Best Instant Pot Chicken Legs

These are the most amazing Instant Pot chicken legs! If you love easy pressure cooker dinners but looking for something your kids will love, make in just 10 minutes. You’ll get fall off the bone tender meat with fresh or Instant Pot frozen chicken drumsticks too. New recipe will be your go to meal for sure!

Instant Pot Drumsticks

If you’ve never made any type of pressure cooker chicken drumsticks they are so easy and a healthy meal too! We have directions for frozen chicken legs above too, but if they’re defrosted use this one. Fresh or thawed meat is always best as far as getting fork tender poultry.

If you like a little crisp on the outside you just pop them under your broiler or air fryer or Ninja Foodi for a few minutes. You can brush sauce on so it bakes and caramelizes a bit or just season lightly. They are perfection I tell you!

Instant Pot Chicken Legs

This is all you need! You can even skip the onion if you’d rather but even if you don’t eat them they add a wonderful flavor.

• Method 1 – using enchilada sauce
• Recipe 2 – using barbecue sauce (don’t choose honey style as that will trigger the burn message)
• 3rd recipe is chicken adobo Instant Pot style

Both of them have the ability to be as mild or as spicy as you want.

I will show you how to crisp up the chicken skin (or outside if there’s no skin) once your Instant Pot chicken legs are cooked.

When you have a family it is sometimes hard to make a healthy meal that everyone loves, but drumsticks are a favorite among most kids and many times they are really inexpensive at the store.

I say if I can feed my family of five for under $15 it is a win, and this pressure cooker chicken dinner is one of those…..I share my others in this post with lots of cheap Instant Pot recipes.

How long to cook bone-in chicken legs in Instant Pot

• You can find mild, medium, and spicy enchilada sauce at the store and for us mild is enough heat with tons of flavor!

In the pressure cooker no matter what sauce you add with your meat really permeates inside and creates some amazing flavors. It also makes everything extremely tender and fall off the bone in this case.

Instant Pot chicken drumsticks recipe

We generally don’t eat chicken skin but still like a bit of browning on the top. Just 3-4 minutes on the broiler setting of my oven makes them perfect, as you can see here.

1. Pressure cooker
   1. I HIGHLY suggest you get a non stick pot too!
2. Instant Pot air fryer lid to crisp skins, highly recommended
3. Chicken legs – 8 medium sized drumsticks fit well in my 6 qt. IP
4. 28 oz. enchilada sauce – any brand and heat level
   1. or alternatively you can use 1 bottle of bbq sauce + 3/4 c. water
5. 1 onion

Instant Pot Chicken Legs and Potatoes

You could cut russets in half widthwise and place them on the very top if you wanted to. They take about the same amount of time so you’ll get a one pot meal. Both are going to use high pressure cooking temperature with short cooking times and a quick release for this one. 

• It only takes about 15 minutes to get the meat tender and pretty much fall off of the bone.
• That makes it a family favorite that is easy and delicious served with a simple side dish like vegetables.
• My kids say it’s a great recipe because “chicken legs rock”, no matter what sauce is used really. 😉

Here is the first chicken legs recipe.

Instant Pot chicken adobo

They’re fall off the bone delicious with a sweet barbecue flavor that kids love and the perfect meal year round! The third pressure cooker recipe is in the printable recipe card below! Here are the ingredients you’ll need for this version:

1. Drumsticks
2. Rice vinegar
3. Brown sugar
4. Minced garlic
5. Black peppercorns
6. Bay leaves
7. Water or chicken broth
8. Soy sauce

Here’s a peek of the Instant Pot drumsticks in my pot.

There isn’t a huge difference when making these, other than the ingredients and you’ll naturally release the pressure for 5 minutes.

• Typically when cooking chicken in an Instant Pot you do want to release the steam slowly in order to keep the juices in.
• Once 5 minutes is up just flip the toggle to pressure release what is left.

This is a salty sweet chicken recipe everyone is sure to love. 

Looking for more Instant Pot chicken recipes we have a bunch!

1. Instant Pot chicken and dumplings recipe is great as well as this Instant Pot Korean chicken over rice
2. Pressure cooker chicken and rice
3. Our Instant Pot Hawaiian chicken is oh so tasty too
4. Easy Ninja Foodi chicken legs can do the air frying in the same pot when they are done

If you have an air fryer you can make air fryer buttermilk chicken legs in that! Here’s the recipe for pressure cooker chicken drumsticks with enchilada or barbecue sauce

Can you stack chicken in the Instant Pot?

• Typically I do not but when making drumsticks I do, yes.

Can you put frozen meat in the Instant Pot?

• Yes
• I haven’t used frozen chicken legs when making these per say but have thawed frozen chicken breasts this way.
• The only issue I could see is that they may be in a large clump once frozen.
• If you’re able to separate them I might cook for 12 minutes instead of 10 and put under the broiler when done.

How do you make chicken skin crispy?

I use several methods after making these or our slow cooker chicken legs. On the stovetop, put some oil into a pan or cast iron skillet to the point of smoking and sear the skin. Or put on a pan in an oven at 400 degrees for 5-10 minutes until it’s as crispy as you like (like our teriyaki drumsticks)

Try either one, or both of these versions and let us know which you like best. Have you made them with another type of sauce you like too? Let us know!!

How do you reheat chicken legs?

First start by heating the oven to 400 put pieces in a baking dish rather than a pan to catch juices. Add about 1 cup of chicken broth into your pan so it is about 1/4 of an inch high. Once preheated, place inside until the liquid is bubbling and meat is warmed all the way to the middle.

• You could throw them into your air fryer too if you want really crispy 

Drumsticks in Pressure Cooker

Mix the sugar into the vinegar. Place the chicken into the pressure cooker then add in the chopped garlic, peppercorns, and bay leaves. Next pour in the vinegar-sugar mix in, then water, then the soy sauce.

1. Put the lid on the pressure cooker, seal pressure release valve, and select high pressure for 15 minutes.
2. When done, allow to naturally release for 5 minutes then move valve to Venting to release remaining pressure.
3. Carefully remove the cooked chicken and place on a serving bowl.
4. To thicken up the remaining sauce, select Saute function and set to 10 minutes.
5. Allow to simmer until the liquid has halved. (if you want quite a bit thicker you can whisk a tbsp cornstarch with water in a bowl and dump that in)
6. Pour over the chicken in the serving bowl.

To serve, plate with steamed rice, a piece of chicken then drizzle some of the reduced sauce over the chicken. You can remove the bay leaves and discard them. Enjoy!