Easy Instant Pot buffalo chicken recipe is here! Great in your Ninja Foodi pressure cooker too for shredded chicken sliders, tacos or served as a low carb keto friendly dinner. Use fresh or frozen chicken in Instant Pot for YUM!
Instant Pot buffalo chicken is the bomb! The easiest way to make pressure cooker shredded chicken with a TON of flavor with just a few simple ingredients. Use fresh or frozen chicken breasts and GO! Just one of our easy Instant Pot recipes here on our site. (affiliate links present)
Instant Pot Buffalo Chicken Sandwich
We make Instant Pot chicken quite a bit. It’s one of the pressure cooker cheap meals that everyone in the house loves, which is a huge win. This one is a great appetizer to serve for football parties, or just make for a fun meal during the week.
Fresh is always best but you can throw in a few rock hard and frozen right out of the bag. Cook time doesn’t really even vary which is crazy. Use your Crockpot Express or make as an easy Ninja Foodi recipe too. Both have the high pressure function so either brand works.
Let’s start with a few basic tips:
- Make sure to Bookmark our InstaPot recipes page. We add new ones each week!
- Then PRINT this —–> Instant Pot cooking times cheat sheet that will help you understand how long meat, vegetables and beans take to cook in your pressure cooker.
- This is a great InstaPot cookbook and set of wooden utensils are great to grab too.
- I HIGHLY recommend you buy this non stick pot.
- You should still deglaze pressure cooker after sautéing but it won’t have as many issues with this better liner.
For reference, this is the pressure cooker I have and use for all recipe creations.
Buffalo Chicken Instant Pot
If you have ever made buffalo chicken dip you know how yummy this would be! The missing ingredient compared to this is with cream cheese. A softened block with do it for that alteration. If you wanted to make both you could double the recipe below.
Then you’d split it in half and stir in a room temperature package of cream cheese at the end until it melts. That will thicken it up nicely so you can serve it with crackers or chips. Another great duo using similar items would be our Instant Pot buffalo chicken wings. Make them all when you have a crowd coming over!
You can see the basic ingredients used to make this below.
Ninja Foodi Buffalo Chicken
Here are a few questions you might have before you get started on this:
It actually has nothing to do with the animal itself rather a restaurant in the city of Buffalo created it. Anchor Bar created this spicy dish that people loved and the idea spread.
There are tons of possibilities. Serve this over white rice, inside small buns, or throw it into small tortillas with lots of toppings.
As for the protein itself, you could use chicken breasts or thighs. I find the latter to be more tender, cheaper and flavorful. The sauce is quite powerful though so it’s likely the spiciness will overwhelm the difference between the two.
With that said, you can easily dampen the spice. To do this, use dry Ranch Dressing Mix. You could alternatively use cubes of cream cheese.
Instant Pot Buffalo Chicken Thighs
You’ll want a few medium size chicken breasts or thighs work too. I do not like using very thick ones because you want the meat to become as tender as possible. If they are very large, slice then in half so they’re thinner.
I have only used fresh meat. If you use frozen chicken breasts it will be a bit thinner because the meat will emit extra liquid when defrosting.
- Franks hot sauce for wings
- Ranch seasoning mix to tone down the heat and add flavor
- Barbecue sauce (do not choose honey style as that is quite thick and sugars may trigger burn notice)
If you’re making sandwiches I’d top them with coleslaw and/or blue cheese crumbles. You really can just throw this together and walk away, no real meal prep either. When it’s done the meat should be super tender. No need to cut it, should break apart with just 2 forks with no problem.
Shredded Buffalo Chicken
Here’s quick step by step for how to make this, there’s a printable recipe card at the bottom of the post as well.
Time needed: 14 minutes.
Instant Pot Buffalo Chicken
- Prepare
Pour half buffalo sauce on bottom of pot, then place breasts on top. In a bowl whisk together remaining buffalo sauce + bbq sauce. Pour this on top of meat.
- Cook
Close the lid and steam valve. Set to high pressure cook for 14 minutes cook time.
Allow to naturally release steam for 3 minutes, then quick release rest. - Shred
Use forks to shred cooked chicken in pot or on a cutting board. Return to pot and stir with remaining sauce in pot so everything is well coated.
If you want to tone down heat stir in 1 tbsp dry ranch mix at a time until it is to your liking. Season with salt and pepper if desired.
Serve on slider buns with some cole slaw on top and crumbled blue cheese!
Remember that it will take approx. 15 minutes for the timer to begin, it takes about that long for the pressure to build up and start.
OH MY Is this so good. And so cheap!! I mean if you are having a bunch of people over or have a large household with hungry boys in it, they’ll love this.
What goes with buffalo chicken?
I mean, so many things and it depends on how you’re serving it really. If you want a low carb meal then you’d just want to serve some air fryer vegetables along side this.
- Sliders are great using small garlic rolls and something cool on top is great. Lettuce is fine but some time of cole slaw is even better.
- You can just put some brown rice on the side if you want
- Chicken taco bowls are yummy
Or just throw out sliced avocados, cabbage, tomatoes and more to make air fryer tacos.
How do you save shredded chicken?
If you like batch cooking and make a double or triple batch of this, you’ll save lots of time for future dinners.
The most important thing you can do when freezing chicken is to store it in airtight containers. You could use freezer bags too. I like to separate into portions that we will use all at one time. Zip and flatten and freeze.
How do you thaw out shredded chicken?
The best way is to put the frozen package in your fridge overnight. That will allow it to defrost gradually so it doesn’t grow bacteria. Do not leave it on the countertop, I don’t like microwaving it from frozen either.
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Rather make Crockpot buffalo chicken sliders? You totally can! Our Instant Pot shredded beef recipe is excellent too.
Instant Pot Buffalo Chicken
Equipment
Ingredients
- 3-4 medium chicken breasts
- 1 c buffalo sauce
- 1/4 c barbecue sauce
- Ranch dressing mix add 1 tbsp at a time at end to tone down heat
Instructions
- Pour half buffalo sauce on bottom of pot, then place breasts on top. In a bowl whisk together remaining buffalo sauce + bbq sauce. Pour this on top of meat.
- Close the lid and steam valve. Set to high pressure for 14 minutes.
- Allow to naturally release steam for 3 minutes, then release rest.
- Use forks to shred meat in pot or on a cutting board. Return to pot and stir with remaining sauce in pot so everything is well coated. If you want to tone down heat stir in 1 tbsp dry ranch mix at a time until it is to your liking.
- Serve on slider buns with some cole slaw on top and crumbled blue cheese!