Instant Pot Chicken Tacos

This is a super quick way to get dinner on the table. Only four ingredients and you basically dump everything into your instant pot.

If you are like me and enjoy rice with your tacos, I’m also sharing a trick of cooking the rice at the same time as the taco meat. You will basically put the rice and its water into a separate bowl and set it on top of the chicken. Then the two will cook at the same time. If you have a rack that sits nicely over top of the chicken without hitting the bottom of the lid, use it. But if your rack doesn’t sit nicely (and it probably won’t), it can seem a little awkward to plop the bowl of uncooked rice on top of the chicken. Never fear. It will work. Just put the bowl of rice on the chicken, however you can make it work. Be forewarned, the rice will likely pick up a little of the color and flavor of the tacos. Not a problem in our house, but if you are looking for perfectly plain, white rice – don’t follow this method.

This cooks so quickly that you may find it takes you longer to prep your toppings. Hey. There are worse things in the world. Just let the pressure cooker go into the the warm setting and open it just before you are ready to eat.

Serving Size:

4-6

Time:

25 minutes total

Difficulty:

easy

Ingredients

1-2 pounds of chicken breasts
1 cup of chicken broth (or water)
1 cup of your favorite salsa (I like salsa verde)
2-3 T of taco seasoning (adjust to taste)

Ingredients – Rice (Optional)

1 cup of your favorite rice – white, brown, long or short, doesn’t matter
1 1/4 cup of water (add 1/4 cup of water for brown rice)

Directions

Add chicken, broth, salsa, and taco seasoning to the insert pot of your instant pot. Stir.
If you are making rice, rinse the rice. Combine the rinsed rice and water in a 4 or 6-cup oven safe bowl (such as a pyrex dish). If you have a rack, place it on top of the chicken and set the rice dish on the rack. If your rack doesn’t fit, you can wiggle the chicken around to set the rack in the pot or you can set the rack on the chicken, or you can just set the rice bowl directly on top of the chicken.
Lock the lid on the pressure cooker. Set the cooker to high pressure and cook for 12 minutes. Allow the pressure to release naturally for 10 minutes and then release the remaining pressure manually.
Using oven mitts, remove the bowl of rice. Using tongs, place the chicken onto a cutting board and allow to cool for a couple minutes. You can use two forks to easily shred the chicken for tacos. If you made extra chicken, you can make short work of the shredding by placing the chicken breasts in your mixer bowl and use either the dough hook (Bosch mixer) or the cookie paddle (Kitchen Aid) give a few pulses and let the machine do the work for you.
Serve shredded taco meat with your favorite shells, tortillas, and taco toppings.
A quick note on the extra liquid in the pot. You can (and should) add some of it to the shredded chicken so you have nice moist taco meat. But, you may have some extra left over. Before you toss it, consider saving it for a second meal. If you have leftover chicken, add it back into the cooking liquid the next day for a chicken taco soup. Serve over tortilla chips with a little cheese and sour cream on the top.