Pressure Cooker Apricot Chicken

This is the best Instant Pot apricot chicken with apricot jam. Only 5 ingredients needed to make perfect dinner with a bed of rice! You can make as an Ninja Foodi recipe too, just costs about $20 to feed all 5 of us!

Apricot Glazed Chicken

Have you ever had this dish?? It. Is. So. Good. I’m talking it’s a meal your kids will ask you to make over and over again. With a sweetness that is not too extreme but satisfied the sweet toothers in your house it is cheap and will have your fam asking for seconds. 😉

If you’re new to this kind of cooking we will make it easy on you. You can use any brand you might have at home including a Ninja Foodi, Mealthy or make as an easy Crockpot Express recipe some night. Find what you need at your grocery store or defrost some frozen chicken to get started.

What is apricot chicken made of?

The sauce is made with French or Catalina salad dressing and some apricot jam you can coat your bite size poultry pieces with a sweet sauce your kids will love. If you cannot find this style you can make homemade or the closest would be either peach or orange marmelade (but would vary the fruity flavor of course).

Your Chicken breasts should be cut into bite size pieces, boneless skinless is best for a quicker prep, you could use chicken thighs instead if you prefer dark meat.

Chicken broth or stock works better than water to thin out the sauce a bit. You don’t want it too thick or you may cause the machine to display the burn function.

To add a whopping of flavor I add a packet of Onion soup mix like you would to make that famous dip, but just what is in the little pouch.

Optional add ins would be to add an Onion sliced, and/or a bit of cornstarch if you want to thicken sauce

Substitutions

You are going to use jam for the sweetness and fruit here. You could alternatively use orange marmelade and it would be more similar to our Instant Pot orange chicken recipe too. Add a bit of heat if you like with red pepper flakes or a bit of Sriracha and go!

Some like to add a bit of soy sauce to cut down the sweetness even more, either way is good to us.

Apricot Chicken with Frozen Chicken

For frozen chicken in the Instant Pot you wouldn’t be able to cut it into small pieces like you see here. What you would want to do is follow the instructions above to cook with broth for 12 minutes. Then you’d drain, shred the meat, set to saute and add the ingredients for this sauce. Allow to bubble and thicken and then serve!!

This takes just 20 minutes to finish this and a batch of Ninja foodi white rice. Of course you can serve it with anything you like but typically we make chicken bowls with broccoli on the side.

How do you thicken apricot chicken?

If at the end you want the sauce thicker then use 1 tbsp cornstarch whisked together with 3 tbsp cold water. Set pressure cooker to saute and add this in, stir and it won’t be as thin.

You could transition this Instant Pot chicken recipe into this if you wanted to? I would boil egg noodles to al dente in another pot and then when this is done, fold them together. There is enough sauce to coat everything without a problem.

Printable recipe below with nutritional information included as well. Keep in mind I do not calculate these, the system does and it accounts for exactly what I have listed below. Then try our creamy pressure cooker chicken and rice which turns out great every time.

FAQ