One of the things about the instant pot that caught my attention was the fact that you could cook frozen chicken in a fraction of the time it takes to cook in the oven. The main reason that we end up ordering pizza and cheese steaks so often is because we don’t have anything thawed out. That would require thinking ahead and usually my morning consists of pressing snooze and stumbling out of bed in the general direction of the coffee pot. Luckily my husband wakes up before me so it’s always hot and ready! Anyway so supposedly it is possible to cook frozen chicken in the oven. I have never tried to do that… but supposedly the instant pot makes it possible and makes it taste a whole better.
So we decided to give it a shot today in the Instant Pot. And it probably would have been really simple and not nerve racking, but I mean why be boring.
Let’s make the rice in there at the same time! I am into anything that saves me time. One less pot to clean, one less pot to stir and one less timer to worry about. Also, I think I was raised before rice cookers. Either that or it was just another unnecessary appliance that would collect dust in the corner of my parent’s house. So that meant I was also raised on the principle of DO NOT LIFT THE LID ON THE RICE! EVER! Unless directed to do so. So naturally all I wanted to do was lift the lid on the rice. And just trust me when I say just don’t lift the lid. Just don’t. Anyway. Cooking the rice in the Instant Pot means that there is no possible way for anyone’s wandering hands to ruin it by taking a peek.
I kind of just combined a few things I read in a cookbook and a few things from the overwhelmingly saturated worldwide web and just went in blind. And the lemon chicken actually came out surprisingly well. And it only took 15 minutes!
15 Minute Instant Pot Lemon Chicken and Rice
A lot of recipes out there called for 3 cups chicken broth when cooking chicken and rice at the same time. I used 3 and it came out a little soupier than I wanted so I suggest using 2 ½.
There are only two of us so we only used two (very large) chicken breasts. Just Adjust a few things if you have more mouths to feed!
Ingredients:
- Juice of one lemon
- 1 clove garlic
- 2 tablespoons olive oil (or ghee or butter)
- Salt and pepper to taste
- Oregano
- Onion powder
- 3 cups chicken broth
- 2 chicken breasts
Directions:
- In the inner pot add the olive oil and the garlic. Saute with IP in Saute mode until fragrant
- Set the IP on Poultry and the timer at 15 min
- Put the frozen chicken breasts in the pot and cover with your dry ingredients: salt and pepper, oregano, and onion powder
- Add the uncooked rice
- Pour in the liquids next: chicken broth and lemon juice
- Double check to make sure you timer is set to 15 minutes and pressure is on high
- When the timer rings, let the IP Depressurize naturally for 5 minutes then use the venting mode to release the rest of the pressure manually
- Serve and enjoy! We served it with roasted broccoli and it was perfect
