burn notice. That happens sometimes with thick sauces, as you can see in the comments here with the Instant Pot Chicken Parmesan which has chicken cooked in tomato sauce. What I think you should do instead is to pour 1 cup of chicken broth into the instant pot. Put a trivet or steamer over the liquid and put the chicken on that. Top with BBQ sauce. Pressure cook until chicken is done (time depends on type of chicken used). Then drain off any liquid, set the instant pot to saute, add some cooking oil, then sear the chicken a little bit to caramelize the bbq sauce (add a bit more sauce before searing if there isn’t much on the chicken). Another option would be to follow the instructions for perfect grilled chicken over here https://cookthestory.com/how-to-grill-chicken/ However, put liquid in the instant pot then top with trivet and seasoned chicken. Pressure cook until done. Drain off liquid. Brush chicken with BBQ sauce and put it on the grill or under the broiler just to brown the sauce a bit. If you try any of these things, please come back and let us know how they turned out! Good luck, JR!
I just got an Instant Pot and we have to learn how to
use it. So I don’t have any Comments at this Time.