Pressure Cooker Salsa Verde Chicken & Rice is a quick and easy dinner recipe made in your Instant Pot in less than 30 minutes! Zesty rice is topped with cheesy chicken breasts for a one-pot meal the whole family will love.
Pressure Cooker Salsa Verde Chicken & Rice
If you already own an Instant Pot, you know just how great they are for easy set it and forget it meals. These 10 Healthy Chicken Recipes in a Pressure Cooker are a great collection of dinner ideas when you have a lot of chicken to use up.
Sometimes you want the whole meal deal in one swoop those and that is why this Pressure Cooker Salsa Verde Chicken & Rice is so great!
You don’ need to make anything outside of the Instant Pot or prepare any extras for the dish. Simply saute your onions in the Pressure Cooker and add the remaining ingredients. Set it and forget it and you will come back to a hearty and delicious dinner that the whole family will want again and again!
If you love a creamy dish, a big dollop of sour cream is a great addition to the meal when you are serving it up. It also makes for fantastic leftovers for lunch the next day!
Another great alternative for this Pressure Cooker Salsa Verde Chicken & Rice is to shred the chicken and stir it in with the rice. Chicken in the Instant Pot is the best when shredded because it just falls apart. The presentation might not be as pretty, but it is sure to taste just as good.
Pressure Cooker Salsa Verde Chicken & Rice
Ingredients
- 1 Tbsp. olive oil
- 1 medium yellow onion diced
- 1 c. chicken broth
- 1 16 oz jar salsa verde
- 1 1/2 tsp. cumin
- 1 c. long grain white rice I used Basmati
- 20 oz. boneless skinless chicken breasts
- 1/4 tsp. salt
- 4 oz. shredded cheddar cheese
Instructions
- Add the olive oil to your 5 or 6 quart electric pressure cooker and turn on to saute function. When the pot is heated, add the diced onion. Saute for 3 minutes, or until translucent.
- Add the chicken broth to the onions and using a wooden spoon scrape the browned bits off of the bottom so they don't burn during cooking. Turn the pressure cooker off of saute function.
- Add the salsa verde, cumin and rice. Do NOT stir in the rice. Nestle the chicken breasts on top of the rice mixture. Sprinkle with salt.
- Place the lid on the pressure cooker and cook on high pressure for 10 minutes with a 10 minute natural pressure release. (When the 10 minutes is completed cooking, let the pot sit for 10 more minutes until you release the pressure manually.)
- Remove the chicken from the pot and fluff the rice. Place the chicken back on top of the rice and top with the shredded cheddar.
- Place the lid back on the pressure cooker and let sit for 3-4 minutes, or until the cheese is melted from the heat of the pot.
- Serve immediately.
- *Optionally top with sour cream and cilantro.
More great Pressure Cooker Recipes
Pressure Cooker Thai Peanut Chicken & Noodles
Pressure Cooker Light & Spicy Taco Shells
Looks absolutely wonderful! However, you say to cook for 10 minutes and then do a natural release for 10 minutes. You further state in parenthesis that after cooking for 12 minutes then let the pot sit for 10 more minutes until you release the pressure manually. Please clarify if you cook for 10 minutes or 12 minutes. Thank you! Love your blog.
Sorry that was a typo. It should be 10 and 10!
I’m making this right now. It’s saying burn! It’s only been in there for 4 minutes
Mine too!
Came out perfect. For my 8 quart I added more broth
I want to make this for dinner tonight, but will have to use frozen chicken. Any tips on how to adjust to recipe for the frozen chicken?
It won’t work well with frozen chicken because the increased cook time will make the rice mushy. I would suggest defrosting the chicken first.
Ok, Thank you!
Can I use uncle Bens 5 minute brown rice?
No, it will get mushy.
We had this for dinner last night and it was absolutely delicious!! My husband and I kept saying as we were eating it just how good it was! Thank you for sharing! I used a bottle of Herdez salsa verde, nice and tangy with mild heat!
Happy to hear you enjoyed it Vanessa!
Herdez is the best. Mild red & normal green.
If I want to double this recipe do I just increase everything by 2 and use the same cooking time?
It should work to keep the same cooking time as it will just take a little longer to come to pressure. There is a chance you may have to add a little more cooking time if it isn’t all cooked through though.
We liked this, having had a similar recipe previously.
For the burn notices, after sauteing your onions, remove them and place your chicken on the bottom. Add your liquids next, and rice last. Do not stir! Set your time and cook as directed. I have a basic 6 qt Emeril PC. My experience with all recipes calling for rice have been to add last and not to stir. Hope this helps!
I tried this tonight. I am new to pressure cooking… I followed the recipe exactly… and the pot keeps saying burn… I ended up releasing the pressure early to add liquid. I added about another cup of liquid and scraped the bottom again and tried to repressurize. It continues to give the burn message on and off. I am unsure of what I did wrong :/ hopefully it’s still edible, but I fear the rice will be mushy now
What size electric pressure cooker are you using?
8qt
I think this might be the problem. I designed this recipe for the 5 or 6 quart pots and the newer 8 quart pot requires more liquid. I apologize, but I will make a notation in the recipe for others.
Fyi, I tried the recipe in my 6 quart and had the burn message as well. I’m also new to pressure cooking. Not sure what I did wrong. I did follow the recipe exactly. I added liquid, and tried again, but it gave the burn message before it even got to pressure. I ended up having to remove it and bake it in the oven. The taste is very good, but there was a layer of rice burned on the bottom of the pot.
Can you recommend how much liquid to add to an 8 quart Instant Pot to avoid burning?
You will need to have a minimum of 1.5 cups for an 8qt pot.
I am getting the burn message too and I’m using my 6 qt instant pot and followed the recipe to the T. Im about to transfer the while recipe to a pan and finish it in the oven. Ugh
Same. This sucks.
I made this tonight and it turned out great. I think next time I’ll try to shred the chicken and make a rice bowl!
Hi!! Any way to use brown rice in this recipe? That’s all I have in the house at the moment and this looks too good to pass up for tonight!!
Unfortunately no, the cooking times are quite a bit longer for brown rice.
Followed recipe to a tee in a 6qt and keep getting a “burn” message. So disappointed in my first IP meal.
This was only my second time using my pressure cooker, and I kept getting the burn message too because of the rice. Since I kept trying to get it to work, it ended up cooking enough and tasting great. It would be good to know how to keep the rice from covering the bottom of the pan.
Most electric pressure cookers have a rice function in them which means nothing can go wrong while you cook rice and it will turn out perfectly every time. But I fear cooking rice in my old stovetop pressure cooker since it is such a technical dish and can very easily be overcooked. Do you have any suggestions?
Just tried this tonight with Herdez salsa verde. Great flavor, but I had to cook it longer since my monster chicken breasts weren’t cooked enough. I overcooked it a little too much, but it still was very tasty.
Made it tonight. It’s really flavorful. I followed the directions directly. The rice did come out a bit mushy but I still enjoyed it. Maybe next time I’ll add just a little bit more rice so it’s not too mushy?
Our rice keeps burning. Any suggestions?
I tried making the Salsa Verde Chicken and Rice in my Instapot. I followed the directions to a T. However, I used regular salsa – nothing special. I sauted the onion, turned the pot off, added all the other ingredients … initially 1 cup of chicken stock …. gave it a stir, and topped with the chicken breasts.
I set the pressure cooker for 10 minutes, and waited … it never started to count down, never got to full pressure, and shut off with a message BURN.
I turned it off, scraped the bottom and added another 1/2 cup of stock. Same thing happened.
I removed all the food from the pot and put it in a covered pan in the oven – hoping the rice would cook … I added more water.
Believe it or not …. I started all over – doing exactly the same thing … but this time started out with chicken stock just shy of 2 cups. Same thing. and BTW – I was using Basmati rice – both times. …. Please Help!!!
The only thing I can think of is that regular salsa has more sugar in it, so perhaps that led to it burning. Honestly, it seems as though some others have had issues with it not coming to pressure either and I’m not entirely sure seeing it always works for me and so many others. Sorry I can’t be more help!
I had the same problem.
I made this tonight in my pressure cooker, minus the onions because my husband doesn’t eat onions. Otherwise followed the recipe as written. It was so easy and tasted so good! Thank you! So easy after working all day!
I think I figured out the burning problem. You must rinse the rice. I rinse it until the water runs clear. Basmati is the only rice I have used that didn’t burn. I used 14 oz chicken broth. I have a 6 qrt. Instant Pot Duo. One of our favorites!
I got the burn warning, checked it and the rice was burning to the bottom. I added some chicken broth and tried again, got the burn warning again. I followed directions to the letter, am I doing something wrong, I am a rookie at this.
I’m ok with salsa, but not ready to try salsa verde (moving away from a very limiting diet). Would this work ok with salsa instead?
Yes!
I’ll add this in case it helps anyone else. I have a plus mini instant pot which is 3qts. So I halved the ingredients (just about) and I was getting that burn message as some others have. I did stir it once just to see and i noticed my rice sticking to the bottom. I then turned it back on. This time I just went ahead and ignored the burn message and let it cook. After the time, I stirred up the rice and noticed there was some browning on the bottom, but with all the liquid it picked right up as I stirred.
It ended up being fine and it all still tasted very good.
After reading the comments, I decided not to sauté the onion. That’s usually when I get the Burn notice. I mixed everything up except for the chicken and put it in the bottom. I laid the chicken on top. There should have been enough liquid, but I still got 3 burn notices, so I greased a casserole dish and baked it in the oven. It was really good, and I’m sure I’ll make it often, but always in the oven.
At what temp and how long in. The oven??
Kept getting burn notice on rice with 6 qt IP and following directions exactly.
This turned out perfect when we made it last month! So delicious! But right now, all I have is chicken legs. Any suggestions on using those instead of breasts?
It tasted good but does -not- work. I wish I had read the reviews before making it. I used my 6qt and followed the recipe to a T. I’m trying to give it more time and hoping it doesn’t ‘burn’ again.
Really annoyed that I didn’t see all of these burn comments before trying to make this. I don’t like the comment “it works for so many people”. It also gives many people a burn message. Many!!! How can you not address this?
This was so delicious! So easy and I made it in my Ninja instant cooker 6q. I didn’t have cumin so just used some poultry seasoning. The salsa brand I used was Herdez mild verde. Yum! It’s the first pressure cooker recipe I ever made and it was perfect!
Recipe does not work in an 8qt, even with more liquid. Burned the rice to a crisp in the bottom of the pot.
I’m kinda glad I didn’t read the comments before I started. I’m an experienced instant pot user and have never had anything burn (even spaghetti) but there is obviously something wrong with this recipe. It burnt twice for me, even after adding more liquid, and the lack of meaningful help from the author is disappointing. When I cook rice in my instant pot I place the trivet in the pot and cook the rice in a bowl on the trivet. This recipe tasted great so i think it’s worth trying again but next time I’ll use the same method i use for plain rice.
This was my very first instant pot recipe and I have to say, it turned out AMAZING!! I too have a 6 quart LUX model and followed the recipe exactly. My whole family loved it and even my special needs daughter (who is an extremely picky yellow eater) tried a couple of bites and enjoyed it.
I don’t know why many experienced the burn notice. I didn’t get that on mine and set it for 10 minutes on the meat/stew fxn.
Will definitely add this to a fav in my Pinterest!
Don’t waste your time. Kept getting burn on
Ip. Had to transfer into casserole dish and Finnish in the oven.
30min took an hour!
This recipe does not work in an instant pot but it tastes good, very misleading that it says 4.9 stars when everybody is saying the same thing.
Love it! Chopped up some carrots and yellow peppers with the onion and added a little smoke paprika. Was delicious
Bernie McBurn Burn.
All it does is burn.
Same burn issue. 6 qt Instant Pot. i scraped the bottom of the pot clean after the first and second burn message. The third time I transferred everything out of the IP and scraped the pot as hard as I could. Returned food to pot and tried again; still received burn message.
Could not finish recipe, had to throw out the food; absolutely devastating.
Recipe tastes great, but I couldn’t finish cooking in the instant pot because I kept getting the burn message. After the 3rd time getting that I removed everything from the pot and it was blackened at the bottom. I added the rice mixture to a large cast iron skillet, stirred in more broth, chopped chicken into cubes and mixed that in, topped with shredded cheese. I put it on the burner just to get it bubbling and then transferred into the oven, cooked for about 10 mins. Tasted great, though we sure had a late dinner! I love the idea of a one pot rice meal in the instant pot so I need to figure out the right technique. I’ll try the “add rice last and don’t stir method”.