Spicy Honey Instant Pot Chicken

Spicy honey Instant Pot chicken thighs takes just 4 minutes to cook and comes out moist and full of flavor! Sweet chicken bites smothered in delicious sauce which we love atop a bed of rice. A great healthy pressure cooker dinner our whole family enjoys.

Honey Instant Pot Chicken Recipe

My littlest love orders “sweet chicken” when we get to Chinese food restaurants so I aimed to create something similar. I wanted a little bit of heat this time though since we love Sriracha!

You can use whatever you have at home too. There is a Crockpot Express version and Ninja Foodi too. All of them work just the same with high pressure and take no time at all in one pot.

This sweet and spicy honey Instant Pot chicken recipe turned out great the first time around. We will definitely be making this one again!  If you don’t have an Instant Pot yet and are busy like we are I highly recommend getting one!

It has made making dinners so much easier. I tend to cook healthier overall too. I can add chicken, whip up this sauce in a small bowl, close the lid and in less than 20 minutes it’s done. Seriously! If you’re looking for a healthy Instant Pot recipe that tastes amazing for dinner or even serve this as an appetizer in a bowl with some toothpicks on the side to snack on without the rice!

Use as much or as little Sriracha as you want to adjust the heat level, or leave it out entirely and make a sweet honey chicken, that would be amazing too.

Tips

If you really like heat like our Instant Pot Korean chicken just add more, or cut out entirely if it’s not your thing. I added large chunks of chicken to the pot knowing they would shrink a bit when cooking.

If you cut them smaller I would decrease the cook time to 3 minutes to maintain it’s moisture. You still want to give it time to soak up all the yummy sauce juices. That is the great thing about the pressure cooker function. You can use the same meat but create a different sauce and it is infused into the meat when it cooks.

It does it so quickly too and allows us to eat dinner as a family much more often because I can make a complete meal in about 20 minutes. Many of our easy air fryer recipes work the same way if you have that appliance too.

Spicy Honey Ninja Foodi Chicken

You can use a Instant Pot or any other pressure cooker. With an IP I HIGHLY suggest you get a non stick pot too, linked above because many times the burn notice will get triggered inaccurately which is prevented with this! The Ninja has a ceramic pot which works well as is. You will use the lid that is not attached to make it in a Foodi machine.

Ingredients

• Chicken thighs we love for this, diced
• Brown sugar will bring sweetness to the meat
• Honey is a sweet element as well
• Minced ginger & garlic brings the Asian flavors soar
• Soy sauce or amino acids are a gluten free option
• Sriracha – can leave out if you don’t want any heat
• Onions are optional
• Cornstarch can thicken the sauce

Substitutions

I have made this here with boneless skinless chicken breasts instead of chicken thighs meat if you preferred this. Nothing would change as far as timing either way. This time we diced it. You could cook whole like our Instant Pot spicy teriyaki chicken thighs but the timing would be longer.

Here’s how to make the perfect 2 Cups Instant Pot white rice to serve underneath, or make another grain of your choice.

Once everything is in the pot (minus the cornstarch) you just lock lid and pressure cook! Then do a quick pressure release once the beep goes off and enjoy the yumminess my friends. I start my rice before preparing this so everything is done at once. 😉

How to Make Instant Pot Spicy Honey Chicken

• Cut chicken into large bite size chunks and cut onion into chunks.
• Put chicken and onions into the Instant Pot or pressure cooker.
• Mix all other ingredients together (except the cornstarch) well with a fork and
• Pour on top.
• Close the lid and steam valve and set Instant Pot to high pressure, high, 4 minutes.
• Do a quick release and carefully lift lid.
• If you want a thicker gravy / sauce put some of the hot sauce in a small bowl with the cornstarch and whisk together
• Add back into the pot and stir.
• Set to saute, normal and let bubble for a few minutes.
• Allow to sit for a few minutes so the sauce thickens. We do the same with our Instant Pot sesame chicken and it works great.

This has become a popular way of serving this deliciousness. Many serve this over rice but you could serve it with pressure cooker quinoa to add protein, or even over noodles. I would not cook the grains and this spicy chicken together as the texture isn’t as pleasing.

Looking for more easy InstaPot recipes? We have a few more you have to try too like our Instant Pot Hawaiian chicken recipe that is so good that is also sweet and with diced meat cooked right in the sauce. Our pressure cooker apricot chicken is a family fave and much sweeter than either of these.

How to Serve

This spicy chicken is great served with Instant Pot broccoli to. It only takes 1 minute on high pressure! Keep in mind the sauce thickens in the last step when adding cornstarch. BUT will continue to thicken as it sits so just add a bit. Options to consider:

NO problem if you’d rather use boneless skinless diced chicken thighs instead of breasts. If you want to omit all of the heat by golly you can make it mild too. Just don’t add the Sriracha. Mushroom masala is a great side with this.