Instant Pot Chicken Parmesan Manicotti—the most flavorful chicken filling is stuffed into tubular manicotti pasta noodles and then topped with marinara sauce and sprinkled with mozzarella and parmesan cheeses.
Instant Pot Chicken Parmesan Manicotti
As we were eating this Instant Pot chicken parmesan manicotti my husband and daughter both audibly said, “mmmm, this is so good.” It reminded me of that scene from What About Bob when they are eating dinner 😂😂😂
It really was so delicious! I had to stop myself after eating 2 ½ manicotti because my son still needed to eat dinner too. I will definitely make this again.
Originally I was going to make this meal as stuffed shells but couldn’t find any jumbo shells at the store. It was a blessing in disguise because the manicotti were much easier to stuff uncooked than shells would have been. At first I tried stuffing them with a small spoon, then a knife. What ended up working the best was putting on gloves and stuffing them with my fingers. I put one finger at the end of one opening and with my other hand I would stuff as much filling as I could into the pasta. Don’t be shy about filling these babies up. You want as much filling as you can get.
This recipe works great with rotisserie chicken (I love getting them from Costco). Or if you don’t have any cooked chicken on hand use the Instant Pot to quickly cook some frozen chicken breasts. Pour 1 cup water into Instant Pot and add 1 ¼ pounds chicken breasts. Pressure cook for 18 minutes with a 10 minute natural pressure release. Then you can use the liquid remaining in the pot for cooking the pasta.
If you want a formula for how to know how long to cook chicken breasts in the Instant Pot watch my Instant Pot Chicken 101 YouTube video. The chicken breasts can be frozen or fresh, thick or thin, to be sliced or to be shredded. This formula will help you figure it out in just a few seconds. You’ll get perfect juicy and moist chicken breasts every time.
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Instant Pot Chicken Parmesan Manicotti
- Prep Time: 20 minutes
- Cook Time: 5 minutes (plus 10 minute NPR)
- Total Time: 25 minutes
- Yield: 5 servings 1x
Description
The most flavorful chicken filling is stuffed into tubular manicotti pasta noodles and then topped with marinara sauce and sprinkled with mozzarella and parmesan cheeses.
Ingredients
- 2 cups cooked, chopped chicken
- 3/4 tsp salt
- 1 tsp pepper
- 2 Tbsp pesto (or chopped fresh basil)
- 1 tsp onion powder
- 1 tsp Italian seasoning
- 1 tsp garlic powder
- 1 cup cottage cheese or ricotta cheese
- 1 1/2 cups grated mozzarella cheese
- 1 egg
- 10 uncooked manicotti noodles
- 2 cups chicken broth
- 1 (25 oz) jar marinara sauce
- 1/2 cup grated parmesan cheese
Instructions
- In a bowl stir together the chicken, salt, pepper, pesto, onion powder, Italian seasoning, garlic powder, cottage cheese, 1 cup of mozzarella cheese and egg.
- With gloved hands stuff each of the manicotti noodles with the chicken mixture. Set aside.
- Pour the broth into Instant Pot and bring to a boil using the sauté setting. Once it’s boiling cancel the sauté setting. Carefully lay the manicotti into the pot in 2 layers. Dump the sauce on top of pasta in an even layer.
- Cover Instant Pot and secure the lid. Make sure valve is set to sealing. Set the manual/pressure cook button to 5 minutes. When time is up let the pot sit there for 10 minutes and then move valve to venting. Remove the lid.
- Scoop manicotti out of the pot and top each individual portion with some of sauce and the remaining mozzarella cheese and parmesan cheese.
Notes
If you don’t have cooked chicken on hand you can easily cook it in the Instant Pot before moving on to the rest of the recipe. Pour 1 cup water into Instant Pot and add 1 ¼ pounds chicken breasts. Pressure cook for 18 minutes with a 10 minute natural pressure release for frozen or 15 minutes with 10 minute natural pressure release for fresh. Remove lid and place chicken on cutting board. Chop up* the chicken. You can use the liquid remaining in the pot for cooking the pasta.
Optional breadcrumb topping: to make this more like chicken parm add a breadcrumb topping. In a skillet, heat 2 Tbsp butter over medium heat and melt. Add 2/3 cup bread crumbs; stir to coat. Cook and stir 2 to 4 minutes or until golden brown. Sprinkle over cooked manicotti.
I used my 6 quart Instant Pot Duo 60 7 in 1*. Make in the 8 quart pot with no changes.
- Category: Chicken
- Method: Instant Pot
*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.
It had great flavor. I will increase the cook time to 7 minutes versus 5 since the manicotti shells were still a bit on the hard side.
★★★★★
Okay good to know!
All I can say is wow this was delicious! I used 1 lb of spicy Italian sausage because I didn’t have chicken and subbed out beef stock instead. The pasta was a perfect al dente and the flavors melded so well. The only thing I will change next time is to place a layer of the marinara sauce in between the manicotti layers. Some of the manicotti stuck together and broke apart when pulling it out.
★★★★★
Good idea on the layer of marinary in between!
Do you have to use chicken broth or can u put more marinara sauce?
The broth is needed because it’s thin liquid and will bring the pot to pressure. Otherwise you risk the burn signal.
If you have a soft plastic cone, such as you use for doing decorative cake frosting, that is REALLY the easy way to fill manicotti! You just fill the cone with your stuffing, squeeze, and out comes a sausage of it, right into the manicotti tube (also works well with cooked shells).
I need to get one!
A new favorite!! For once I didn’t have a rotisserie chicken on hand, so had to cook the chicken in the pot. Shredded it and It was so flavorful. Unlike anything I’ve made in the pot before. I used the Kirkland pesto from Costco and although no one else in my family really reaches for pesto, this was a pleaser!
★★★★★
I love pesto! I wish I could eat it everyday.
Can these be frozen once cooked?
As a general rule pasta isn’t the best when it is frozen. Having said that they have frozen lasagna that is actually quite good. Because these manicotti noodles are thicker and more like lasagna it might do okay frozen! I would give it a shot and let me know.
This is the yummiest recipe! We don’t like cottage cheese so I used the garlic and herb boursin instead and it was amazing!! 🤤 Thank you for sharing!
★★★★★
Wow that sounds terrific!
Can I make half of the recipe in a 3 quart pot? Also can I substitute browned ground beef or sausage for the chicken?
Yes and yes
Thanks! You’re the best, Karen!!
Filled 13 shells for me….. and I added an extra minute to cook time, so 6 minutes. Some parts of shells were a bit more al dente than we like, so likely the leftovers will be perfectly done. Would definitely cut back on the italian spice, and add some more onion and garlic. I was missing the basil, as we were out, but the flavors were a nice meld, I’ll add it to our rotation.
★★★★
Nice! And yay for the leftovers. I love that.
So easy, filled 12 mancinotti with this. Only issue I had was that after 5 minutes of cooking, I got the “Food burn” beep and had to stir,which broke a few pasta apart.
★★★★
Manicotti*
Oh shoot! I hate when that happens. Sometimes pasta does that.
Can’t say much more other than being astounded by this entree. It was total comfort and enjoyment. I think 2 shells per person really was the perfect amount. I stuffed the shells earlier in the day and kept covered in the fridge. Finishing the dish was a snap. Very easy to cut into the firm, yet tender shells with a fork….I may try adding 1 minute to the cook next time, but clearly not necessary. Thank you Karen for sharing this recipe. Oh, one more thing..per my measuring, I found that there was enough filling to stuff 12 shells fully.
★★★★★
So glad you liked it Jeff! And bonus that it filled 12 shells!
Do you think it’s possible to make this vegetarian? Just use a ricotta filling? Would it change the cooking time? Also can I use oven ready manicotti? Or just use reg Manicotti shells?
You could stuff with stuffed shell filling and I would cook the same amount of time.
Thank you! I’ve only been able to find oven ready shells, so I’ll use those
I did not make this yet, but will soon. to answer your question Sue, you add the egg in step #3 with the cottage cheese.
★★★★★
FYI, in printed recipe you dont say when yo add egg. Going to try this soon, love your recipes.
Oops! I just corrected it. Thanks for the heads up.