Episode 004 Instant Pot BBQ Chicken

Intro: Welcome to Let’s Make Dinner, your audio library of amazing dinner recipes you can get on the table any night of the week. I’m your host, Susie Weinrich. 

Susie Weinrich: Calling all potheads. Okay, we’re not talking about marijuana today. We are talking about our lovely instant pots. Do you have an Instant Pot and do you love it? I am obsessed with mine when I first got it though, I will be honest, I felt like I was going to blow up my entire house and everybody in it. So the first couple times I actually made anything in my instant pot, I made everybody leave the kitchen and I would peek around the corner and see how much time I had left and then forget it about the very first time I had to turn that pressure valve and all the pressure flew out like a shotgun. So scared. But really, once you get everything figured out, the Instant Pot is such an amazing kitchen tool. You can cook huge pieces of meat, like pork loin or pork shoulder in such a short amount of time. Or even we love to make beef stew in it because that beef stew meat that is super inexpensive, cooks down incredibly tender in your instant pot.

Tips and Tricks: Today we are not making any of those recipes Today we are making Instant Pot Pulled Barbecue Chicken. If you are a meal prepper, you like to cook a large batch of something on the weekend and have it for your busy week ahead. If you want to cook something in the morning so that it’s ready for dinner at night, this is an excellent recipe because it keeps really well in the fridge.

Or if you want to make it and pop it in the freezer, It keeps really well in the freezer for about three months. But if you are just in time for dinner and you want to make pulled barbecue chicken sandwiches, it’s ready in about 30 minutes from start to finish. 

I bet you already have most of the ingredients you need to make this recipe. Oe thing you’re going to definitely want to make sure you have is one and a half to two pounds of fresh boneless skinless chicken breasts. You could also add in some thighs if you like a little dark meat. On this recipe, I have ingredients to make basically like a barbecue dry rub for your chicken. If you have one already that you like to use, just plan to use that. You don’t need to make your own. It’s not crucial part of the recipe. But if you do want to use my recipe, you’ll wanna make sure that you have brown sugar, kosher salt, black pepper, onion powder, and garlic powder, smoked paprika. Then for the liquid in the pot, we’re going to do either water or chicken broth, Worcestershire sauce, apple cider vinegar, and some crushed garlic cloves.

One tip that I want to give you on the chicken, we are picky about our chicken in this house because I’ve had too many experiences with chicken that had a weird texture, was kind of grizzly or tasted weird, and we were just done with it. What I found is the very best chicken is called air chilled chicken, and that’s not a brand. It is a method. Anytime you can find a chicken that says air chilled right on the front of the package, that’s going to be one of your very best options for flavor and texture. 

Instant Pot BBQ Chicken Recipe: All right, let’s get on with the recipe. You’ll want to take your chicken breasts and if you have extra large chicken breasts, go ahead and cut them into four pieces. If it’s more of a normal or small sized chicken breast, then just cut each piece in half. Then you’re going to want to make your barbecue dry rub. Like I said before, if you already have one that you like, go ahead and use that. But if you do not in a little bowl, you’re going to want to mix together one teaspoon of brown sugar, one and a half teaspoons of kosher salt, one teaspoon of both black pepper and garlic powder, half a teaspoon of onion powder, and a quarter teaspoon of smoked paprika. Give that a really good mix and then sprinkle that on all sides of the chicken. I like to press it onto the chicken a little bit so that it adheres really well. 

Now inside of the Instant Pot, you’ll pour one cup of water, or you can use chicken broth, one tablespoon of Worcestershire sauce, half a tablespoon of apple cider vinegar, and then three or four cloves of crushed fresh garlic. Go ahead and place that seasoned chicken right down in that liquid and then pop the lid of the instant pot on. Turn that pressure valve on the top to seal and set your instant pot to cook on high pressure, normal heat for eight minutes.

At the end of that eight minutes, you’ll do something called a five minute natural release, and that is just where the pot stops heating up. The pressure starts to dissipate and the pot will start to count back up in time. Once it reaches five, you’ll finish releasing the pressure with a quick release by turning that pressure valve on the top of the pot to vent.

Go ahead and remove the chicken pieces from the pot and you’re gonna get to either pulling or shredding. This is an excellent kitchen tip that I use every single time. To shred my warm chicken, I will put it in my stand mixer with the paddle attachment and run it for about 25 seconds. It shreds the chicken perfectly. You may have one or two pieces that you need to shred with a fork, but otherwise it works like a charm. I’m telling you, this is not a kitchen hack that doesn’t work. I promise you it works because I use it every single time. 

Now at this point, if you want to pop your chicken in the freezer, go ahead and put it in a freezer safe bag or container and put it in there for three months. If you’re saving this for dinner for later, you can put it just as is with a little bit of that liquid from the pot in a container, and pop it in the fridge for up to four days. But if you’re just in time for dinner, then you’re going to want to mix your shredded chicken with about a half to three quarters cup of your family’s favorite barbecue sauce.

Then you can pile high on buns with all of your favorite sandwich toppings. For barbecue chicken sandwiches, we love to do either pickles, pickled jalapenos, pepperoncinis, or some type of creamy coleslaw piled high on top of that pulled chicken. 

For side dishes. It really depends on what kind of night it is. So if it’s a busy weeknight, the side dishes may look like chips and raw veggies with ranch dip. If I have a little more time, then we love an instant pot potato salad and baked beans to go with our barbecue sandwiches. 

As always, I will link all of these recipes right in the show notes for you, including the full printable recipe for the instant pop pulled barbecue chicken. 

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Outro: Until next time, I hope this episode of Let’s Make Dinner, makes your dinner time a little easier.