Instant Pot Chicken Adobo–an easy 6-ingredient recipe for the tastiest chicken ever! A Filipino recipe of tender chicken thighs braised in vinegar and soy sauce with lots of garlic.
Get the SLOW COOKER chicken adobo recipe here
Instant Pot Chicken Adobo
I can’t believe that I’ve never made chicken adobo before. To tell you the truth I didn’t even know what it was until yesterday. For some reason I imagined chicken adobo as chicken surrounded with chipotle peppers in adobo sauce. Turns out I was seriously wrong.
Chicken adobo is a Filipino dish of chicken pieces marinated in a sauce of vinegar, soy sauce, garlic, bay leaves and peppercorns. Believe me it’s much better than it sounds. The taste is tangy, salty and somewhat sweet. My husband had one bite of the chicken and said dramatically, “Oh. My. GOSH!” He was shocked at how much flavor it had. I was too. The main problem with this chicken is that there is never enough.
This version of chicken adobo is made in the trusty Instant Pot. The Instant Pot works so well for this recipe. You don’t have to pre-marinate the chicken if you don’t want. I even threw my chicken in frozen. Plus you can reduce the sauce after the chicken has cooked by using the saute button. And you can make pot-in-pot rice at the same time. Winning.
Chicken adobo is traditionally made with bone-in chicken. You can use bone-in chicken or boneless thighs, like I did. The thighs came out fall-apart tender. For this particular recipe I personally wouldn’t use chicken breasts. They just don’t come out as tender as the darker meats. But I know there will some of you that will still want to use chicken breasts so I’ll put the directions in the recipe below.
More Instant Pot Chicken Recipes You’ll Love…
Instant Pot Greek Lemon Dill Chicken Bowls
Instant Pot Garlic Rice and Chicken
Instant Pot Chicken and Dumplings
Instant Pot Creamy Tuscan Chicken
What Pressure Cooker Did You Use?
To make Instant Pot Chicken Adobo I used my 6 quart Instant Pot Duo 60 7 in 1*. I love this Instant Pot because it has the yogurt making function which I use almost weekly. It has two pressure settings (high and low), and there are also little slots in the handles so that you can rest the lid there instead of putting it down on your counter-top.
Instant Pot Chicken Adobo
- Prep Time: 10 minutes
- Cook Time: 15 minutes (plus 5 minute NPR)
- Total Time: 50 minutes
- Yield: 6 servings 1x
Print Recipe
Pin RecipeDescription
An easy 6-ingredient recipe for the tastiest chicken ever! A Filipino recipe of tender chicken thighs braised in vinegar and soy sauce with lots of garlic.
Ingredients
- 2 pounds boneless skinless chicken thighs (or 3 pounds bone-in chicken)
- ½ cup white distilled vinegar
- ½ cup low sodium soy sauce
- 6 garlic cloves, crushed (smashed with the side of a knife and peeled)
- 1 tsp whole black peppercorns
- 3 bay leaves
Instructions
- Add vinegar, soy sauce, garlic, peppercorns and bay leaves into Instant Pot. Nestle the chicken into the pot.
- Cover the pot and secure the lid. Make sure valve is set to sealing. Set the manual/pressure cook button to 15 minutes. When the time is up let the pot sit for 5 minutes and then move the valve to venting. Remove the lid.
- Place chicken pieces on a platter (if using bone-in chicken leave it in the pot and turn it skin side down). Turn Instant Pot to saute mode. Let the sauce simmer and reduce for 7 minutes (I didn’t stir, I just set a timer and walked away). Turn off saute mode. Add chicken back in with the sauce and stir to coat the chicken in the sauce.
- Serve chicken with rice and sauce.
Notes
This recipe works well with pot-in-pot rice. White Rice, Jasmine, Basmati, all work well. For more information on how to make pot-in-pot rice see this article/video.
For this particular recipe I personally wouldn’t use chicken breasts. They just don’t come out as tender as the darker meats. But I know there will some of you that will still want to use chicken breasts. Cook for 12 minutes for thawed breasts and 15 minutes for frozen breasts.
To make gluten free: Use a gluten free soy sauce or tamari.
I used my 6 quart Instant Pot Duo 60 7 in 1*.
- Category: Chicken
- Method: Instant Pot
- Cuisine: Filipino
*Karen Petersen is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to amazon.com.
Sharon says
May 20, 2019 at 7:04 pmAfter reading all the comments, I made the following changes. Added grated fresh ginger root, used 1/4 cup soy sauce and 1/4 water in place of 1/2 cup soy sauce, and used apple cider vinegar in place of white vinegar. It turned out good. Also made your wheat berries recipe and used that in place of rice.
★★★★★
Karen says
May 21, 2019 at 9:09 amGood changes!
Nancy Farinas says
May 19, 2019 at 4:58 pmLooking forward to trying this – haven’t made adobe since I lost mu husband 9 years ago – his Dad was Filipino. I always used rice vinegar and added fresh grated ginger so will add when I make this. Also always used bone-in thighs. Now if you could find a recipe for pansit for instant pot,,,,
★★★★★
Karen says
May 20, 2019 at 11:14 amI’ve never made pansit and have never heard of it! I will have to do some research 🙂
Kim says
May 18, 2019 at 6:45 pmThis was delish! I only used 1/4 c soy sauce and added the other 1/4 c as water. I didn’t want it to be too salty and it was so perfect.; but I think it made the sauce a bit watery. I also subbed the whole peppercorns for ground peppercorns. I didn’t want my kids to bite down into one. This was my first IP dish and I’m hooked! ❤️❤️ Thank you!
★★★★★
Karen says
May 20, 2019 at 11:32 amWow Kim your first Instant Pot dish! Look at you! I’m so proud.
Paparazi says
May 18, 2019 at 2:23 pmI grew up in Hawaii eating chicken (and pork) adobo with Filipino neighbors and it’s def a family favorite in general. But, I haven’t made it in over a decade. Thank you for this easy recipe! I just completed it a few minutes ago and it’s fabulous; can’t wait to send it my mom.
★★★★★
Karen says
May 20, 2019 at 11:33 amOh this makes my heart so happy!
Janis McGovern says
May 17, 2019 at 8:58 amI made this last night…it was so good! I went exactly by your recipe. This will most definitely be in the rotation.
★★★★★
Karen says
May 17, 2019 at 9:08 amSo glad to hear you enjoyed it Janis! It’s now in my rotation too 🙂
Phyllis Dobrick says
May 16, 2019 at 9:13 amIf you are doing the rice at the same time….How do you do it?
Karen says
May 16, 2019 at 10:01 amPot in pot method. Place water and rice in a pot that fits in your instant pot. Then place the pan on top of the rice with or without a trivet. Try to balance it as best as possible. You can see the video of how to do this if you’d like. I linked to it in the recipe card above.
Tina says
May 16, 2019 at 8:39 amHi Karen! I cracked up when you said you had just found out about Chicken Adobo. I grew up in the Philippines and this is my MOST favorite chicken to make. Simple, Easy and SO SO TASTY! I am so glad that you found out about this wonderful Filipino favoorite! It can also be made with pork but I only make it with chicken.
I love your You Tube Videos! I have learned so much from them. Thank You for sharing what you do!
★★★★★
Karen says
May 16, 2019 at 10:00 amTina, I know right?! It’s so crazy that a recipe that is so easy and so adaptable to the instant pot and slow cooker has eluded me for all these years. I’m glad to have discovered it now!
Edgar says
May 16, 2019 at 8:22 pmAdd 1/2 cup of Sprite as well, you will love it.
Karen says
May 16, 2019 at 9:17 pmokay!
KAY LAMANCE says
May 17, 2019 at 4:50 pmTina, when you make this with pork do you make it the same as you do with chicken?
Tess Brown says
May 19, 2019 at 3:10 amYes, you can even have both in the same cooking. I saute both my chicken and pork with the garlic and onion before hitting the pressure cooking. It enhances the flavor immensely.
Anne says
May 16, 2019 at 5:53 amIf using bone in thighs and you leave them in skin side down while the sauce reduces will the skin crisp up or is there still too much liquid?
Karen says
May 16, 2019 at 9:58 amIt won’t crisp up really at all. If you do want crispy skin you can place under the broiler in your oven for about 5 minutes.
Bessyjoy says
May 16, 2019 at 4:45 amIm always excited watching recipe’s 😍😍😍
★★★★★
Karen says
May 16, 2019 at 9:57 amThanks for being here Bessyjoy!
Don Troudy says
May 15, 2019 at 8:07 pmI made this recipe for dinner tonight. I added sliced onions and saute’d them before adding the vinegar, soy etc. I also used thawed chicken thighs instead of frozen ones. I used 10 minutes to pressure cook instead of 15 (per recipe) and let the pot rest for 5 minutes afterwards. The results looked great, but the results was way to salty. The other things I didn’t like was picking all the pepper corns out of the dish. Believe me, I love pepper, but crunching on pepper corns is not in my list of tasty items to eat.
I am going to make this recipe again, but make some changes. First, use rice vinegar instead of white vinegar, the other change is to use Hawaiian soy sauce which is sweeter than traditional soy sauces,
★★★
Karen says
May 15, 2019 at 9:43 pmGood thoughts. Did you use a low sodium soy sauce? That helped mine not be too salty
Tina says
May 16, 2019 at 8:45 amDon, the way I make it is with Philippine vinegar that can be found in Asian markets. I can purchase mine at my local Kroger. The product is DATU PUTI CANE VINEGAR {SUKANG MAASIM}. It is also sold on Amazon {what isn’t sold on Amazon LOL} and here is what it looks like.
https://www.amazon.com/Datu-Puti-Vinegar-Sukang-Maasim/dp/B0032BVW24/ref=asc_df_B0032BVW24/?tag=hyprod-20&linkCode=df0&hvadid=241941845209&hvpos=1o2&hvnetw=g&hvrand=18190692131380036285&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9027746&hvtargid=pla-494953412047&th=1
Karen says
May 16, 2019 at 10:00 amThanks for the tip! I’ll be looking there.
Tess brown says
May 19, 2019 at 3:14 amTry using apple cider vinegar, it’s less intense. As well, you can make this healthier by adding sliced carrots or potatoes. It’s my way of adding veggies to my teenage sons meals.
Karen says
May 20, 2019 at 11:31 amI wondered about apple cider vinegar. Thanks for the tip!
Earl Gertz says
May 15, 2019 at 8:01 pmMade this tonight. It got the seal of approval from the wife and mom. I loved it. I Used half Soy sauce and half Chile Ponzu sauce.
Thank you for all you do.
Karen says
May 15, 2019 at 9:43 pmdon’t know what chile ponzu is but it sounds amazing!
Earl Gertz says
May 16, 2019 at 1:38 pmChili Ponzu is a Kikoman product. It is citrus seasoned. It’s like soy sauce with a kick. We love this on chicken fried rice from the Blackstone griddle. We cant get enough.
Karen says
May 16, 2019 at 2:48 pmGreat! Can’t wait to try 🙂
Linda Garcia says
May 15, 2019 at 2:57 pmYou listed frozen vs thawed cook time for chicken Breasts but no for chicken Thighs. What would be the difference in cook time for the thighs?
Karen says
May 15, 2019 at 9:39 pmI’d keep it the same. Chicken thighs are pretty thin so they should do okay with the time listed.
Rebecca says
May 15, 2019 at 1:06 pmThank you for this. I can’t wait to try it. I make a version of pork adobo in the slow cooker served over rice and it is awesome.
Karen says
May 15, 2019 at 9:39 pmThat’s on my list next!
Doris says
May 15, 2019 at 12:34 pmI love this recipe, l added fresh ginger and left out the peppercorn in my Instant Pot and it came out great!
★★★★★
Karen says
May 15, 2019 at 9:39 pmginger is a great idea!
Amy says
May 15, 2019 at 12:25 pmI noticed that you didn’t add water. Is this because the vinegar and soy sauce provide enough liquid?
Karen says
May 15, 2019 at 9:38 pmyep!