Instant Pot Chicken Curry
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This Instant Pot Chicken Curry is the perfect weeknight dinner for busy families! 5 minutes cooking time is all it takes to make this in your pressure cooker!
Instant Pot chicken curry is the quick and basically hands-free version of your classic stove-top chicken curry. I call it hands-free because there is not much happening after the Instant Pot lid is closed and everything is set.
The pot cooks it for you and if you follow the instructions your dinner will be ready without any effort!
If you like easy dinner ideas, check out my Sweet and Sour Chicken, Balsamic Chicken Skewers or Tomato Salsa Shrimp and Rice. These are not made in a Pressure Cooker but are equally easy to make.
How to make Instant Pot Chicken Curry
Start off with cutting mushrooms, onion, zucchini, pineapple and pepper. Dice the chicken breasts as well. Once you have done this, turn on the Instant Pot.
We will saute the chicken pieces first so press the Saute button. Add a bit of oil and throw the chicken pieces in. Sautéing will take about 2-3 minutes. After this you just press the Cancel button and add the rest of the ingredients.
The order in which you put them in, does not matter. Just make sure to leave out the corn starch. That will be added to the pot at the very end of the cooking.
IMPORTANT: Don’t forget to mix it so the seasonings are spread around evenly. Close the lid, set the vent to SEALING position and press MANUAL.
This Instant Pot chicken curry only needs 5 minutes to cook. It’s an easy to follow recipe and apart from setting your timer, you don’t really need to do much here.
By the way: When the meal is ready and you are not around, it will keep it warm until you manually cancel it. I love this function! It can keep your meals warm up to 10 hours!
Good to know when cooking in Instant Pot:
- Instant Pot makes cooking easy and quick. However, note that the cooking time stated in the recipe does not include the time needed for the pressure cooker to build the pressure as well as the time needed to release it. This will vary on what you cook inside and how much you put inside.
- Thanks to the “keep warm” function your chicken curry will stay warm for several hours. This means you can make it ahead, do shopping and when you return your dinner will be still piping hot! Isn’t it great?
- If you are interested in buying this cool pressure cooker but would like to know more about it, check out these Instant Pot tips. I’ve learned a few interesting things when reading it.
What else should I know before making Instant Pot Chicken Curry?
- I used less than 1 pound of chicken to make this instant pot chicken curry and added a lot of veggies. If you feel like you prefer more chicken then go ahead and do so. I suggest using roughly about 1 pound. You can reduce the amount of veggies or leave the same as I have in the recipe.
- This recipe can feed somewhere between 4-6 people (there will be plenty of sauce).
- Cut the veggies into larger chunks (especially peppers and zucchini as they turn way too mushy when cut into thin or tiny pieces).
Want to see how to make Chicken Curry? Watch the video!
Instant Pot Chicken Curry
Ingredients
- 3 tablespoons olive oil
- 13 ounces Chicken Breasts , cut into chunks (a bit over ¾ pound/360 grams)
- ½ Zucchini , cut into chunks (10 ounces/300 grams)
- 1 Red Bell Pepper , cut into chunks
- 1 cup Button Mushrooms , quartered (3.5 ounces/100 grams)
- 1 Small Onion , diced
- 10 ounces Pineapple Chunks in Juice, drained (300 grams), see note 5
- ⅓ cup Raisins (50 grams)
- 3 tablespoons Mild Curry Powder
- 1 can Coconut Milk (13.5 ounces/400 ml)
- 1 tbsp Fresh Ginger , grated
- 1 tbsp brown Sugar
- 1 teaspoon Salt
- ¼ teaspoon black pepper
- 3 teaspoons Corn Starch
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Instructions
- Turn on Instant Pot. Press the “SAUTE” button. Add oil and wait until it’s hot before adding chicken pieces in. Saute for 2-3 minutes.
- Turn off the SAUTE function and add in the rest of the ingredients, except for corn starch. Mix well. Close the lid, turn the vent to “SEALING” and press the “MANUAL” button (pressure cooking). Set timer to 5 minutes and cook on high pressure.
- When the Instant Pot finished cooking, press “CANCEL” and wait for the pressure to be released naturally. After, open the lid and press “SAUTE” button. Stir in corn starch mixed with a tablespoon of water. Cook for about a minute before turning off the pressure cooker completely.
- Serve with rice!
Notes
- This recipe was developed for a 6 quart/6-liter Instant Pot.
- The cooking time does not include time needed for the pressure cooker to build the pressure as well as the time needed to release it. Count with extra 30-40 minutes.
- I usually release the pressure naturally but you can decrease the waiting time by doing the 10-minute manual pressure release instead. Just note that when it comes to curry dishes, it’s best to wait until the pressure drops naturally to avoid juices coming out of the steam valve.
- If in doubt, I recommend watching the video that is right above this recipe card.
- I used a 20 ounce can with pineapple slices that I cut into chunks. When drained, this yields about 10 ounces of pineapple. If your local store carries smaller cans, you can use those as well.
- Sometimes, the coconut milk may curdle. If this happens, just stir the sauce until smooth (during step 3). This should solve this issue.
I have been making this curry for the last year or so and it is delicious. All of my 5 children love it. I have no idea if it’s an authentic Thai curry recipe because I never had it but I keep on making it it and my family keeps on eating it up. I started to make extra because they kept asking the next day if there are left overs to be served for lunch.
Thank you so much for your feedback, Jane!