Easy Instant Pot salsa chicken frozen or fresh with breasts is cheap. You only need 4 ingredients to make these with frozen chicken in Instant Pot or with raw poultry. A healthy pressure cooker recipe made into shredded tacos loaded with flavor.
If you’re looking for a simple, healthy pressure cooker recipe this Instant Pot salsa chicken is it! You literally need 4 ingredients to make it. Served on top of rice or shredded for tacos, it’s great! Added it to our long list of under 30 minute Instant Pot recipes. (affiliate links present)
Table of Contents
- Instant Pot Salsa Chicken with Frozen Chicken Breasts
- Ninja Foodi Salsa Chicken
- 4 Ingredient Instant Pot Salsa Chicken Recipe
- Pressure Cooker Salsa Chicken
- Instant Pot salsa chicken with black beans and corn
- Ingredients
- How to Make Salsa Chicken in Instant Pot
- How to Cook Shredded Chicken in a Pressure Cooker
- Instant Pot Salsa Chicken Recipe
Instant Pot Salsa Chicken with Frozen Chicken Breasts
This Instant Pot chicken recipe is the perfect quick lunch or dinner your whole family will surely love. It’s one of those meals that I make on my oops days. Forgot to defrost meat the night before? NO problem, but it works with fresh from the store too.
Doesn’t change the cook time so just follow below no matter what you have to cook. It got two thumbs up by all 5 of us today so we thought we’d share. You can make it an easy Ninja Foodi recipe or in a Crockpot Express too. Any pot works as long as it has the high pressure function.
If you are new to pressure cooking we have a lot of easy one pot meal recipes for you here. To begin with 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.
- I HIGHLY recommend you buy this non stick pot.
- You should know how to deglaze a pressure cooker after sautéing but it won’t have as many issues with this better liner.
For reference, this is the model I have (a 6 quart) and use for all recipe creations.
Ninja Foodi Salsa Chicken
I had small flour tortillas, shredded cheese and a few avocados at home so I whipped this up. Chicken breasts and homemade salsa was really all I needed. If I had sour cream on hand I would’ve added that too.
Typically I would say at least a cup BUT there is a decent amount of liquid in a jar of salsa so you only need 1/4 cup. If it were alone, it’s said that 1 cup is sufficient to keep it from drying out.
It is quite easy. If you’re making frozen chicken in an Instant Pot you just need water or broth. For an Instant Pot whole chicken, you’ll want to put it on a trivet first so it doesn’t trigger the burn message.
There are TONS of varieties, take your pick. I like thicker varieties with chunkier pieces of tomatoes and onions in it myself. For Instant Pot salsa chicken I prefer a medium heat variety.
There is salsa verde also that we use to make Instant Pot carnitas, pico de gallo that has more whole pieces, and jalapeno varieties will offer a bit of heat.
Yeah, pretty much. We show you here how long to cook it under high pressure. Adding a packet of taco seasoning is even better to add more flavor but yes the salsa has enough liquid to cook poultry to shredded and tender.
4 Ingredient Instant Pot Salsa Chicken Recipe
You can get away with 2 actually, the others are just a plus. Just a jar of salsa and breasts works just great y’all. I don’t always cook healthy meals. I love comfort food too but when I can create a low fat dinner that is full of flavor like our Instant Pot chicken cacciatore I’m thrilled!
Can I stack chicken breasts in Instant Pot?
Yes. Unlike cooking air fryer chicken breasts, the high pressure will reach each piece and with enough time they’ll be fall apart tender. Just be aware that there is a fill line inside the pot, don’t pass that.
Pressure Cooker Salsa Chicken
Another goal is creating a meal for under $10 that feeds all 5 of us. I used 2 large boneless chicken chicken breasts. You could easily add up to 4-5 depending on their size. If using frozen chicken breasts the cook time is basically the same, I like to add another 3 minutes just to ensure it shreds easily. After cooking your frozen chicken just shred it.
Instant Pot salsa chicken with black beans and corn
There are a few other choices you could make and add in there too. 1 cup drained and rinsed black beans and kernel corn work too. I do prefer frozen vegetables so they hold up their texture a bit more but canned works too.
Once done I like to remove the chicken and really shred it well in a bowl. You can even use your stand mixer to break it up fast! It will be so tender though that 2 forks will surely do the trick. Add ins if you’re making this Instant Pot recipe for shredded chicken tacos
Ingredients
- Boneless skinless chicken breasts, could use chicken thighs
- Salsa – I really like at least a cup of salsa that’s chunky.
- Water or chicken broth – use if your salsa doesn’t have much juice, you only need a bit
- 1 packet or 2 tbsp. of this taco seasoning gives you all the flavor you need.
- Bell peppers sliced
- Onions sliced are nice
You can serve it over Instant Pot white rice too like we did above, both ways are good. We’ve made this salsa chicken crockpot recipe in our slow cooker too.
Note: Some people have been apprehensive because they say you need at least 1.5 cups of water or cooking liquid to cook anything or you’ll get the burn notice. This is not true. The chicken will produce chicken broth when cooked, and the salsa has at least 1/2 cup of juices.
You can even make our Pressure cooker beer can chicken, shred and make these with salsa over the top. Here you will cut your chicken breasts in half lengthwise and put inside your Instant Pot or pressure cooker. Sprinkle your taco seasoning on top of them.
How to Make Salsa Chicken in Instant Pot
- If you are adding sliced onion and/or bell peppers add them on top of your chicken. Pour salsa on top of everything. For chunky salsa without much liquid add 1/4 c. water or chicken broth.
- Close lid and steam valve and set to poultry, normal setting (or high pressure) for 13 minutes.
- Do a natural release for 2 minutes, then a quick pressure release.
- If making shredded chicken tacos use two forks to shred inside the pot.
- Serve whole breasts on top of rice or use shredded chicken for tacos or burritos. Jump to recipe to start.
How to Cook Shredded Chicken in a Pressure Cooker
You can also make our simple and tender Instant Pot teriyaki chicken dish which we normally cut into cubes to begin with but will soak up the sauce well either way. If you want to batch cook I would pressure cook breasts, shred, and then use it for meals in the next few days.
Instant Pot chicken noodle soup is something you can make with the leftovers, a lot quicker when the meat is precooked already. Or throw it into our creamy Instant Pot crack chicken casserole that the kiddos will love.
Instant Pot Salsa Chicken
Equipment
- 1 pressure cooker
Ingredients
- 2-4 chicken breasts, medium size, boneless, skinless, cut in half
- 1 jar salsa, 15 oz
- 1/4 c chicken broth, or water, not necessary if your salsa has a lot of liquid
- 2 tbsp taco seasoning, optional but adds a lot of flavor, I use 1 tbsp for 2 breasts
- 1 onion, sliced, optional
- 1 bell pepper, sliced, optional
Instructions
- Cut your chicken breasts in half lengthwise and put inside your Instant Pot or pressure cooker. Sprinkle your taco seasoning on top of them
- If you are adding sliced onion and/or bell peppers add them on top of your chicken.
- Pour salsa on top of everything.
- If your salsa is very chunky without much liquid add 1/4 c. water or chicken broth, if it is more liquidy this isn't necessary.
- Close lid and steam valve and set to high pressure for 13 minutes, with frozen breasts that cannot be sliced set to 16 min.
- Naturally release steam for 2 minutes, then do a quick release. If making shredded chicken tacos use two forks to shred the chicken inside the pot.
- Can serve whole breasts on top of rice or use shredded chicken inside small tortillas topped with salsa mixture inside pressure cooker and other taco ingredients like cheese etc…
Video
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
This is my favorite way to make shredded chicken. I always add at least a 1/2 to 3/4 cup of liquid though, because, the liquid makes a lovely taco soup for lunch the next day. You can keep a bit of chicken for the soup, it’s delicious that way. You can also add onions, peppers, mixed veg, or leftover veggies, it just makes it better!
so glad
Such a simple and delicious salsa! Perfect for a busy mom, thanks!
A fave with us too
This was the perfect meal to cook after a busy day. Not only was quick and easy to make but also so tasty.
Yeah!
Sounds delicious. I am always looking for new things to cook in the IP and have recently joined weight watchers. This would be an awesome meal for me. Will be trying this very very soon.
So glad I could help.
So do you cook the frozen chicken breasts in the IP and shred it and THEN add the salsa, green pepper, onion, etc?
You don’t just put the frozen chicken into the IP with the other ingredients?
I used fresh chicken breasts for this but if yours are frozen just make sure they’re small/medium sized and you shouldn’t have to increase the time, just throw it all in together and use the instructions here! 😉