Instant Pot Chicken Burrito Bowls are a quick and easy recipe with a fiesta of flavors everyone will love.
What is an Instant Pot Chicken Burrito Bowl?
This is a simple Instant Pot recipe that uses fresh chicken breast, canned beans, canned corn, white rice, a couple of fresh peppers and basic spices. It makes a whole pot of food that everyone in the family will love, and costs just a few bucks. And the cool thing is, there’s lots of room for customizing this recipe to use what you like and what you already have on hand. I love cooking and preparing meals, but sometimes I want to keep the prep to a minimum and be able to throw something together that I know will be a hit with the family.
Simple Pantry Ingredients
Instant Pot chicken burrito bowls start with cutting up some boneless, skinless chicken breast into small pieces of approximately 1″ cubes. We’ll then mix the chicken with just a little vegetable oil and a classic Mexican spice combination of chili powder, cumin, onion and garlic powder, paprika and salt. Mix that all up in a bowl and set it aside for a couple of minutes. Meanwhile, dice up a green bell pepper and a red bell pepper. Then, we’re ready to get cookin!
We put a tablespoon of vegetable oil in the Instant Pot and press saute. Wait until the oil is hot! This is important. The goal here is to just brown the chicken a bit to bring out some additional flavor. If we add the chicken before the oil is hot, we won’t get the browning we want and the chicken can turn out dry after all is said and done. Once the oil is hot, add the chicken slowly. Make sure to spread it out as much as possible so that it’s in a single layer in the bottom of the pot. Then, don’t touch it for 1 minute. Let it brown. After 1 minute, give it all a good toss with a wooden spoon and get those pieces flipped as best possible. Let brown for another minute. After two minutes of browning the chicken, add the diced peppers and optional green chilies. Continue saute for an additional 3 minutes. Press cancel.
Pour in the chicken broth and give the bottom of the pot a scrape with a wooden spoon in case there’s any bits stuck to the bottom. Now add the rice and stir it all together. Secure the lid, close the vent and pressure cook on high for 7 minutes. After the 7 minutes are up, do a quick release of the pressure and carefully remove lid. Add in the black beans and corn and stir. Now we let it sit for 5 minutes. This is an important step! During that time the rice will continue to absorb the moisture and cook, while the whole dish thickens up. After 5 minutes give it a good stir and it’s ready to serve.
Recipe
Best Damn Instant Pot Chicken Burrito Bowls
- Total Time: Under 30 min
- Yield: 6 servings
Description
An easy recipe loaded with fresh chicken breast, corn, peppers, beans and rice. All made at once and easily serves the whole family. The perfect chicken burritos in a bowl!
Ingredients
- 1 ¼ lbs. chicken breast, cut into 1” cubes
- 1 red bell pepper, chopped
- 1 green bell pepper, chopped
- 1 cup corn (thawed frozen kernel corn or drained canned corn)
- 1 cup black beans (drained)
- 1 tbs chili powder
- 1 tsp cumin
- 1 tsp paprika
- 1 tsp onion powder
- 1 tsp garlic powder
- 1 tsp salt
- ¾ cup white rice
- 1 ¾ cup chicken broth
- 2 tbs vegetable oil
- 1–2 tbs canned green chilis, mild or hot (optional)
Instructions
- In a bowl, combine the spices, salt, 1 tbs of the vegetable oil and chicken. Toss to coat all the chicken pieces well. Set aside.
- Add remaining 1 tbs oil to Instant Pot and press saute. When it indicates “hot” add chicken pieces slowly in a single layer. Let brown for 1 minute. Toss with a wooden spoon to flip the chicken as best possible and brown for another 1 minute. After 2 minutes of browning the chicken, add the chopped peppers and canned green chiles and saute for another 3 minutes. Press cancel.
- Add a little broth first and scrape any bits off the bottom of the pot. Pour in remaining broth, add rice and stir together. Secure lid and pressure cook on high for 7 minutes.
- When time is up, flip the quick release valve to release the pressure. Remove lid and add the corn and black beans. Stir and let sit for 5 minutes. Rice will continue to absorb liquid and sauce will thicken.
- Scoop into bowls and add any desired toppings – shredded cheese, sour cream, fresh cilantro or any toppings you like.
- Prep Time: 10 min
- Cook Time: 17 min (including saute and time to come to pressure)
- Category: Dinner
- Method: Instant Pot
- Cuisine: Mexican
Lisa says
Will this work in a 3-qt. Instant Pot, or does it require a 6-qt. one?
RecipeTeacher says
Hi Lisa,
I’ve not tried it with the smaller Instant Pot but it might be pretty close. Perhaps cut the amount of chicken down to less than 1lb.
James Bullard says
In your ingredients, you have no canned green chiles, then in your instructions, you say add canned green chiles with the chopped peppers, did I misread something?
RecipeTeacher says
Thanks, James. It’s an optional ingredient. The update has been corrected.
Erica says
this turned out great. we didn’t have any green chilis so I added about a cup of salsa at the end with the beans and that worked well -gave it an extra kick of flavor. will make again!
RecipeTeacher says
Awesome, Erica! This is high on our list of favorites too. Adding the salsa as you did is perfect! Thank you for the feedback.
Jane says
How many servings is this recipe? Thank you.
RecipeTeacher says
Hi Jane. Easily serves 4.
Virginia Kaczmarek says
Can you use brown basmati rice?
RecipeTeacher says
Hi Virginia. Brown rice takes longer to cook and the timing doesn’t really work out with the chicken.
Barb says
Hi there,
This sounds so good but I have a question.
After you’ve added the corn and beans, do you leave the pot UNCOVERED for the 5 minutes? Or cover with the lid and let it just sit.
Thanks
RecipeTeacher says
Hi Barb, yep leave the lid off. I was thinking I should say that to be more clear. Let me know how it goes if you make it!