Instant Pot Whole Chicken
Nothing makes meal prep easier than having shredded chicken on hand to use in your favorite recipes! Making an Instant Pot Whole Chicken is about the quickest and easiest way to meal prep this week!
If you’d like to try out meal prepping but don’t know where to start, having shredded chicken on hand is a great way to help you with quick and easy meals later in the week. Sure, you can buy a rotisserie chicken from the grocery store, but it’s a lot of work for usually not a lot of meat. Making your own couldn’t be much simpler than this Instant Pot Whole Chicken and you’ll have lots of delicious, juicy meat to use in dishes all week.
What you need to make an Instant Pot whole chicken:
- 4ish pound whole chicken
- favorite seasoning blend
- water or broth
- pressure cooker with trivet
This is truly a quick and easy weekend project. I like to keep the seasoning mild so that I can use the chicken in pretty much anything. You could even just use a little salt and pepper. If you’re new to meal prep or new to using an electric pressure cooker, this is a great place to start. Or, if you are a pro meal prepper, this might be a new way to get your chicken done without having to fire up the grill or oven.
Ideas for using cooked shredded chicken:
- a quick chicken salad with avocado or grapes
- this chicken enchilada casserole also made in my Instant Pot
- nachos
- soups
Instant Pot Whole Chicken
Ingredients
- 4 pound whole chicken
- 2 tablespoons all purpose seasoning
Instructions
- Rub seasoning on chicken (and under skin if desired)
- Add 1 cup of water to Instant Pot
- Add trivet and place seasoned chicken on top
- Set to high pressure for 25 mins
- Allow for natural pressure release and then check to ensure chicken fully cooked to proper temperature (165 degrees F)
- Remove and allow chicken to cool before shredding
Notes
Notes about pressure cooking times:
- It will take around 15 minutes for the pot to come to pressure
- It will take around 15-20 minutes for a full natural pressure release
- Adding that to cooking time, plan for around 1 hour plus time for the chicken to cool and shred it.
Nutrition
I’ve done this before, but used more water or broth. My chickens weigh about 6 lbs.
I use Italian seasoning. It’s so easy and versatile. It stores well in freezer containers in the freezer.
Thank you so much for putting in the approximate time to come to pressure. I get so frustrated—all the recipes that are billed as super-quick. If you’re not yet a pro, you forget to factor this in!
I’m so glad that helps!
If the chicken doesn’t weigh 4 lbs, will cooking time need to be adjusted?
Always looking for instant pot recipes and this looks awesome! I’ve always wanted to cook a whole chicken and this looks so easy.
Thanks!!