Instant Pot Chicken Thighs – Lemon and Herb

Instant Pot Chicken Thighs- Lemon and Herb: A delicious recipe to try for a busy weeknight meal your whole family will love!

This chicken recipe may just become one of your new favorite Instant Pot recipes and would pair nicely with side dish like white rice or brown rice and our Italian chopped salad.

 

Why You’ll Love This Recipe

Did you just get a new Instant Pot? Pressure cooking for the first time can be intimidating, but this easy recipe is a great place to start! Pressure cooker chicken thighs have so much flavor, and they are quick and easy to make!

This would be a great recipe to use for meal prepping (say, in something like these chicken quinoa bowls) because it is quick, tasty and tastes just as good the next day as it does the day you make it.

Make these juicy chicken thighs as your main dish and one of your favorite rice recipes as a side and you’ll have yummy lunches prepped for the whole week!

If you don’t have an Instant Pot but are looking for a quick way to use your chicken thighs, you’ll love these baked bacon wrapped chicken thighs!

Jump to:

• Why You’ll Love This Recipe
• Ingredients
• Instructions
• Fresh Vs. Frozen Chicken Thighs Instant Pot
• Substitutions
• Variations
• Equipment
• Storage
• Expert Tips and FAQs
• Related Recipes
• Recipe
• Comments

Ingredients

This recipe calls for simple ingredients that you can find at any grocery store- easy peasy!

• 2 pounds chicken thighs approx 9-10, skin on, bone in
• 1 ½ teaspoons salt
• ¼ teaspoon black pepper
• 1 teaspoon dried thyme
• 1 teaspoon dried oregano
• 2 tablespoons oil high heat oil like avocado or olive oil
• 4 cloves garlic
• 2 cups chicken broth
• 2 lemons (or ¼ cup fresh lemon juice)
• 3 teaspoons cornstarch

Instructions

1. Rinse your thighs in cold water and then pat dry with paper towel. Place the thighs onto a large plate in a single layer. 

2. In a small bowl, add the salt, black pepper, dried thyme and dried oregano and stir together. 
3. Pour the spice mixture over the chicken thighs, turning them over and ensuring that they are completely coated in spice.

4. Set your Instant Pot on high-heat sauté mode. Pour in the oil and allow it to heat up, then place your spice covered chicken thighs into the pot. 
5. Mince the cloves of garlic; set aside. 
6. Sauté the chicken for 2.5 minutes on each side, then add the minced garlic into the bottom of the pot. (Garlic is placed in the pot after the chicken has browned to avoid burning)

7. Pour in the chicken stock and the lemon juice; scrape the bottom of the pot with a wooden spoon to get all of the browned bits of chicken and garlic off the bottom so you don’t lose all of that great flavor. 
8. Place the instant pot lid on the pot and set to cook on high pressure for 8 minutes. 
9. After the 8 minute cook time has finished, let the instant pot pressure cooker sit and naturally release pressure for 2 minutes before doing a “quick release” (switching the pressure valve to the open position and allowing all of the remaining pressure to escape).

10. Now combine your cornstarch in a small bowl with 3 tablespoons of the lemon chicken sauce from the pot. Mix together to form a cornstarch slurry. 
11. Pour the slurry into your instant pot with the chicken and broth. Set your Instant Pot to the sauté function on high for 4 minutes, stirring constantly until the sauce thickens. 

12. Serve alone or with something like this creamy lemon pasta, and enjoy!

Fresh Vs. Frozen Chicken Thighs Instant Pot

If you would prefer to purchase frozen chicken thighs for this recipe, we would recommend that you let them thaw completely in the fridge overnight before making this recipe.

Thawed chicken thighs allow for the spice mixture to stick better (and it helps you get all that flavor). If you made this recipe with frozen chicken thighs, the spices would not stick very well and you would lose a lot of the flavor in the finished product.

Substitutions

Sometimes you run out of an ingredient and need to make a substitution. We have a few suggestions for you below…

• Minced garlic- can be replaced with 1 teaspoon of garlic powder
• Dried thyme and dried oregano- can be replaced with 2 teaspoon of Italian seasoning

Note: If you need to decrease the calories in the recipe, you could try using boneless skinless chicken thighs instead of skin on, bone-in or even chicken breasts (if you prefer white meat over dark meat).

Variations

If you want to try a variation of this recipe, try swapping the sauce!

Rinse and dry your thighs as directed. Instead of putting spices on them, simply heat the Instant Pot and oil as the recipe states and then cook them for 2.5 mins per side as directed. Once this browning step is finished, you can top them with your favorite honey garlic sauce and continue cooking as the recipe outlines (8 mins on high pressure, 2 min natural release, quick release) for delicious honey garlic chicken thighs!

You could also try this variation with our homemade teriyaki sauce with soy sauce to make teriyaki chicken thighs!

We haven’t tried these variations, but we think that they would be super fun to try next time we make these instant pot chicken thigh recipes! These would all make delicious, quick meals!

Equipment

We used an Instant Pot for this recipe, but you could make it with other brands of pressure cookers as well. Always be sure to check meat to ensure it is cooked to the minimum internal temperature of 165 F, regardless of which cooker you use.

Storage

Store your cooked chicken thighs in an airtight container in the refrigerator.

Expert Tips and FAQs

Related Recipes

If you liked this instant pot chicken thighs recipe then you’ll love our other easy instant pot recipes like this easy Instant Pot orange chicken or this Instant Pot cajun pasta!

Recipe