A delicious 15-minute Instant Pot Lemon Chicken the whole family will love! Crispy chicken thighs with potatoes and asparagus and a lemony sauce.
People on Instagram went absolutely nuts over the Slow-Cooker Lemon Chicken I posted a couple weeks ago. It’s an incredibly delicious recipe and I’ve had several requests to convert it to an Instant Pot recipe.
Turns out it’s actually super easy to make Instant Pot Lemon Chicken. The best part: it only needs 15 minutes + natural pressure release. Then another 2 minutes of steaming with a quick release during which you will have enough time to put those chicken thighs under the broiler so the skin crisps up and gets nice and brown.
How to Make Instant Pot Lemon Garlic Chicken
So the one “issue” I had with converting the slow-cooker version into this Instant Pot version was the liquid situation. The slow-cooker can pretty much cook with like close to no liquid. The pressure cooker, however, needs to be filled with the minimum required liquid so it can come to pressure.
For my 6-quart this happens to be 1 cup of liquid. From what I’ve been told, for the 8-quart it’s even 2 cups. If you are making this in an 8 quart I actually recommend doubling the whole recipe.
In order to not “water down” the delicious lemon sauce, I opted for chicken broth and only as little as possible. For that, I recommend adding your oil and lemon juice to a measuring cup and only then pour in some chicken broth until you just reach 1 cup (see video).
Remember the chicken will also release quite some liquid during the cooking process.
Be generous with your garlic to make it a real Instant Pot Lemon Garlic Chicken and the smell drool-worthy.
How to Thicken the Instant Pot Lemon Chicken Sauce
Something I didn’t show in the video is how I ended up thickening the sauce so it’s like a nice gravy.
I keep going back and forth with wanting to and not wanting to add corn starch to gravies. It’s not a clean ingredient. Corn starch is highly processed.
However, I just haven’t found any alternative that works as well as a corn starch slurry.
In some recipes, I opt to simply leave sauces liquid and in others, I choose to not care that corn starch isn’t a clean and unprocessed ingredient.
One thing is for sure, if you want a creamy gravy that sticks to your food, remove all food from the pot, leaving the juices behind, add a tablespoon corn starch and a tablespoon of cold water to a small bowl and whisk until completely smooth and then pour the slurry into the juices and bring everything to a boil while constantly stirring or whisking.
After about 3 minutes of boiling your gravy will be amazing!
Instant Pot Lemon Chicken
Ingredients
- 1 lemon
- 4 chopped cloves garlic
- 2 Tbsp olive oil
- 2 Tbsp honey
- sea salt
- pepper
- 1/2 Tbsp fresh thyme leaves (optional but recommended)
- 3/4 cup chicken broth
- 1 sliced red onion
- 1-1.5 lbs halved baby potatoes (or new potatoes) - important! NO OTHER potatoes
- 4 large bone-in skin-on chicken thighs
- 1 bunch asparagus
- 1 Tbsp corn starch
Instructions
- Add the zest of the lemon, lemon juice, olive oil, honey, garlic, and thyme (if using) to a measuring cup and add sea salt and pepper to taste.
- Then add just enough chicken broth to the measuring cup until you reach exactly 1 cup (if using a 6 quart). (If using an 8-quart I recommend doubling the recipe or using the pot in pot method).
- Add sauce to the bottom of your Instant Pot, then add sliced onion and halved baby potatoes and then place chicken thighs on top in one layer.
- Put on the lid and turn the valve to the sealing position and set the Instant Pot to 15 minutes on high pressure.
- After the 15 minutes let pressure release naturally.
- Once the safety pin dropped, open the pot and remove the chicken thighs and put them on a baking sheet under the broiler for 3-5 minutes or until the skin is nice and brown and crisp.
- In the meantime, add asparagus to the instant pot, put on the lid and seal it, and depending on the thickness of the asparagus "steam" it for 1-2 minutes and manually release the pressure.
- You can now serve everything with the liquid sauce OR you can create a more gravy-like sauce by adding 1 Tbsp corn starch and 1 Tbsp cold water to a small bowl and whisk until smooth. Then add slurry to the sauce in the instant pot, hit the soup or saute button and bring the sauce to a boil while constantly stirring or whisking. Within a couple of minutes, the sauce will thicken up. Serve over chicken and potatoes.
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Karla says
Thank you!! My lemon chicken turned out great! This was only the 2nd time I had used my instant pot. I followed your recipe exactly and the chicken was crisp and the potatoes and asparagus were perfect steamed for 1 minute. I made the gravy with the corn starch and it was wonderful also. I had read some comments that it wasn’t as lemony as they liked so I added an extra 2 tbsp of lemon juice and it was perfect!
Lorena says
Awesome! Thank you for your lovely comment. It makes me so happy when people try and like my recipe :)
Kathryn Neeley says
Wanted to love this. So bland. Texture of chicken not good. Potatoes overdone. Bummer.
Lorena says
I’m so sad to read it didn’t work out for you. Did you use baby potatoes? Other potatoes will not hold their shape. Did you add the lemon zest? Enough salt and pepper. Blandness comes from not adding enough seasoning or using unseasoned chicken stock. Did you add the chicken thighs to the broiler at the end?
Maria Cramer says
Hi Lorena!
Just wondering if you can somehow do this one with a whole chicken?
Thanks!
Lorena says
yes, absolutely! A whole chicken takes 8 hours on low.
Donna says
We do not eat white potatoes, could I do same time with carrots? Or just cook the chicken only.
Lorena says
Yes! Either. Carrots work great in this recipe and celery, too. Or simply just the chicken.
Cheryl says
This was an awesome recipe. I used baby Dutch potatoes from Trader Joe’s. I put the chicken and potatoes on a foil covered baking sheet and broiled them so the skin and the potatoes were crispy. I did steam the asparagus for 2 minutes but it over cooked the asparagus. Next time I will just turn on the sauté feature and cook it in the sauce until it is the doneness I prefer. I did thicken the sauce after I took the asparagus out. The sauce on the chicken and potatoes was amazing. Will definitely make this again. Took about an hour start to finish. Next time I’ll try the slow cooker method.
Lorena says
I like the slow-cooker version better because we can use less liquid. I’m happy you liked this version so much though :)
Jo says
Hi can you make this recipe if you don’t have a pressure cooker or crock pot? I have a casserole dish?
Lorena says
Yes! Absolutely. You can stir fry the onion, then add all the ingredients, reduce heat to lowest setting possible, put on the lid and let simmer for approximately 30 or until potatoes and chicken are cooked through. Add asparagus, put on lid and let steam 10-15 minutes.
Manda says
Hello! Am i supposed to empty the pot completely of the potatoes and chicken/sauce before adding asparagus?
Lorena says
No, I leave it all in there.
Eunice says
Hi, can I use boneless thighs ? Please & thanks !
Lorena says
Yes! No problem :)
mel says
i just used tapioca flour for a slurry
Kathi says
What is the slow cooker method of doing this for those people who don’t have an instant cooker?
Lorena says
I link to it in the third sentence of the blog post :)
Julia says
Hey Lorena – even though IP clearly states that it needs a cup of liquid to come to pressure, I have been cooking very successfully with as little as quarter cup of liquid or (gasp) no liquid at all if there are a lot of vegetables which release tons of liquid as the pot heats up. It all depends on your particular IP model also. Some are notorious for giving a burn notice if you look at them funny :)
Lorena says
That’s super interesting Julia!! Thank you so much for the info! I will definitely give this a try. I certainly have the “right” pots. I’ve never seen the dreaded burn warning ever.
Tricia Perez says
Have you tried raw potato flour to make a slurry? It’s clean and it’s a prebiotic!
terunja says
or arrowroot
Morgan says
Delicious recipe! I have a 6 quart and followed all steps. My potatoes did come out mush, so i ended up making a “mashed potato”. Also, my asparagus also came out extremely mushy so i’m bummed about that, but trial and error! My asparagus spears were pretty thick so I steamed for 2 minutes on the trivet. Next time, I will do 1 minute or less.
Nonetheless, loved this recipe and will making this again. So easy and budget/family friendly.
Lorena says
Thank you Morgan, did you use “new potatoes” or “baby potatoes”? It doesn’t work with any potatoes that have a higher starch content. It has to be potatoes with low starch content. Also, did you hit “steam” for the asparagus (not pressure cook) and did you do a quick release after the steaming? I’m happy you still liked the recipe.
Lauren says
Can this recipe be made with more potatoes and more chicken? We are a family of five. Can I have two layers of chicken?
Lorena says
Hi Lauren, YES!! You can absolutely do that. No need to change the cooking time.
Cheryl says
Thank you for sharing this recipe! Could I use boneless chicken breast instead of thighs? If, so would I need to cook them a little bit longer?
Lorena says
I don’t recommend cooking chicken breasts in the instant pot, they turn out super rubbery. Thigh meat is way more forgiving with pressure cooking heat.
John MacLeod says
Hello,
I would like to try your new Lemon Chicken Instant Pot recipe in a 8 qt pot without doubling. You mentioned to use the Pot in Pot technique.
In order to use this technique, I assume I would put all the ingredients in the inner pot minus the extra chicken broth, and then place this pot on a trivet inside the Instant Pot. I would then simply add two cups of water to the bottom of the Instant pot to generate enough steam.
Am I interpreting this technique correctly? Would you still use Chicken Broth instead of water as some will still mix into the sauce?
Thanks for you reply.
Lorena says
Hi John, so here is what I would do. Add the olive oil, lemon juice, zest (fresh thyme if you like), sea salt and pepper to a small heatproof pot, then the onion, potatoes, chicken thighs. Add 2 cups water to your instant pot pot, place the trivet in the pot and then place your small pot on top of the trivet and set to 15 minutes high pressure + NPR. The juices of the chicken + lemon and olive oil are more than enough “sauce”. You can then make the gravy with just the juices of the chicken/lemon/olive oil and a corn starch slurry or leave the sauce as is. Omit the chicken broth altogether.