Winter Night Casserole

Winter Night Casserole–caramelized onions, chicken tenderloins and buttered, toasted baguettes slices with melty gruyere cheese. Made with the help of your Instant Pot.

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Winter Night Casserole

Want to settle in and get all cozy? Try today’s recipe for dinner tonight! It’s like french onion soup meets chicken and if you serve it over mashed potatoes it takes it to a whole new level. The Instant Pot is the perfect tool to caramelize onions. It takes a fraction of the time that it would on the stove. You’re going to be in awe of the the sweet onion sauce with tender chicken bites. Dipping the cheesy toasted baguettes in the sauce is mmm mmm good!

Ingredients/Substitution Ideas

• Butter
• Vidalia or yellow onions
• Baking soda
• Kosher salt
• Black pepper
• Better than Bouillon beef base
• Water
• White wine vinegar
• Chicken tenderloins–frozen or fresh
• Italian seasoning
• Dried thyme
• Cornstarch
• Baguette slices
• Gruyere cheese–or parmesan cheese

Steps

Turn Instant Pot to saute setting. When display says HOT add in the butter and melt. Add in the sliced onion, baking soda and ½ tsp kosher salt and pepper. Stir the onions every so often for about 4 minutes. Onions will start to turn yellow and release some moisture. Turn off the Instant Pot. Stir in the beef base, water and vinegar. Turn off Instant Pot.

Add in the chicken tenderloins and sprinkle them with the Italian seasoning, thyme, ¼ tsp kosher and pepper.

Cover Instant Pot and secure the lid. Make sure valve is set to sealing. Set the manual/pressure cook button to 3 minutes.

Turn oven to 350 degrees. Butter the baguette slices and arrange in a single layer on a baking sheet. Bake in the oven for 10 minutes.

Sprinkle the cheese over the bread and bake for 2 more minutes.

Once Instant Pot is done cooking time let it sit for 5 minutes and then move valve to venting. Remove the lid. Turn your Instant Pot to the saute setting. In a small bowl stir together 1 Tbsp of cornstarch with 1-2 Tbsp of water, until smooth. Then pour the mixture into the Instant Pot. The cornstarch mixture will thicken up sauce quickly.

Scoop a portion of onions, sauce and chicken onto each serving plate and top with 2-3 baguette slices. Eat and enjoy!

Notes/Tips

• Try serving this chicken and sauce with mashed potatoes or rice.
• Why baking soda? The addition of baking soda raises the PH and assists in speeding up the Maillard reaction. The browning process of onions that gives it that sweet, golden flavor is called Maillard Browning.
• Why only ¼ cup of water? The onions and chicken put off so much liquid that you don’t need any extra liquid. My pot took 6 minutes to come to pressure.
• Try making this with bite size chunks of boneless skinless chicken thighs instead of the tenderloins.
• 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. The chicken and sauce work great as leftovers, the bread not as much.
• Other recipes you can make with gruyere are Instant Pot Classic Dauphinoise Potatoes and Instant Pot French Onion Rice.

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. 

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*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.