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Switch up taco night and make Instant Pot Chicken Fajitas your new go-to easy weeknight dinner. Simple to prepare by adding sliced chicken, peppers and onions to your pressure cooker and then cooking with the push of a button. It can even be optionally prepared ahead of time and stored in the freezer (hello “dump” dinners). Serve with all your favorite fajita fixin’s! Made in partnership with my friends at Farmer Focus!
Instant Pot Chicken Fajitas
We are all about super simple weeknight dinners here, and this Instant Pot Chicken Fajitas checks all of those boxes. It takes minimal amount of time to prepare, is cooked using our favorite hands-off cooking kitchen gadget and is SO DELICIOUS. But the bonus? This can be prepared in batches ahead of time and stored in the freezer for the ultimate fast, healthy dinner. We’re talking another great dump dinner idea with this fajita recipe!
The truth is, fajitas are already a pretty quick dinner idea. But what makes cooking them in the Instant Pot so unique, especially when prepared ahead of time as a dump dinner, is that it truly is a place-all-the-ingredients-in-the-pressure-cooker dinner, set a button and walk away until you hear it beep. Some weeknights, especially when you have a busy family, are too chaotic to think about cooking. But everyone needs a healthy delicious dinner, so this recipe is good to have on hand.
Serve the chicken fajitas with ALL the fixin’s (or the ones that are easy) like avocado, cheddar cheese, cilantro, shredded lettuce and cauliflower rice.
How to Make a Dump Freezer Dinner
So let’s talk a little bit about the concept of a “dump” dinner!
A dump dinner is recipe that doesn’t really require too many steps in terms of preparation before it is cooked. Typically you just gather the ingredients, with minimal chopping, and dump them into the cooking equipment. Usually this is either a slow cooker, a stock pot or an Instant Pot. A Freezer Dump Dinner is a meal that is gathered ahead of time and frozen. When you want to cook it, you defrost in the refrigerator overnight and then dump the meal in the cooking vessel when ready to cook!
For this recipe, it will work either way. Gather all off the ingredients for the Instant Pot Chicken Fajitas and either prepare one (or more) batches ahead of time and freeze, or gather up all the ingredients and cook immediately in the Instant Pot.
Ingredients Needed
- Chicken
- Bell Peppers
- Onion
- Spices
- Lime
- Salt
- Tomato Paste
A Note about the Amount of Liquid
Typically, Instant Pot recipes require a minimum of 1/2 a cup of liquid to work. This recipe doesn’t require any added liquid, minus lime juice. We originally started testing this with 1/2 cup of added liquid and the Instant Pot Chicken Fajitas quickly turned into soup, so we kept testing less and less liquid until we discovered that there was no added liquid needed because the peppers, onions and chicken release so much. We’ve tested this in 3 different types of Instant Pots, including an Instant Pot that has the “burn notification” ability. We never ran into a problem of there not being enough liquid released before the dish came up to pressure, and nothing ever burned.
If you are really concerned, you can add in liquid, but it will result in more of a soup than fajitas.
Why We’re All About Good Quality Chicken
Why We’re All About Good Quality ChickenI am so happy to partner again with my friends at Farmer Focus to bring you today’s easy Instant Pot chicken recipe! Farmer Focus has been my go-to, trusted chicken for years now, because they pride themselves in producing the highest quality meat grown on family-owned farms. I love being able to grab up a package of Farmer Focus chicken at the grocery store and not having to question whether it is truly coming from meat raised in a humane way.
Farmer Focus is building partnerships with growers through their innovative Farmer Focus Business Model
Farmer Focus is a company that supports their farmer partners and that is working hard to do things right and truly raise and produce the highest quality chicken! Every Farmer Focus product includes a 4-letter farm I.D. that traces your chicken to the farm that raised it. Buying meat from Farmer Focus also gives me peace of mind that I am supporting hard working family farmers.
Farmer Focus chickens are humanely raised and fed a diet free from animal byproducts, pesticides, and antibiotics. On their website you can see where all of the farms are located, so you know just where your chicken was raised! How awesome is that?!
You can also use their easy store locator to find where you can get this amazing quality chicken near you.
Fajita Toppings
Fajita Toppings- Scallions
- Avocado Slices
- Cheese
- Cilantro
- Diced or Marinated Onions
- Cilantro
- Diced Tomatoes
- Guacamole
- Shredded Lettuce or Cabbage
- Sour Cream
If you like this Instant Pot Chicken recipe, check out these others:
- Instant Pot Chicken Adobo
- Instant Pot Chicken Tikka Masala
- Instant Pot Chicken Cacciatore
- Instant Pot Cheesy Chicken, Broccoli and Rice
Watch the video:
INSTANT POT CHICKEN FAJITAS
Ingredients
- 1-½ pounds FARMER FOCUS boneless skinless chicken breasts, sliced into ½” strips
- 1 red bell pepper cored and sliced in ½” strips
- 1 green bell pepper cored and sliced in ½” strips
- 1 onion sliced
- 1 tablespoon chili powder
- 1-1/2 teaspoon fine sea salt
- ½ teaspoon ground black pepper
- ½ teaspoon smoked paprika
- ½ teaspoon cumin
- ¼ teaspoon cayenne optional
- 2 tablespoons lime juice from 1 lime
- 1 tablespoon tomato paste
Instructions
- Add chicken, peppers, onion, chili powder, salt, pepper, paprika, cumin, cayenne and lime juice to the Instant Pot and mix together. Place the tomato paste on top without stirring. Cover and set the steam valve to sealing. Cook on manual high pressure for 6 minutes, then manually release the pressure.
- Stir together the chicken and serve immediately with tortillas and desired toppings.
Notes
- To make it a dump freezer meal prep: Gather your ingredients and place everything in a gallon sized freezer bag and seal tightly. Storage flat in the freezer. To defrost, place in the refrigerator the night before and cook according to instructions.
Followed the recipe but added a small can of green chiles. Turned out excellent! Will definitely make this again. Thank you for the recipe
What a great add and i’m so glad you enjoyed it!
Amazing! Delicious! Quick and easy dinner and clean up too!
What if I don’t have tomato paste on hand, can I substitute?
Thank you.
If you double this recipe, do you double the time? Thanks!!
No! You typically don’t double the time for Instant Pot recipes.
Just finished eating. Whole family loved it. The chicken came out loaded with flavor. My picky son even came back for more, twice! Thanks!
is this enough liquid to get the pot to pressure? I thought it took a cup to allow for the pressure to build. I know the veggies will release some, but not till after cooking begins.
Hi Sarah. Typically, Instant Pot recipes do require a minimum of 1/2 a cup of liquid to work, but this one doesn’t need it because the peppers, onions and chicken release so much liquid. If you cook it with the added liquid you’ll end up with soup. We’ve tested this in 3 different types of Instant Pots, including an Instant Pot that has the “burn notification” ability. We never ran into a problem of there not being enough liquid released before the dish came up to pressure, and nothing ever burned. Hope that helps! -Kelli
Can you use a slow cooker?
We haven’t tested it but if I were to guess I’d suggest to try 3-4 hours on high and 4-6 on low. The recipe doesn’t have liquid called for in the Instant Pot because the onions, peppers and chicken all release a ton of liquid. My best guess is that it would work the same in the Instant Pot but I’d suggest monitoring it the first time you try to make sure it doesn’t burn on the bottom before it releases the liquid. Let us know how it goes! -Kelli