Instant Pot Unbelievable Chicken–chicken in a zippy sauce of lemon juice, mustard and garlic. An easy dump and go recipe!
Instant Pot Unbelievable Chicken
If you’re looking for an easy chicken recipe with a flavorful sauce this is the recipe for you! It’s a dump and go type of recipe that takes only a 4 minute pressure cooking time. Your chicken can even be frozen.
The combination of lemon juice, lime juice, vinegar, garlic and mustard is robust and might even be a little overpowering but the addition of the heavy cream just evens it out and makes it so good! This chicken tastes really good when served with rice. If you’re looking to keep it lower carb then serve it with riced cauliflower or wrapped up in a low carb tortilla.
Ingredients/Substitution Ideas
- Lemon juice–fresh is best
- Lime juice–fresh is best. I like using this lemon/lime juicer*.
- Apple cider vinegar
- Olive oil
- Chicken broth–or water and Better than Bouillon
- Garlic cloves–fresh is best for this recipe. I use my garlic press*.
- Kosher salt
- Black pepper
- Chicken tenderloins–frozen is okay
- Stone ground mustard–or spicy brown mustard or dijon mustard
- Cornstarch
- Heavy cream
Steps
Add lemon juice, lime juice, vinegar, olive oil, chicken broth, garlic, salt and pepper into Instant Pot. Stir well. Add the chicken into the pot, in one layer as much as possible.
Cover Instant Pot and secure the lid. Make sure valve is set to sealing. Set the manual/pressure cook button to 3 minutes. When time is up let pot sit for 8 minutes and then move valve to venting and remove the lid.
Move pieces of chicken to a plate. Stir the mustard into the pot. Stir the cornstarch and water together until smooth. Turn Instant Pot to saute setting and stir the cornstarch slurry into the pot. Let it thicken the sauce. Turn off Instant Pot.
Stir in the heavy cream.
Add chicken into the Instant Pot and stir to coat in the sauce. Serve chicken and enjoy!
Notes/Tips
- I like to serve this chicken and sauce over rice or quinoa and serve with a side of roasted vegetables.
- This chicken is fairly low carb. To reduce carbs even more eliminate the cornstarch.
- This recipe is gluten-free.
- I like to use chicken tenderloins for this recipe because the zippy sauce coats the smaller pieces nicely and they stay tender. You can also use chicken breasts or chicken thighs although you’ll need to increase the cooking time to 10-12 minutes (depending on thickness).
- I used my 6 quart Instant Pot*. You can also make this in a 3 or 8 quart pot.
- Store leftovers in an airtight container* in the refrigerator for up to 5 days or in the freezer for up to 3 months.
- Another recipe you can make with stone ground mustard is Instant Pot Manna Sandwiches.
More Instant Pot Chicken Recipes…
Instant Pot No Fuss Chicken
Chicken, carrots and potatoes in a savory gravy. An easy one pot dump and go meal!
Instant Pot Mississippi Chicken
Tender chicken infused with flavor! This recipe only has a handful of ingredients and is a dump everything into the pot and walk away dinner.
Instant Pot Sweet Hawaiian Chicken
An easy 5 ingredient recipe of chicken with a sweet tangy sauce.
Instant Pot Dixie Chicken
Tender chicken with a creamy mushroom sauce and sprinkled with crispy bacon crumbles.
Did you know you can filter the recipes on my website to search by meat type, IP or Crockpot, low carb, gluten free, etc.? Use the filter to find exactly what you are looking for.
Instant Pot Unbelievable Chicken
- Prep Time: 15 minutes
- Cook Time: 3 minutes (plus 8 minute NPR)
- Total Time: 18 minutes
- Yield: 4 servings 1x
Description
Chicken in a zippy sauce of lemon juice, mustard and garlic. An easy dump and go recipe!
Ingredients
- 1/4 cup lemon juice
- 2 Tbsp lime juice
- 1 Tbsp apple cider vinegar
- 1 Tbsp olive oil
- 1/2 cup chicken broth
- 3 garlic cloves, minced
- 1 tsp kosher salt
- 1 tsp black pepper
- 5–10 chicken tenderloins (frozen is okay)
- 1 Tbsp stone ground mustard
- 1 Tbsp cornstarch + 1 Tbsp water
- 3 Tbsp heavy cream
Instructions
Instant Pot Instructions:
- Add lemon juice, lime juice, vinegar, olive oil, chicken broth, garlic, salt and pepper into Instant Pot. Stir well. Add the chicken into the pot, in one layer as much as possible.
- Cover Instant Pot and secure the lid. Make sure valve is set to sealing. Set the manual/pressure cook button to 3 minutes. When time is up let pot sit for 8 minutes and then move valve to venting and remove the lid.
- Move pieces of chicken to a plate. Stir the mustard into the pot. Stir the cornstarch and water together until smooth. Turn Instant Pot to saute setting and stir the cornstarch slurry into the pot. Let it thicken the sauce. Turn off Instant Pot. Stir in the heavy cream.
- Add chicken into the Instant Pot and stir to coat in the sauce.
- Serve chicken and enjoy!
Slow Cooker Instructions:
- Add lemon juice, lime juice, vinegar, olive oil, chicken broth, garlic, salt and pepper into slow cooker. Stir well. Add the chicken into the slow cooker, in one layer as much as possible.
- Cover and cook on low for 2 hours.
- Move pieces of chicken to a plate. Stir the mustard into the crockpot. Stir the cornstarch and water together until smooth. Turn slow cooker to high. Stir the cornstarch slurry into the slow cooker. Let it thicken the sauce. Stir in the heavy cream.
- Add chicken into the slow cooker and stir to coat in the sauce.
- Serve chicken and enjoy!
- Category: Chicken
- Method: Instant Pot or Slow Cooker
*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.
I consider myself an experienced cook. That said, it came out like the picture but my family only ate a little bit before they decided to go hungry tonight.
The pepper bonded with the olive oil and no amount of stirring could break that speckled jellyfish bond.
Very heavy lemon and vinegar flavors. I didn’t think it was that bad but I didn’t go for seconds and leftovers went in the trash after the dogs wouldn’t eat it.
Sorry, it looked like an interesting recipe and I was looking for something out of the ordinary.
★
This is truly AMAZING! Tweeked it by leaving out the apple cider vinegar (my hubby doesn’t like it) and added some finely chopped onion which I sautéed before adding anything else. This tastes so good and the sauce is actually low call. I also made rice at the same time in the instant pot as recommended in another recipe. It was perfect! ❤️
Thank you for thjs
★★★★★
So glad you loved it! Thanks for the 5 stars!
This really was unelievable! My Husband turned to me in the middle of dinner and said I think this is officially now my favorite chicken, and my kids also raved about it (not typical). I didn’t have stone ground mustard so I used dijon mustard but online it said to triple it if using Dijon mustard (so I used 3 Tbs Dijon mustard). I also don’t use cream in anything I cook, so I substituted for plain Greek yogurt – which I have never found to alter the taste in the dozens of recipes I have done this in. It was so so amazing. I didn’t think I could come up with a new favorite recipe of yours since my family is hooked on the cajun chicken sausage with green beans, mushrooms and potatoes, but this is right up there with it!
Thanks for sharing all your amazing recipes!
★★★★★
Thank you so much for the nice review April! I am so happy your family loved it!
Quite good! I made it as written in the instant pot. I also made a pot of rice and fettuccine to see which we preferred. We preferred the fettuccine. I had peas and carrots as the side. Thanks for the change of pace in my meals! I also had a side of chopped sun dried tomatoes for extra flavor to stir in. Not needed. Next time I’ll double the recipe.
★★★★
I love your recipes, however this one not so much, I made it work by adding baking soda, salt, sugar, and a plop of butter. It was sooooo bitter.
★★★
what can I substitute for heavy cream that is milk not almond or coconut
milk? Sound really good! Can’t wait to try.
Love your recipes!
Sorry, do you mean you can’t do dairy? If you can I would say sour cream. If not then I’m not sure!
How can you make this dairy free? Instead of heavy cream what can I use?
How about almond milk, Jamie? Though it does have milk in the name, it’s not dairy.
★★★★★
I have found heavy cream of coconut in the grocery store. Remember if it’s too thin than just add more thicker like cornstarch, arrowroot etc. You can look for dairy free heavy creams or just use regular non dairy milk and extra thicker.
What are the red bits on the chicken …. I don’t see any ingredient listed that would be like that.
Thanks!
★★★★★
The stone ground mustard.
Thanks Jewel!
★★★★★
Yep it’s the stone ground mustard
Thanks Karen …… I guess the brown mustard seed shows up as red on my computer …… had me looking for something “red” in the recipe …. LoL!!
★★★★★
Looks delicious! You say can use frozen chicken. Is the time you gave for fresh or frozen ? If fresh , how much longer for frozen ?
You can use the same time for fresh and frozen with chicken tenderloins.
Karen ……. If I use frozen chicken in the Slowcooker method how much extra time would I add?
★★★★★
Probably around an hour
thank you!
★★★★★
This looks very interesting, but I want to use boneless skinless thighs instead. If I cut the thighs into roughly the size of tenders:
1. By weight, how much thigh meat will I need
And
2 how would I need to adjust the cooking time?
There is neither an e act weight given, nor is the cooking time in the notes specific to whether or not the breasts or thighs are whole or cut up. This sounds both easy and delicious, but I don’t want to end up with either raw or rubber chicken!
You can use anywhere between 1 to 1.5 pounds. I would pressure cook the cut thighs for 5 minutes with a 10 minute natural pressure release.