This pressure cooker cheesy chicken spaghetti was a real hit for dinner tonight! If you love our easy Ninja Foodi cheesy spaghetti and Instant Pot recipes, this is a weeknight dinner you’ll want to make.
I’m here with pressure cooker cheesy chicken spaghetti to add to our long list of easy Instant Pot recipes. If you’re ready to amp regular Instant Pot spaghetti up to the next level with cheese and a bit of a kick this is the next dinner you need to make! (affiliate links present)
Table of Contents
- Instant Pot Chicken Spaghetti
- Ninja Foodi Chicken Spaghetti
- Cheesy Chicken Spaghetti
- Pressure Cooker Chicken Spaghetti Recipe
- Pressure cooker chicken spaghetti
- Cheesy Instant Pot chicken spaghetti without Rotel
- How to Cook Instant Pot Chicken Spaghetti
- How do you jazz up spaghetti?
- Do people eat chicken with spaghetti?
- Can you use leftover chicken to make chicken spaghetti?
- Can you cook spaghetti noodles in an Instant Pot?
- Instant Pot Chicken Spaghetti Recipe
Instant Pot Chicken Spaghetti
This one pot meal is done in less than 20 minutes!!! You can make it in your Crockpot Express or as an easy Ninja foodi recipe too. That means it’s a real winner. The only real prep is to cube chicken breasts and dice your onion up. The rest you can just dump in, pressure cook, lift the lid and stir!
If you love traditional Instant Pot spaghetti with jar sauce we have instructions for that too. It is the ONLY way I make this “old fashioned” dinner because it takes no time at all. This too requires no boiling and is all cooked in one pot.
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 Chicken Spaghetti
That’s my kinda’ easy pressure cooker recipe. I got the idea for our pressure cooker cheesy chicken spaghetti recipe from a viewer actually!
She messaged me on The Typical Mom Facebook page and asked if I had a recipe for easy chicken spaghetti and I didn’t. I said it was a great idea though and I would attempt it the next week.
The beauty of this method is that the cook time for this lazy one pot spaghetti is like cut in thirds. A busy family like us needs all the help we can get y’all. I often forget what time it is and realize around 4pm that oh, everyone is starving I probably need to figure something out. So there’s that…..
Cheesy Chicken Spaghetti
I made my first version which I share at the very bottom of this page. Then on the second go around I switched things around a bit and used Velveeta instead of shredded cheese. That is a substitution you can make too for a much richer flavor. I include both recipes below.
The Velveeta version has more of a kick to it (a bit of heat) because I swapped out some chicken broth for another can of Rotel. You can decide which recipe you’d like to try. They’re both yummy.
No need for cooking the chicken ahead of time. You can just add everything and have it cook together. Use leftover chicken or fresh. Watch the video that’s embedded in this post first, then follow these simple written steps:
Pressure Cooker Chicken Spaghetti Recipe
Time needed: 8 minutes
Instant Pot Chicken Spaghetti
- Prepare
Add your cubed chicken, diced onions, and 1 can of rotel into your Instant Pot. Stir so everything is mixed well.
Break your noodles into 3 equal parts and sprinkle on top of your chicken mixture.
Pour your 2nd can of rotel on top of your noodles. Whisk together your cans of cream of mushroom and cream of chicken soup and chicken broth, pour on top of noodles but do NOT stir. - Cook
Close your lid and steam valve and set to high pressure for 8 minutes cook time. Quick release the pressure and remove the lid.
Stir contents and break up any noodles/chicken pieces that may be stuck together a bit. - Saute
Turn your pot to saute. Serve now if you don’t want cheese, it’s delicious as is.
Dice your Velveeta (or room temp. cream cheese if you’d rather) into smaller chunks of cheese and add into your pot. Stir until cheese is melted and sauce thickens.
* Honestly the longer this sits the better it gets and is amazing the next day as leftovers. And I might even admit that it is better the next day reheated too. 😉
Pressure cooker chicken spaghetti
This version uses Velveeta as stated below in the recipe card. I have another version above the printable card that does not use it. Choose either one.
- Pressure cooker
- If you have an Instant Pot I HIGHLY recommend getting a non stick pot. Great for all recipes & to help prevent burn notice.
- Velveeta – half a block, or I found a package with 5 smaller blocks and used 3 of the 5 pieces, about 10 oz.
- Rotel
- Cream of mushroom
- Cream of chicken
- Onion
- Spaghetti noodles
- Chicken breasts – boneless, skinless, diced
- 1/2 cup diced onions and bell peppers could be added if you’d like
Leave these out entirely if you have really picky eaters at home that don’t like any sort of crunchy items or onions at all. Other version using shredded cheese and very little heat is below this recipe card. After this try our pressure cooker jambalaya too!
Cheesy Instant Pot chicken spaghetti without Rotel
This is a picture of the above recipe that has real cheese in it versus velveeta and doesn’t have a kick like the first recipe does. I would say if I had to choose from the 2 I would opt for the velveeta version but honestly I usually use what I have in the house so it depends on the night.
There is a decent amount of sodium in packaged cheese so salt and pepper is not necessary. There will not be a lack of flavor for sure. Looking for more pressure cooker chicken recipes? We have a ton of them on our site but have listed below a couple favorites that pair with this well.
How to Cook Instant Pot Chicken Spaghetti
You could make pressure cooker bread to serve with this if you wanted though I don’t really feel it needs much of anything. If you wanted to make veggies with it I would suggest Instant Pot brussel sprouts is a great side dish with any protein or pasta.
How do you jazz up spaghetti?
Add meat and some heat!! You can first cook up some Instant Pot chicken and then dice or shred it up. Add it into your pot with the noodles, diced tomatoes with chiles like we showed you here and bam!! Gives you a heartier meal with a boost of protein which is great.
Do people eat chicken with spaghetti?
Ummmmm, yes and if you haven’t tried it yet you are in for a real surprise. If you love thighs use that or if white meat is all you consume then go with that too. It is very versatile as long as you use boneless skinless pieces in bite size pieces. It will suck up the creamy sauce just like our easy Instant Pot butter chicken dish does.
Can you use leftover chicken to make chicken spaghetti?
Absolutely!! It doesn’t matter whether you use precooked or raw chicken into the pot at the beginning. You should use the same cook time just so that the other ingredients cook to al dente and under high pressure it will only get more tender in the cooking process.
Can you cook spaghetti noodles in an Instant Pot?
You can really use your Instant Pot to cook any type of pasta. Just sprinkle it in with liquid or other ingredients like our chicken spaghetti and set to 9 minutes.
- This will ensure it will come out just a touch al dente. Nobody likes mushy noodles!
- Take note that the Instant Pot will spend about 10-11 minutes heating up before it begins to reach pressure and start to cook
- SO, if you set it for 4 minutes, the whole process will take about 15 minutes.
You can find many more Instant Pot pasta recipes here as well, enjoy friends!
Instant Pot Chicken Spaghetti
Equipment
- 1 pressure cooker
Ingredients
- 2 chicken breasts , approx 1 lbs., boneless, skinless, cut into cubes
- 1 medium onion, diced
- 2 cans rotel
- 1 can cream of chicken soup
- 1 can cream of mushroom soup
- 8 oz spaghetti noodles, uncooked, broken into thirds (basically half a box you’d find in the store)
- 8 oz velveeta, or 3 blocks if you buy the 5 block pack
- 1/2 c chicken broth
Instructions
- Add your cubed chicken, diced onions, and 1 can of rotel into your Instant Pot. Stir so everything is mixed well.
- Break your noodles into 3 equal parts and sprinkle on top of your chicken mixture.
- Pour your 2nd can of rotel on top of your noodles. Whisk together your cans of cream of mushroom and cream of chicken soup and chicken broth, pour on top of noodles but do NOT stir.
- Close your lid and steam valve and set to high pressure for 8 minutes.
- Do a quick release and lift lid.
- Stir contents and break up any noodles/chicken pieces that may be stuck together a bit. Turn your pot to saute. Serve now if you don’t want cheese, it’s delicious as is.
- Dice your velveeta into smaller chunks of cheese and add into your pot. Stir until cheese is melted and sauce thickens.
- * Honestly the longer this sits the better it gets and is amazing the next day as leftovers.
Video
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
Very good. I only used 1 can Rotel, I can cr of chicken and half the pasta. Turned out perfect for hubby and me with enough left for tomorrow. Needs some added garlic is all I can think of. Love the ease of preparing in IP. 😀
so glad
I’m not a fan of rotel or Velveeta so I use the other recipe. I replace the rotel with diced tomatoes and use sharp cheddar cheese. I LOVE this dish and it’s perfect for providing several evenings of dinner for a single person like me. Well, that is if I can keep from eating too much at one time!
Made tonight following recipe to a t. Oh my goodness. This is delicious!! Definitely a new favorite!!
OH good!!
So easy and so delicious!! Definitely adding to our regular rotation.
yay!
If doubling the recipe and using an 8 quart Instant Pot. Would the cook time stay the same?
Thanks
I have never doubled it but I would guess it would stay the same
I’ve done this recipe and absolutely love it however I forgot to defrost the chicken how can I use this recipe with frozen chicken
If you first follow our Instant Pot frozen chicken recipe you could then shred and skip the saute step on this recipe
I would cook the chicken in the instapot frozen first my inself it only takes 25 mintunes frozen. The chicken won’t over cook because of the other things you put in the dish.
Just made this. Used entire (16 oz) spaghetti; 2 cans “hot” Rotel plus rest of recipe as written. Pressure cooked 8 minutes, quick release, stirred. Had some clumpy spaghetti, and the pasta wasn’t cooked to my desired tenderness. So I added a cup of water and pressure cooked for 5 more minutes. After that, noodles were just right (and only had one small clump). Added Velveeta and a little cheddar per recipe. To finish, put a good handful of shredded cheddar on top and air crisped for a few minutes.
End result: super cheesy, spicy, chicken spaghetti.
Can I use chicken that is already cooked in this recipe? What changes would I have to do?
Yes you could, just skip sauteeing at the beginning.
I did it that way. It worked great! I also was out of total so I used Hunt’s petite diced with sweet onion and a can of diced green chilis. Yum!
Nancy
Awesome recipe! I doubled the chicken breast since my marine son came over. And I added ripe olives when I added the cheese. I’ll definitely make this again.