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Falling off the bone in less than 30 minutes, this “roasted” chicken recipe is the perfect quick and easy dinner!

Almost 6 years ago Kev and I got a pressure cooker as a wedding present from some dear friends and it ended up sitting in our closet for a good 6 months – I was terrified of it!! They even gave us the receipt if we wanted to return it (probably after seeing the look of sheer terror on my face after opening it ;)).

I think the first time I cooked in it I started small with simple oatmeal. Oatmeal turned into tomato soup which turned into all sorts of vegetables which turned into simple desserts and then I took the leap into full time pressure cooking with large pieces of meat. For quite a few months, I hardly used another appliance and it was nothing but pressure cooker 24/7.

Sometimes I use my pressure cooker for convenience or sometimes I use it because it makes some darn good tasty food. When I can cook a whole chicken in the pressure cooker in under 45 minutes or a pork shoulder in about the same and I literally can’t get it out of the pressure cooker in one piece because it completely falls apart, I don’t see a reason to use any other method!

I read this article today about the health benefits of pressure cooking and if it’s any better or worse for you than conventional cooking. After numerous studies, it’s been deduced that using your pressure cooker retains 90-95% of the vitamins in your food, compared to 40-90% using other methods.

Don’t get me wrong, I love to make all different types of recipes, and depending on the amount of time I have for a meal I might stray away from the pressure cooker. When I only have 30 minutes to make dinner though and I want to be eating as nutritiously as possible, chances are you’ll see me throwing everything into the big black pot and waiting for the magic to happen.

Now for the chicken! I prep my whole chicken by washing it inside and out, then patting it dry and rubbing it liberally with my favorite seasoning mixture and butter. It gets lowered into my pressure cooker on the trivet then cooks for 6 minutes per lb of chicken, followed by a natural pressure release. Sometimes it’s tricky getting the chicken out of the pot because the meat is so fall off the bone tender, but I suppose that’s a good problem to have!

The other beautiful thing about this method is that after you fish all your meat out of the pot, you can throw in some chopped veggies (celery, carrot, onion, more garlic, peppercorns, etc.), pour in a couple more cups of water, then bring it back up to pressure for an hour and it creates a gorgeous chicken broth! It’s the most flavorful and gelatinous broth I’ve ever had – 5 STARS.

Enjoy!

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Pressure Cooker Whole Chicken

  • Author: Kitschen Cat
  • Total Time: 50 mins
  • Yield: 8
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Description

Falling off the bone in less than 30 minutes, this “roasted” chicken recipe is the perfect quick and easy dinner!

Ingredients

Scale
  • 1 3-4lb whole chicken
  • 2 tablespoons butter (affiliate), melted
  • 1 tablespoon kosher salt
  • 1 tablespoon paprika
  • 1 teaspoon garlic powder
  • 1 teaspoon onion powder
  • 1 teaspoon dried rosemary
  • 1 teaspoon dried thyme
  • 1 teaspoon black pepper

Instructions

  1. Place trivet into pressure cooker and add 1 cup of water to bottom of pot.
  2. In a small bowl, mix together melted butter and all spices, then rub it all over the outside of your chicken.
  3. Lower chicken onto trivet and set to high pressure for 6 minutes per every lb of chicken. For a 4lb chicken, you will set your time to 24 minutes.
  4. When time is up, let pressure naturally release for 10 minutes, then release all remaining pressure.
  5. Carefully remove chicken from instant pot and place in your oven under your broiler for 5 minutes or until skin begins to brown.
  6. Let rest for 10 minutes then cut and serve.
  • Prep Time: 5 mins
  • Cook Time: 45 mins

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2 thoughts on “Pressure Cooker “Roasted” Whole Chicken”

  1. I literally just did this last night. It came out a little tough, but I may have cooked it too long. We are using it for soup tomorrow, so it won’t really matter. Keep the pressure cooker recipes coming!

    1. Mine was the first time too. I think I did 8 minutes per lb instead of 6 and found that was a little too long. 6-7/lbs seems to be the magic number, depending on your pressure cooker!

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