Instant Pot Garlic Lime Chicken is a dump and go recipe with only 7 ingredients but lots of flavor. Make the chicken, sauce and rice all at the same time in the same pot.
Related: SLOW COOKER Garlic Lime Chicken recipe

Instant Pot Garlic Lime Chicken
I’ve had garlic lime chicken on my site for maybe 10 years as a slow cooker recipe and decided to try it out in the Instant Pot. It was a match made in heaven and reminded me of Instant Pot adobo chicken a bit. I decided at the last minute to make pot-in-pot brown rice to cook alongside the chicken. The rice and chicken were both perfectly cooked using a 22 minute pressure cooking time.
Most of the time we serve the chicken and sauce over rice but if you want you can serve with some Asian noodles or some steamed broccoli or green beans.
For this particular recipe I really like bone-in chicken thighs. I remove the skin before adding it into the pot (a personal preference). Boneless skinless chicken thighs will also work very well. Another choice is chicken drumsticks. Personally I would not make this recipe with boneless, skinless chicken breasts as it will not be as moist and tender. However if you choose to make it with breasts I would cut the chicken breasts into the size of chicken tenderloins and use only a 5 minutes cooking time with a 5-10 minute natural pressure release (rice wouldn’t be able to be cooked at the same time using this shorter cooking time).
More Instant Pot Chicken Recipes…
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Instant Pot Garlic Lime Chicken
- Prep Time: 10 minutes
- Cook Time: 22 minutes (plus 5-10 minute NPR)
- Total Time: 32 minutes
- Yield: 4–8 servings 1x
Description
A dump and go recipe with only 7 ingredients but lots of flavor. Make the chicken, sauce and rice all at the same time in the same pot.
Ingredients
- 8 bone-in chicken thighs, skin removed
- 1/2 cup low sodium soy sauce or tamari
- 1/4 cup fresh lime juice
- 1 Tbsp Worcestershire sauce
- 1 Tbsp minced garlic
- 1/2 tsp dry mustard
- 1/2 tsp black pepper
Instructions
- Place chicken in the Instant Pot.
- In a bowl whisk together the soy sauce, lime juice, Worcestershire, garlic, dry mustard and pepper. Pour the mixture over the chicken.
- Cover the pot and secure the lid. Make sure valve is set to sealing. Set the manual/pressure cook button to 22 minutes. (For pot in pot rice see note below)
- When the time is up let the pot sit for 5-10 minutes and then move the valve to venting. Remove the lid.
- Place chicken pieces on a platter. Turn Instant Pot to saute mode. Let the sauce simmer and reduce for 5 minutes to intensify flavors (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 and sauce with rice, noodles or broccoli.
Notes
I used my 6 quart Instant Pot Duo 60 7 in 1*.
For gluten free option use tamari instead of soy sauce. Make sure Worcestershire sauce is labeled gluten free.
To make pot in pot rice: Add 2 cups brown rice and 2.5 water to a pan that fits inside your Instant Pot. I used this one with a lid. Then place the pan on a trivet and lower it on top of the chicken. For white rice use 2 cups rice and 3 cups water. For jasmine rice use 2 cups rinsed rice and 2 cups water. If your pan doesn’t have a lid use foil.
- 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 was excellent. I used the bottled minced garlic to make it even quicker. Used white rice (am about out of the brown) and cooked for 15 minutes. Added about a tsp. of salt to the rice/water mixture before cooking.
★★★★★
Awesome! Thanks for the 5 stars!
Have you ever made this with lemon juice instead of the lime juice?
No, I haven’t…you could give it a shot
Love, love, love this recipe! I used Braggs Liquid Aminos (soy sauce alternative) instead of the soy sauce because I like the taste better of Braggs. I also used boneless thighs and kept the cooking time the same and the meat was perfect. I did not concentrate the liquid because I was afraid that it would taste too salty, and the juices added to the rice was amazing.
★★★★★
I did not make the rice at the same time.
★★★★★
I’ll have to try Braggs! I have never heard of it. Thanks for the tip!
Any suggestions on how to alter the recipe for chicken breasts. The idea of garlic and lime sounds amazing to me. Thanks so much for the great recipes!
★★
Personally I would not make this recipe with boneless, skinless chicken breasts as it will not be as moist and tender. However if you choose to make it with breasts I would cut the chicken breasts into the size of chicken tenderloins and use only a 5 minutes cooking time with a 5-10 minute natural pressure release (rice wouldn’t be able to be cooked at the same time using this shorter cooking time).
I recently purchased a 3 quart pot but haven’t used it yet. Can I adapt your recipes by half? Your recipes are a winner with my sister-in-law.
Hi Lois, I recommend this video! https://youtu.be/qXV2R__PzsM
I’m very interested in trying this recipe but I don’t have a instant pot, can I use a pressure cooker for this recipe. Is any special precautions or procedures I need to follow or cooking times would change?
Hi do you mean an electric pressure cooker or a stove pressure cooker? If it’s an electric pressure cooker you can follow my directions exactly. If it’s a stove top pressure cooker I’m not exactly sure because I have never used one of those!
Do you think this would work with boneless, skinless chicken breast? How would the cook time change if they were cut into thigh sized pieces?
The answer to this is already written above the actual recipe… she says you can use Breast but you should cut them up to be the size of a tenderloin and cut the Cooking time..
Personally I would not make this recipe with boneless, skinless chicken breasts as it will not be as moist and tender. However if you choose to make it with breasts I would cut the chicken breasts into the size of chicken tenderloins and use only a 5 minutes cooking time with a 5-10 minute natural pressure release (rice wouldn’t be able to be cooked at the same time using this shorter cooking time).
I used boneless thighs because that was what I had. I kept the instructions the same and the meat was perfect.
Frankly, I can’t rate the recipe yet… Just trying to subscribe being and issue. It’s telling me my email add doesn’t exist. Funny I have had it for 15-18 year’s.
★★★★
Do you want me to add you to the list?
Hi Karen-I was wondering about the little amount of liquid in this recipe. It looks sooooo yummy but Im imagining the ‘burn’ feature coming on as there does not seem to be even a cup total of liquid in there.? Thank you.
The chicken puts off a bunch of liquid so it comes to pressure 🙂
What would the cooking time be for frozen boneless, skinless thighs?
I’d do 18 minutes.
Thank you!
This sounds interesting and tasty but the cook time seems very long. It’s almost 3 times longer than what I’ve seen recommended for fresh bone-in skinless chicken thighs (usually rec around 8 minutes, which I works for me cooking bone-in thighs weekly), and about 2 times longer than the actual IP website recommends, but they make no distinction for skin on or off. Is it just excessively long due to adding the option of cooking brown rice?
Anyways, thanks for the interesting recipe!
I did put it in a little longer because of the brown rice. If not making brown rice you could easily go lower times like you mentioned.