Instant Pot Honey Soy Chicken Thighs are an easy weeknight dinner recipe in your pressure cooker that is is loaded with delicious Asian inspired flavors!
Asian Inspired Pressure Cooker Chicken Thighs
Instant Pot honey soy chicken balances the sweet honey with the umami of soy sauce. Cooked in an electric pressure cooker, making it is easy and relatively quick. Plus, cleaning up after is easy too.
Serve this easy chicken thigh recipe with some brown rice and pickled cucumber salad for an easy and healthy dinner idea. Or make a comforting meal out of it with some fried rice and egg rolls!
Making Instant Pot Soy Honey Chicken
Once you accustomed to using an Instant Pot, then you pretty much want to use it for everything. Anything once cooked low and slow on the stovetop in a pot works in an Instant Pot. Don’t get me wrong, a great Dutch oven still works great and offers its charms, but an Instant Pot gets that slow cooked flavor in a fraction of the time.
Time to get a meal on the table, and appetites getting antsy, then a dish like Instant Pot honey soy chicken thighs just can’t be beat.
Tips For Making Glazed Chicken In a Pressure Cooker
Make sure the Instant Pot is preheated to start. Next, allow the chicken skin to nicely browned. You want it nicely crisped up in the hot oil before you add the lid. If the chicken is sticking to the pot, then it isn’t ready to flip.
Wait until the pot releases the thigh on its own easily. If you dig it up with a spatula then it isn’t ready. That will only damage the skin and make it harder to clean to pot later.
Don’t worry about it burning unless you stop paying attention to it completely. You can sort of actually hear when it is ready if you pay close attention, because the sound of the sizzle changes.
Cooking With Honey
Honey is a wonderful ingredient, but it can be sort of fickle to use in cooking. Because it burns easily, which can bring out an unpleasant bitterness, it is best to mix it into the glaze then just finish the chicken with it, but not leave it under the heat too long.
Heating honey too long can actually break it down and isn’t good. If you do happen to overheat the honey and you taste a distinct bitterness, then wash off the glaze and start over.
The best way to avoid any issues is to keep the temp a bit lower when you mix it with the soy, then use it to glaze the chicken, but let the leftover heat of the cooked chicken create the glazing effect. You don’t need to crank the heat back up to get it to glaze like is sometimes necessary with other non-honey based glazes.
Can I cook riced with my chicken
If you love making a meal all in one pot as much as I do, you can add a small bowl of rice to the top of the chicken before sealing the lid and cooking. Simply follow the directions from this Instant Pot Chicken Fajita recipe, where you add 1 cup white rice and 1 cup water to an oven safe bowl.
Cook for the 10 minutes that the recipe calls for and then allow a 10 minute natural release. Remove the bowl of rice and fluff with a fork. With only a few more minutes of cooking time, you complete your wholesome meal!
More Instant Pot Chicken Recipes
Hope you enjoy Instant Pot honey soy chicken! Instant Pots offer a very low pressure way to do pressurized cooking. So, nice to have a few recipes up your sleeve to make good use of it.
- Instant Pot Chili Lime Chicken Tacos – Whip up these easy and flavorful tacos the whole family will love
- 10 Healthy Chicken Recipes in a Pressure Cooker – From Thai Peanut to Balsamic, there are so many great way to prepare chicken breasts.
- Instant Pot Chicken Ramen – Make a bowl of this comforting soup for a fantastic dinner.
- Healthy Pressure Cooker White Chicken Chili Soup – This warm bowl of goodness is full of tender chicken, vegetables and a bit of spice.
Instant Pot Honey Soy Chicken Thighs
Instant Pot honey soy chicken makes a great dish you can do in around 30 minutes with Asian inspired flavors and the convenience of pressure cooking.
Ingredients
Chicken
- 4 bone-in, skin-on chicken thighs
- 1 tablespoon olive oil
Honey Soy Sauce
- ¼ cup soy sauce
- 1/4 cup water
- 2 garlic cloves, minced (about 2 teaspoons)
- 1 teaspoon grated ginger
- 1 teaspoon toasted sesame oil
- ½ teaspoon sriracha, or to taste
- 2 teaspoons cornstarch, divided
- 1 tablespoon honey
Optional
- Sesame seeds and sliced green onion, to garnish
- Rice, to serve
Instructions
- Heat the Instant Pot using the Saute-Normal function. Season the chicken thighs lightly with salt and pepper.
- Add the olive oil to the Instant Pot. Once it is hot and fragrant, add the chicken thighs, skin side down. Allow the chicken thighs to cook for 3-5 minutes, or until the skin has started to crisp and turn golden brown. The chicken should release easily from the pan - if you have to pull, it’s not ready to flip yet.
- Flip the chicken thighs over and cook for an additional minute.
- In a small bowl, combine the soy sauce, water, garlic, 1 teaspoon cornstarch, ginger, sesame oil, and sriracha. Pour the sauce over the chicken.
- Attach the lid and ensure the valve is in the sealing position. Set the Instant Pot to Pressure Cook-Manual-High Pressure for 10 minutes.
- Once the Instant Pot has finished cooking, release the steam manually by switching the valve to the “venting” position.
- Note: Be careful! The vent will steam and may splatter.
- Remove the chicken thighs and turn the Instant Pot to the Saute-Normal function.
- Combine 2 teaspoons of the cooking liquid with the remaining 1 teaspoon of cornstarch. Add the slurry to the Instant Pot and whisk it to ensure no lumps of cornstarch remain. Cook 3-5 minutes, or until the sauce has thickened enough to coat the back of a spoon. Whisk in the honey and turn off the heat.
- Return the chicken thighs to the pot and coat them generously with sauce.
- Serve the chicken thighs with rice and additional sauce, if desired. Garnish with sesame seeds and green onions, if desired.
- Store any leftover chicken in an airtight container in the refrigerator.
Notes
To make Pot in Pot (PIP) rice with this chicken, do the following,
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Nutrition Information:
Yield: 4 Serving Size: 1Amount Per Serving: Calories: 235Total Fat: 13gSaturated Fat: 3gTrans Fat: 0gUnsaturated Fat: 10gCholesterol: 42mgSodium: 952mgCarbohydrates: 20gFiber: 1gSugar: 5gProtein: 11g
Provided nutrition data is only an estimate. If you are tracking these nutrients for medical purposes, please consult an outside, trusted source.
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