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Ready for the juiciest chicken breasts, perfectly cooked potatoes and braised kale in sweet balsamic glaze for dinner without even turning on the stove? Then this Instant Pot Balsamic Chicken is just what you need to make tonight! This dish is perfect for those hot steamy summer nights (or cool, lazy fall or winter ones) when you want to eat a home cooked meal but don’t want to heat up the house. It’s also gluten-free, paleo, low carb and whole30 friendly. Made in partnership with my friends at Farmer Focus!
Instant Pot Balsamic Chicken Dinner
This Balsamic Chicken Dinner recipe made in the Instant Pot doesn’t require a whole lot of actual hands-on cooking and the resulting dish is just SO delicious! Juicy chicken breasts, perfectly cooked potatoes and braised kale all covered in a savory and sweet balsamic glaze! This meal is perfect served as is for one of those hot steamy summer nights when you want a delicious dinner but do not want to turn on that oven or stove!
Why Cooking Dinner in the Instant Pot is the Best
We could sing praises all day about about why we love the Instant Pot, especially for easy dinners! This appliance isn’t just for making quick work of typically long braised dishes like beef barbacoa or pork carnitas. It’s also great for quick weeknight dinners that don’t actually require much hands-on cooking. This Instant Pot Balsamic Chicken dish is great for all of that. The recipe doesn’t require very much prep work aside from gathering some ingredients and washing off some produce. All that means an easy delicious meal without much effort.
A few notes to make this meal a success in the Instant Pot
- Make sure to get the right size potatoes.
- Don’t stack the chicken on top of one another when cooking, it can interfere with the chicken breasts cooking all the way through.
- Make sure to read the directions all the way before you begin cooking so you can have anything prepped that you need to make cooking go smoothly.
How to Clean Kale
How to Clean KaleKale, especially when it comes from the farm can be pretty gritty. To wash it:
- Take the hard part of the stems off of the kale. We usually just rip the leaf off the stem, but if you want you could cut it.
- Fill a large bowl with cool water.
- Submerge the kale leaves and swish around for 10 seconds.
- Let the kale sit for 1 minute in the cool water to let any grit sink to the bottom of the bowl.
- Without agitating the water too much, quickly pick up the kale directly out of the water, leaving behind any sand or dirt.
- Empty the water and rinse out the bowl and repeat this until step until the water is clear after you remove the kale.
What Size Potatoes to Use
Because we’re cooking this dinner up in the Instant Pot, it’s important to get the correct size potatoes. For this recipe we’re using a medley of small (or baby) potatoes, that are all about 1″ in size. If you are getting potatoes that are larger than this they may not cook up in the same amount of time if left whole. If you can’t find 1″ potatoes, you can cut up a potato to 1″ pieces.
I am so happy to partner with my friends at Farmer Focus to bring you this Instant Pot Balsamic Chicken recipe! Shenandoah Valley Organic (SVO) has been my go-to trusted, farmer focus, meat company for a few years now. SVO Farmer Focus prides themselves in producing the highest quality chickens grown on family-owned farms. You can 100% taste the difference.
If you are like me, choosing organic meat for my family that I can trust, that doesn’t have any added antibiotics or hormones is a top priority. It can be frustrating to go to the grocery store these days and *think* that you are picking up chicken that comes from an all-natural sounding brand that does things right, but then unfortunately if you look further into who owns that chicken company, you might be surprised to find out that it’s just the giant chicken manufacturer in this country.
I love that with Farmer Focus, you know that they are supporting their farmers and they are a company that is working hard to do things right. But not only that, they also truly raise and produce the highest quality chicken! Every SVO Farmer Focus product includes a 4-letter farm I.D. that traces your chicken to the farm that raised it, so you know it’s trusted and they are accountable.
SVO 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! Use their easy store locator to find where you can get this amazing quality chicken near you.
Watch the video here:
If you like this Instant Pot chicken recipe, check out these others:
- Instant Pot Lemon Chicken with Artichokes and Asparagus
- How to Cook a Whole Chicken in the Instant Pot
- Instant Pot Chicken Tikka Masala
- Honey Mustard Chicken Wings (Instant Pot or Baked)
BALSAMIC CHICKEN IN THE INSTANT POT
Ingredients
- 1-1/2 lbs. SVO Farmer Focus boneless chicken breasts
- 1/3 cup balsamic vinegar
- ¼ cup chicken stock
- 2 tablespoons olive oil
- 2 teaspoons italian seasoning
- 1 teaspoon salt
- ½ teaspoon pepper
- 16 ounces baby potatoes about 1” in diameter
- 1 red onion sliced
- 1 bunch of kale washed, destemmed, and roughly chopped
- 1-2 teaspoons arrowroot powder optional
Instructions
- Place chicken breasts, balsamic vinegar, chicken stock, olive oil, italian seasoning, salt, pepper and potatoes in the liner of a 6 or 8 quart Instant Pot. Mix together to combine and make sure that the chicken is not stacked on top of each other. Close the lid and set vent to sealing.
- Cook on manual high pressure for 8 minutes and once done use the quick release function. Remove chicken and potatoes and cover to keep warm and set aside.
- Add onion and kale to the pot. Close the lid and set to sealing and cook on manual high pressure for 3 minutes. Use the quick release function when done.
- Slice the chicken and divide on four plates along with potatoes and kale.
- If desired, you can thicken up the sauce at this point: Press the saute function. Add 1 teaspoon of arrowroot to a small bowl and scoop out some of the balsamic liquid and whisk it with the arrowroot to create a slurry. Return it to the pot and let cook until it has thickened, about 1 minute. Drizzle over the chicken and potatoes and serve hot!
Notes
- You do not need to thicken this sauce up, this step can be skipped and the sauce served as is. But if you prefer to have a thick sauce to coat you can use the arrowroot option. The amount of arrowroot you need will vary depending on how much liquid remains in the pot at the end (this varies). If 1 teaspoon is not enough you can add 1 teaspoon at a time as instructed until it's reached your desired consistency.
- If your chicken has cooled too quickly in between steps, place back in the pot when thickening up the sauce to warm up briefly.
Nutrition
This post is sponsored by Farmer Focus! All thoughts and opinions are always 100% my own! I love the integrity of their products and think you’ll love them too. Thank you for continuing to support LCK and the brands I work with!
This dish was one of the first we made in our new Instant Pot and it’s remained one of our favorites. It’s so easy and the flavors are outstanding. My husband is not the cook in our family but this recipe is one that he can do on his own, which gives me a nice night off – other than washing the dishes, and the bonus of this recipe is that it all cooks in one dish. As one of the reviewers noted too, the ingredients tend to be (for us) basic pantry staples so this is a dish we turn to when we’re out of ideas and just want something easy, healthy and delicious.
Would chicken thighs work as well?
Yes.
This was delicious and quick and easy to make.
Do you put lemon juice? If so how much? Thanks
I made this tonight. It is absolutely delicious. I only had two small chicken breasts, and I did not have any baby potatoes, but I had some wild rice already cooked so I just poured the sauce all over it. So simple. You need to make this! Wonderful weeknight meal.
can you do just the chicken? I have leftovers I want to add this to.
Sure!
What would you use in place of potatoes? Just don’t like :/
If I use frozen chicken breasts how would you adjust the cooking time?
Hi Karen–we have not tried this with frozen chicken breast and don’t know if this would would in tandem with this recipe. Let us know if you do try it. -Kelli
Is there anything other than arrowroot that can be used to thicken the sauce?
Tapioca starch or even cornstarch should work. -Kelli
I was wondering if I could use another vegetable beside kale. Not a fan of kale.
You can but the timing may be different than what is instructed for the kale!
Sounds great! Not a kale fan. Would Spinach work?
I made this in the crockpot and it was delicious! First time, my kale was bad so I made it without kale and it was yummy. The second time I had kale and it was still tasty! I cooked everything on low for 6 hours. I have a big Ninja slow cooker so it all fit fine. I used thighs one or maybe even both times. So juicy and flavorful!
I always love a whole 30 recipe that doesn’t require anything extra outside of my basic pantry staples and this was totally in. I didn’t have cable so I swapped it for green beans, cherry tomatoes, onions and baby carrots. I found this recipe to be so easy, quick and requiring minimal prep and dishes. It was also very adaptable and the veggies came out delicious! This is definitely going into my meal rotation.
I always love an easy whole 30 recipe that doesn’t require anything extra outside of my basic pantry staples. I made this recipe today and found it to be really easy and fast. I didn’t have kale so I use the veggies that I did have and it came out great. I think this recipe is super delicious and adaptable. I used frozen green beans, a sliced onion, cherry tomatoes and some baby carrots. This will definitely be in my meal rotation!
Being a mom to a 2yr old and 2 month old I don’t have much time to cook so I’m always looking for easy yet delicious, clean and quick meals. Lexi always come thru with her awesome meals but this one takes the cake. Super simple, tasty and super fast I’m the instapot. You get to eat protein, carbs and veggies all in under 30 min. The chicken came out so juicy and cooked to perfection. I’ll definitely be incorporating this into my weekly meals. Thank you Lexi!!
Can you make this in the crock pot instead?
Hi Kerry! We developed this one for the Instant Pot so we haven’t tested it in the slow cooker. But my educated guess is that you could cook everything on low for 6 hours or high for 3-4. Depending on the size of your slow cooker you may have to cook down the kale first so it fits in with everything. If you give it a try, please let us know how it goes!
This looks delicious, going to have to try.
We hope you love it as much as we do!