This Instant Pot Chicken and Yellow Rice recipe will have you screaming “WINNER WINNER CHICKEN DINNER”!
It’s so easy and convenient when you have zero time to cook and need dinner on the table fast. Bonus points, one pot clean up. Yipee! And that’s why the IP is one of my top gifts for the modern mama and simple for making chicken breast in the instant pot.
Update – I gave in and ordered a 6 Quart Instant Pot on Amazon Prime Day (this a link to the one that I use for this recipe) earlier this month and have successfully cooked this Instant Pot Chicken and Yellow Rice recipe at least once a week.
Because cooking chicken breast in the instant pot is pretty amazing and life changing. I’m one of those people that wait until the last minute to decide what’s for dinner. Enter Instant Pot and more Instant Pot Chicken Breast recipes. Woot woot!
How long to cook chicken breast in Instant Pot?
For this recipe, the chicken breasts will cook for 25 minutes. Always make sure to refer to the recipe card for chicken breast cooking time in the Instant Pot. Watch our recipe video for visual prep instructions and tips!
How to cook frozen chicken in Instant Pot?
Exact cook time will depend on the thickness of the chicken breast. When I use frozen chicken breasts, I generally cook them for about 12 minutes. To ensure they’re cooked through, they should be at least 165 degrees F.
The Instant Pot is also my new favorite way to cook shredded chicken. You’ve gotta try my Instant Pot Shredded Chicken recipe. Seriously though, theres nothing better than tossing frozen (or fresh chicken breast) into this nifty kitchen gadget and having chicken for days! Goodbye slow cooker, hello Instant Pot.
Why I love my Instant Pot?
My old stove top pressure cooker died a few years back. I always enjoyed using it but I just never replaced it. It wasn’t a kitchen essential in my book and was somewhat scary to use. That is, until I met the Instant Pot. I love this appliance because it’s more than just an electric pressure cooker…
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it’s a slow cooker
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rice cooker
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yogurt maker
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steamer
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has a sauté and warm function
And it’s actually pretty intuitive to use, thank goodness!
One of the big pros is that you can sauté in the pot. Have you ever wanted to sauté up your veggies or brown your meat before tossing it into the slow cooker?? My hand is raised high.
I would generally skip that step in the name of NOT DOING THE DISHES even though I know that is what helps to lock in the flavor on pot roasts and develops more depth in dishes that call for onions.
Also because of the fact that I hate dishes. So the IP now saves my life.
I’m definitely a minimal dish type of gal because, honestly, the last thing I want to do after a long day is wash a bunch of dishes!
And I’m thanking my friend Jo for making this Cajun Vegetable Rice and convincing me to Amazon Prime this IP.
In case you were wondering how to use all that shredded chicken on hand, check out this post for 10 Ways To Use Shredded Chicken for Easy Weeknight Meal
Can’t wait to see what all I come up with using my Instant Pot! Stay tuned.
If you need an Instant Pot this is the one that I recommend and use!
More IP Chicken Breast Recipes:
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Instant Pot Chicken and Yellow Rice
- Prep Time: 10 mins
- Cook Time: 35 mins
- Total Time: 45 mins
- Yield: 6 servings 1x
Print Recipe
Pin RecipeDescription
This Instant Pot Chicken and Yellow Rice will have you screaming winner winner chicken dinner. It’s so easy and convenient when you have zero time to cook and need dinner on the table fast. Bonus points, one pot clean up. Yipee!
Ingredients
- 1 teaspoon olive oil
- 1 yellow onion, small diced (1 cup chopped or 160g)
- 2 cups brown basmati rice (363g)
- 1 3/4 cup 33% reduced sodium chicken broth
- 1 cup thinly sliced fresh carrots (150g)
- 1 cup frozen peas (146g)
- 1 cup frozen corn (141g)
- 2 teaspoons ground turmeric
- 1/4 tsp saffron
- 1 teaspoon packed fresh oregano leaves
- 1 bay leaf
- 1/2 teaspoon thick crystal kosher or sea salt (divided)
- 1/2 teaspoon freshly ground pepper (divided)
- 1.25 pounds raw chicken breast
Instructions
- Using 6 qt Instant Pot, turn on to SAUTE mode on NORMAL heat. Heat olive oil and sauté onions until translucent, 3 minutes. Press CANCEL to turn off Instant Pot.
- Add broth and brown rice to the pot and mix with onions. Stir in carrots, frozen peas, frozen corn, turmeric, saffron, oregano, bay leaf and season with 1/4 teaspoon salt and 1/4 teaspoon of pepper. IMPORTANT: Stir the rice and veggies to make sure to fully incorporate vegetables with the rice.
- Arrange chicken breasts on top of rice mixture; season with remaining 1/4 teaspoon salt and 1/4 teaspoon pepper.
- IMPORTANT: Push chicken down into the rice with some veggies on top of the chicken.
- Secure lid on Instant Pot, and turn nozzle to SEALING. Cook on MANUAL setting with HIGH PRESSURE for 25 minutes.
- IMPORTANT NOTE: It takes 15 minutes for this dish to reach pressure!! Don’t worry, it will get there.
- Once time is up, allow pressure to go into KEEP WARM mode for 10 minutes to allow the pressure to release some naturally. Then press CANCEL on the Instant Pot and twist the steam release handle on the lid to the VENTING position.
- Once steam has released and fully depressurized, open Instant Pot lid to shred the chicken and gently fluff into the rice mixture with a fork. Be sure not to “overmix” chicken and rice mixture. Carefully remove the inner pot to prevent the rice from sticking to the bottom. Serve warm.
- Category: Dinner
- Method: Instant Pot
- Cuisine: American
Nutrition
- Serving Size: 1/6 recipe
- Calories: 424
- Sugar: 9g
- Sodium: 533mg
- Fat: 4g
- Saturated Fat: 0g
- Unsaturated Fat: 1mg
- Trans Fat: Og
- Carbohydrates: 66g
- Fiber: 5g
- Protein: 34g
- Cholesterol: 55mg
Keywords: instant pot chicken recipes, ip chicken, ip chicken breast recipes
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Hi I’m Kristina LaRue, RD (registered dietitian nutritionist), Peloton addict and mama to two active and hungry boys. On Love & Zest, you’ll find healthy-ish recipes that fuel the whole family. I’m all about veggie-filled breakfast, meal prep recipes, healthier sweets, and easy weeknight dinners made in the Instant Pot or sheet pan.
Did you make one of my recipes?? Leave a review in the comments and tag @loveandzest #loveandzest on Instagram!
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Like many others are saying, just not nearly enough liquid. I’m using an instapot, not another type of pressure cooker and all fresh ingredients. There’s simply just not enough moisture in the chicken or vegetables to compensate, the bottom scorched before it could get up to pressure.
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Hi! I’ve posted this recipe on my Instagram story highlights if you want to check out a step by step. What type of rice did you use? I’ve also added weights to this recipe to hopefully help to troubleshoot quantity of vegetables, etc since the veg does produce liquid. Also if chicken measurement is off that could cause an issue with not enough liquid.
Liquid I used was 1 and 3/4 cup – was the right amount.
next time maybe add a little diced pepper and something to jazz up the flavor, it was a bit on the blander side.
But overall, a nice dish.
★★★★
sounds like a great idea!
First time to use the Instant Pot with your recipe. Followed it closely – 5 minutes in the Instant Pot says BURN … stop take everything out, clean rice stuck to bottom, start over, 5 minutes in Instant Pot says BURN. Throw contents into the garbage disposal – head out to restaurant. Total FAIL. Beware.
Not trying to be rude but I wanted to like this recipe but it was awful. Rice was hard and chicken under cooked. Took forever and still turned out horrible. Waste of organic foods.
This was the single WORST recipe I’ve ever tried-makes me want to return my instant pot!
I tried this and it was great. There was plenty of liquid. I’d love to hear about some variations in seasoning. We don’t really like saffron here, so we used Trader Joe’s 21 Seasoning Salute, plus Italian seasoning. I’d love to hear other seasoning spinoffs!
★★★★★
This was delicious! It is the first thing I tried making in my IP and it was a hit. Thank you!
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I used the same amount of chicken broth but used white rice and i’ve had the overheat message on the IP twice. Any thoughts as to what might be going wrong? I really want to try this but my rice is mostly cooked but the chicken is raw and it hasn’t pressurized yet.
Hmmm, so interesting. I actually thought maybe the differences could be in the atmospheric pressure since I’m in Florida but my friends in Chicago tested out this recipe for me and said that the chicken and rice cooked normally. One recommendation I have is to make sure you’re using brown rice and then to also mix the chicken and the rice together before cooking. I’m going to add this to the recipe instructions because I think it will help with more even cook times for rice and chicken. Again– I’m so sorry that you’re having trouble bc it’s so yummy when it cooks right.
Made this last night, according to directions, and it turned out perfect. Thanks for the recipe
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Bummer. My chicken was dry and rice was mushy (and burnt on the bottom). Did you put it on manual high or low? I’ll try this again.
Oh good question. I just checked my instant pot and it’s set to manual high pressure.
I just bought the mini Instant Pot yesterday and today I made this recipe. I realized too late I didn’t have frozen peas, so I substituted frozen peas and carrots. Other than that I followed the recipe, and it came out perfect! I’ve never used a pressure cooker before, and I know chicken comes out dry in a slow cooker, so I wasn’t sure what to expect. The chicken was nice and moist, and shredded beautifully. Since I’m using the mini cooker, I was concerned that it might be too full, but nothing exploded.
★★★★★
First, yes I am using a genuine instant pot.
I used 2 regulation rice scoops of white rice (which are smaller than a regular cup) and 1.25 cups of water. White rice needs less water than brown. My chicken thighs were partially frozen so I upped it to 30 mins cook time. This didn’t really come to pressure and I had to add a cup of water and cooked 15 more mins. Chicken wasn’t quite up to temp & there was no real pressure release after the initial cook. Next time, more liquid from the beginning.
I’ve retested this recipe several times and have adjusted the liquid ratio. I realized there was a typo in the original directions. Sorry about that!
Could this be prepped the night before and put in the fridge so all I have to do after work is put the pot in my instant pot and turn it on?
I dont see why not. I might wait to pour in the liquid until you’re ready to cook so that it doesn’t somehow absorb into the rice before it cooks.
This recipe has the right idea but I had the same problem as mentioned in above comments. You can’t develop pressure with only 3/4Cup broth and no water. Then, the cooking time is too long so rice gets mushy. Again, it was tasty and I thinks on the right track, but some correction is needed for the liquid amount and cooking time. Thanks though!
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Hey Jim– are you using the Instant Pot or another pressure cooker? I ask because with the instant pot as long as the ingredients have enough liquid in them (i.e.- chicken) you don’t even have to add liquid. I made shredded chicken by just sticking the chicken into the pot with spices and pressing the poultry setting… no liquid required and chicken cooks perfectly. With that said I retested this recipe again today and have adjusted the recipe to increase the broth by 1/4 cup. Some of the rice pieces were slightly under cooked the but with adding 1/4 cup corrected the problem. I really think the variability has to do with the amount of juice that’s in the chicken breast. Not all are pumped with the same amount of liquid.
If I want to double the recipe, do I need to double the cooking time??
ooo, good question! I haven’t tested that out but I would think it would be similar cooking times– if anything maybe increase by 5 minutes.
Thanks for this recipe. However, I had some trouble with the chicken. I’m used to it falling apart at the end, but it was tougher than usual. I can’t work it out if I cooked it for too long or not long enough? Maybe the pieces were too big
The rice came out amazing though.
Outstanding!
★★★★★
Are you kidding me with the 3/4 c liquid? You must need more than that for 2c rice, plus everything else, no?
I know seems wild right? But the chicken and veggies release so much water.. if you add extra water the rice will be soggy. 🙂 It’s typically a 1:1 to 1:1.25 ratio for brown rice in the instant pot.. but I’ve found with this dish that the chicken and veggies make a good cup+ of liquid! I’ve also used a full cup of liquid in this recipe, which works okay but rice is more “moist” and casserole like that way.
I added 1 3/4 cups broth because I didn’t have enough peas to add and the last instant pot recipe I tried with the suggestion to reduce liquid because of veggies didn’t even have enough liquid to finish cooking the rice and turned out awful. I prefer a more moist casserolish rice dish also but this amount was just enough liquid to make regular fluffy rice. I would add 2 cups broth in future even with the full amount of peas and reduce cooking time because my chicken turned out a little too firm and the rice burned on to the bottom of the pot with 22 min + 10 to depressurize. I would try 15 min to cook + 10 to depressurize in future.
★★★★
Thanks for your feedback! Glad you liked the recipe– I don’t like mine as “mushy” are more fluffy. But agree if you like it to be a bit mushy then add a little more liquid. Also did you use frozen peas?
3/4 cup wasn’t even enough liquid to generate pressure. Opened it up after the 25+10 minutes and the chicken was still raw and the rice was practically dry.
Did you make it in the instant pot? With that pressure cooker you don’t even have to add liquid depending on what you’re cooking. I do frozen or fresh chicken breast and turn it on to “poultry” setting and it makes perfectly shredded chicken!
Your recipe instructions mention water – but I don’t see where it says how much water to add??
sorry! that’s a typo– meant broth! You can use water if you don’t have broth on hand but may have to adjust salt/seasonings.
you’re going to need a lot more than the recipe calls for. 3/4 cup is not enough to pressurize, let alone cook the rice.
it works in my instant pot! If you want more “casserole like” rice increase the water by 1/4 cup… the chicken and frozen veggies produce a good 1/2 to 3/4 cup liquid… so that’s where the additional liquid comes from… if you add too much broth the rice will be soggy.
I have an instant pot and am just learning to how to use it. I was hoping to find an “Instant Pot” tab on the pull down for the recipes. Any help in not overcooking in the instant pot would be helpful.
Thanks for the feedback Debbie. I’ll work on getting more instant pot recipes on my site and add a drop down to categorize.
Yes, please! I’d love to see more fast and easy Instant Pot recipes. I plan to give this one a try soon. I broke down and bought an IP two weeks ago, and just used it again today for ham and navy bean soup.
Such a beautiful post – thank you Kristina, I’m so pleased to have inspired this post! And to have tempted another into camp Instant Pot hehehe 😉 I am going to have to try your version of my rice dish. Hungry Hubby will love it as it has chicken in 😉
★★★★★
This looks like a super tasty chicken and rice recipe. I have a regular pressure cooker and a regular slow cooker — and they both work fine, so I feel kind of guilty tossing them both to get an instal-pot — but it seems that I’m the only one on the planet without one.
You’re not the only one…lol. I had never heard of it until my daughter asked for one for Christmas last year. I was going to ask for directions to cook it on the stove, in the oven or in my crockpot. My daughter loves her instapot but I like cooking the old fashion way. Maybe when I was working with kids at home, I might be interested. One of my favorite memories is being able to smell whatever my Mom was cooking and still love the smells from my kitchen. Guess I’m showing my age…lol
This looks so healthy and good!
★★★★★
Such a great use of the Instant Pot! I love how bright and colorful this meal is. So perfect for a weeknight dinner.
Yellow rice is always a hit in my house. Love how quick this comes together, I need an instant pot!
Tried this recipe and it was terrible! It came out very dry and half cooked due to not enough liquid. You need to add twice the liquid specified in the recipe! Instant pot says you need 1.5 cups of water for 1 cup of rice. This recipe is way off.
I agree with Rita, you definitely need more broth/liquid for this recipe to compensate the two cups of rice. I think the next time i make this recipe i’ll do one cup, and add a bit more salt. Other then that it was good.
Hi Noelle– this recipe calls for 1 3/4 cup chicken broth.. did you use basmati rice? I’ve tested this recipe over and over and it’s currently saved in my stories on Instagram if you want to check out a step by step. Glad it tasted good over all!!
yes. I used as printed exactly in the recipe. I think it also depends on the size of your instant pot. I have the 3qt so, I had to adjust all my ingredients for my instant pot. THIS recipe may be perfect for the 6/8qt instant pot.