This spicy honey Instant Pot chicken takes just 4 minutes to cook and comes out moist and full of flavor! Sweet and spicy chicken bites smothered in delicious sauce which we love atop a bed of rice. A great healthy pressure cooker dinner our whole family enjoys.
Ever since I got my fancy pressure cooker I have been fiddling with new Instant Pot recipes and have come up with many that are so quick and my family loves! This spicy honey Instant Pot chicken is one of our favorites though! (affiliate link present, originally published 6/17)
Honey Instant Pot Chicken
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! We’ve also done this with other simple ingredients like in our Instant Pot black pepper chicken from Panda Express.
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.
FIRST – You should sign up for my free newsletter so you get new posts emailed to you twice a week and never miss out on anything! Now 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.
- This is a great InstaPot cookbook and a set of wooden utensils are great to grab too.
- I HIGHLY recommend you buy this non stick pot.
- You should still deglaze pressure cooker after sautéing but it won’t have as many issues with this better liner.
For reference, this is the pressure cooker I have (a 6 quart) and use for all recipe creations.

Instant Pot Honey Garlic Chicken
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.
Instant Pot Spicy Honey chicken
If you really like heat 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.


Ninja Foodi Honey Garlic Chicken
- Instant Pot or any other pressure cooker
- I HIGHLY suggest you get a non stick pot too!
Chicken breasts – boneless skinless, could use chicken thighs meat if you preferred
- Brown sugar
- Honey
- Minced ginger & garlic
- Soy sauce

Spicy Honey Garlic Chicken
- Sriracha – can leave out if you don’t want any heat
- Onion
- Cornstarch
- Here’s how to make the perfect Instant Pot white rice
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. 😉
- Cut chicken breasts 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 of chicken.
- Close the lid and steam valve and set Instant Pot to manual, 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, then add back into the pot and stir. Set Instant Pot to saute, normal and let bubble for a few minutes. Allow to sit for a few minutes so the sauce thickens.

Honey Garlic Chicken Instant Pot
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
- Our pressure cooker apricot chicken is a family fave
We love this Instant Pot sesame chicken and Instant Pot Korean chicken too
- Instant Pot chicken noodle soup
- Try our Instant Pot spicy teriyaki chicken thighs
- Mushroom masala looks good too
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.
We serve this over rice but you could serve it with perfect quinoa or even noodles.

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Spicy Honey Instant Pot Chicken
Ingredients
- 4 chicken breasts cut into bite size chunks
- 1 tbsp brown sugar
- 3 tbsp honey
- 1 tbsp minced ginger
- 1.5 tbsp minced garlic
- 1/4 c soy sauce
- 1 tbsp Sriracha or more if you want it really spicy
- 1 tsp Worcestershire Sauce
- 1/2 onion sliced or diced
- 1 tbsp sesame seeds optional to top
- 2 green onions optional to top
- 2 tbsp cornstarch
Instructions
- Cut chicken breasts 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 of chicken.
- Close the lid and steam valve and set Instant Pot to manual, pressure, high, 4 minutes.
- Do a quick release and carefully lift lid.
- Put some of the hot sauce in a small bowl with the cornstarch and whisk together, then add back into the pot and stir.
- Set Instant Pot to saute, normal and let bubble for a few minutes.
- Allow to sit for a few minutes so the sauce thickens.
- Serve spicy honey chicken over rice.
Video

Becky
Saturday 27th of August 2022
Approx how many pounds of chicken did you use?
Dale
Saturday 29th of January 2022
How can you write an instant pot recipe that does not contain a liquid?
The Typical Mom
Sunday 30th of January 2022
Well the soy sauce and Worcestershire are liquids, and the raw chicken will release quite a bit of liquid which is why it works. Trust me, it's been made thousands of times and everyone loves it
Rebecca
Tuesday 7th of September 2021
This was a hit with both sophisticated palate adults and picky kids! I had to cook it for about 8 minutes; after 4 the chicken in the middle was still raw so I ran it another time. Any idea why?
The Typical Mom
Thursday 9th of September 2021
Pieces must have been too large, they should be cubed into small bite size pieces
Ann Swackhamer
Saturday 1st of May 2021
Hi I made this dinner tonight and it turned out perfect. I just hade replaced the Siracha sauce with sweet thai chili sauce For my first dinner in the instant pot I have to say it turned out great and everyone just loved it. Your video was so easy to follow and am looking forward to other recipes to try thank you do much :)
The Typical Mom
Sunday 2nd of May 2021
Glad it was a hit
Carrie
Sunday 13th of September 2020
Just made this tonight for dinner and it was an instant hit! I used less sweetener and it was still a bit sweet for us, so next time I'll use a bit less honey. We didn't have a few items so I made some substitutions with great success: chili garlic sauce instead of Sriracha, splash of garlic olive oil instead of garlic, chicken thighs instead of breasts. I roasted veggies and served the chicken over the veggies and rice. Wow!! This is definitely going into the rotation!