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This Instant Pot Chicken Adobo is a take on the classic Filipino dish that results in tangy and savory chicken. We cook it in the Instant Pot to make it quickly with hands-off-cooking. It’s perfect for nights you need a healthy dinner but don’t feel like cooking. It’s also gluten-free, Paleo, low carb and Whole30 friendly. Made in partnership with my friends at Farmer Focus!

Chicken Adobo Instant Pot Recipe

You are loving our the Instant Pot chicken dinners we’ve been sharing (here and here) and we know this Chicken Adobo will be no exception! This Chicken Adobo recipe takes a spin on the classic Filipino tangy dish and uses the Instant Pot to cook it quick! This dish uses simple ingredients but it’s so flavorful! It’s paired with some broccoli and red peppers to make it a complete dinner and all done with largely no hands-on cooking. I’d call that a win!

This meal is pretty low-carb on its own, but if you’d like you can serve it alongside quinoa, rice or cauliflower rice.

What is Chicken Adobo?

If you aren’t familiar with chicken adobo you may be wondering if it’s at all related to the canned adobo chili peppers. Short answer: it’s not! It is completely different than that, and stems from a completely different culture. This Filipino dish is typically made by marinating and braising meat in vinegar, soy sauce, and lots of garlic and seasoning. The resulting chicken dish is a fall-off-the-bone flavorful meat that is both savory and tangy. We’ve taken the spirit of the dish and used a quick cooking method, with boneless meat, to make for an easy weeknight dinner that has a similar flavor!

Ingredients Needed

  • Farmer Focus boneless chicken thighs
  • Coconut aminos
  • Apple cider vinegar
  • Honey (omit for Whole30)
  • Garlic
  • Salt and Pepper
  • Bay leaves
  • Broccoli
  • Red Bell Pepper

ingredients for adobo chicken

We could sing praises all day 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 Chicken Adobo dish is great for all of that. The recipe doesn’t require very much prep work aside from gathering some ingredients, chopping up the broccoli and red pepper and washing off some produce. All that means an easy delicious meal without much effort.

How to Thicken the Sauce in an Instant Pot

As much as we love the Instant Pot (see above) it doesn’t evaporate liquid as other cooking methods do, so if you want a rich and thick sauce you either need to reduce it or thicken it. Our go-to method for thickening is to make a slurry with either tapioca or arrowroot starch and then add it to the sauce at the end of cooking and reduce until we’ve reached our desired consistency.

The amount of liquid in your sauce is going to vary based on how much liquid the chicken releases, so the amount of thickening and reducing you will need to do will vary too. Know that the longer you cook your sauce, the more it will reduce and the more flavorful it will become.

Chicken adobo in the instant pot fully cooked

The Best Chicken We Know

I am so happy to partner 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.

These days you can go to the grocery store 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.

Farmer Focus is building partnerships with growers through their innovative Farmer Focus Business Model

I love that with Farmer Focus you know that they are supporting their farmer partners and they are a company 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. I love this! So aside from the best quality chicken (truly), Farmer Focus also delivers the 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!

You can also use their easy store locator to find where you can get this amazing quality chicken near you.

Two plates of adobo chicken

If you like this chicken recipe, check out these others:

If you like this Instant Pot Recipe, check out these others:

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Instant Pot Chicken Adobo

5 from 1 vote
This Instant Pot Chicken Adobo is take on the classic Filipino dish that results in tangy and savory chicken. We cook it in the Instant Pot to make it quick and hands-off-cooking, perfect for nights you need a healthy dinner but don't feel like cooking. It’s also gluten-free, Paleo, low carb and Whole30 friendly.
Servings 4
Prep Time 10 minutes
Cook Time 9 minutes
Total Time 34 minutes

Ingredients
  

  • 1-1/2 lb. Farmer Focus boneless chicken thighs
  • cup coconut aminos
  • 1/2 cup apple cider vinegar
  • 1 teaspoon honey
  • 4 garlic cloves
  • ½ teaspoon salt
  • 1 teaspoon black pepper
  • 2 bay leaves
  • 2 heads broccoli 16 ounces, cut into florets
  • 1 red bell pepper sliced
  • 1-2 teaspoons arrowroot starch
  • Scallion for garnish

Instructions

  • Place chicken thighs, coconut aminos, vinegar, honey, garlic cloves, salt, pepper and bay leaves in 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. 
  • Cook on manual high pressure for 9 minutes and once done use the quick release function. Remove chicken and cover to keep warm and set aside.
  • Add broccoli and red pepper to the pot, cover the lid and set to sealing and cook on manual LOW pressure for 0 minutes. Use the quick release function when done.
  • Slice the chicken and divide on four plates along with broccoli and red pepper.
  • 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 adobo sauce 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 vegetables and serve hot! If desired, serve with rice or quinoa.

Notes

If your sauce has not thickened enough with 1 teaspoon, you can add another or continue to cook until it has reached your desired consistency.
Omit honey for Whole30.
Want to make this in the slow cooker? Cook it on high for 2-3 hours or low for 5-6 hours.

Nutrition

Serving: 1/4 recipeCalories: 321kcalCarbohydrates: 17gProtein: 22gFat: 17gSaturated Fat: 5gCholesterol: 95mgSodium: 416mgFiber: 2gSugar: 2g
Course: Dinner
Cuisine: Gluten-free, Paleo, whole30
Author: Lexi

This post is sponsored by Shenandoah Valley Organic! 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!



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Comments

  1. 5 stars
    This recipe is so simple and perfectly balanced flavors. I didn’t have chicken so I used beef. We have been making adobo the with a friend’s recipe for years but I wanted one with better ingredients. Didn’t tell my husband about the substitutions and he thought it was the best I had ever done. Also, my 3 and 5 year old loved it! Highly recommended!

    1. To double this recipe in the Instant Pot only double the chicken and the veggies. Don’t double anything else! And keep the cooking time the same. Let us know how it comes out 🙂

    1. Yes! We really mean zero minutes. The broccoli and red pepper are still cooking when set to 0 minutes, because it cooks as it comes up to pressure.