Another great recipe for my pressure cooker.
Chicken mole from my Instant Pot.
A friend came by for dinner yesterday. I expected her at 5 and worked down in the garage until 4:50 PM. I wasn’t worried about time; I was cooking up dinner in my Instant Pot and had all the ingredients ready. She kept me company while I got everything into the pot and we drank wine and snacked on caprese with tomatoes from my garden and fresh mozzarella while we waited.
Here’s my version of the Mole Chicken Chili recipe I found in my newPressure Cooker Perfection cookbook. I served it over white rice and it was delicious: slightly chocolatey from the cocoa, slightly sweet from the raisins, and with just enough heat to catch your attention from the chili powder and chipotle peppers.
Ingredients
- 3 tablespoons vegetable oil.
- 2 tablespoons chili powder.
- 2 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa.
- 3 garlic cloves, minced.
- 2 teaspoons minced canned chipotle chile in adobo sauce. This stuff, which you can find in the Hispanic food aisle of your grocery story — assuming your store has one — is spicy! I’m not quite sure what I’m going to do with the rest of the can. Freeze it in a small container?
- 1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- 1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
- 2-1/2 cups low-sodium chicken broth. If you use a quart sized container, as I did, you can use the remainder with water to make the rice. If you use canned chicken broth, you can get away with using one can and making up the difference to 2-1/2 cups with water.
- 1 14.5-ounce can diced tomatoes. I used 3 medium, very ripe fresh tomatoes from my garden.
- 1 cup raisins.
- 1/4 cup peanut butter.
- 3 to 4 pounds boneless, skinless chicken thighs, with fat trimmed off. The original recipe calls for 4 pounds bone-in thighs.
- Salt and pepper.
- 1 onion, halved and sliced in 1/2 inch thick pieces. I used a red onion from my garden.
- 1 red bell pepper, stem and seeds removed, cut into 1/2 inch pieces. In general, I don’t like peppers, but I’m trying very hard to like them so I included them.
- 1/4 cup fresh cilantro, chopped.
Instructions
Add 2 tablespoons of vegetable oil to Instant Pot and press Sauté to start heating.
- When oil is shimmering, add chili powder, cocoa, garlic, chipotle, cinnamon, and cloves. Cook about 30 seconds. (It will smell really good.)
- Stir in broth, tomatoes, raisins, and peanut butter. Be sure to scrape any bits of the dry ingredients off the bottom of the pan. (I have a silicone spoon I use for this and it does a great job without damaging any of my cookware.)
- Bring to a simmer and cook for 5 minutes.
- Remove the sauce from the pot and puree it in a blender. (I use an immersion blender, which does a great job.) Set it aside.
- Season chicken with salt and pepper.
- Heat 1 tablespoon of oil in the pot.
- Add the onions and sauté until softened, about five minutes.
- Stir in sauce, chicken, and peppers.
- Cover and lock pot; close steam vent.
- On the Instant Pot, press Off and then press Manual and set the time to 20 minutes.
- When the timer beeps, press Off. Do a quick pressure release and then carefully remove the lid.
- Stir in cilantro and serve.
The original recipe instructs you to leave the red pepper out in step 9. Instead, when the pressure cooking is done, you remove the chicken and shred it. While doing that, you cook the pepper in the sauce for 10-15 minutes and then add the chicken back in. My way is quicker and easier and I’ve found that the chicken shreds a bit on its own as it’s served. Also keep in mind that if you use bone-in chicken, you should increase pressure cooking time to 25 minutes.
This makes a lot of food. With rice, it fed both of us two servings and there was enough leftover to give my friend some to take home and feed me at least two more meals. We were too full for dessert!
If you make this, let me know what you think.
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This sounds fabulous!!! Thanks for the Instant Pot directions and tips for this one. Yummy!!
I had it for lunch today wrapped in a flour tortilla. Next time I make it, though, I’ll reduce the amount of chicken broth for a thicker sauce.
Chilis in adobo In an ice cube tray, them zip lock Freezer bags
plop.
I’m ravenous… and now looking at a One Pot. Thanks.
That sounds like a GREAT idea. Thanks!
I’ve never head of an Instant Pot, just looked it up, sounds like a nifty kitchen appliance. Wish something like this would have been around when I last purchased a crock pot and pressure cooker, it’d be nice to have one gadget that does both jobs. I take it that you’re happy with yours?
And I’m jealous of those fresh tomatoes too! There’s nothing like home-grown for bruschetta, the default store-bought tomato is a pale imitation at best. I’ve never had any success with full-sized tomatoes here in AK, the only ones that seem to grow reasonably well up here are cherrys and they’re just not the same.
I was shopping for a new slow cooker when I stumbled upon the Instant Pot. It really does a lot. I love it.
As for the tomatoes — well, I wish I could send them to you. I can’t pick the damn things fast enough. My garden is completely overrun with the plants and I hack away at them a few times a week. Next time, I will not allow the volunteers to grow and I will definitely prune the ones I plant.
Re the tomatoes, are you interested in canning them … Or have the time? I don’t know if that’s worthwhile to you or not but thought I’d mention.
Also, through my neighborhood Nextdoor.com site, we have people with fruit trees and more who offer to let people come over and pick what they want … even a food kitchen or shelter could come get some to help feed people in need. I don’t know what’s possible or helpful where you live, though.
Anyway, just brainstorming ideas …
I canned tomato sauce a few weeks ago. I’ll see what’s left out there later today and if I have a big enough batch, I’ll try canning whole ones. I bought plenty of jars and have all the equipment. Or I might freeze them. I have containers for that, too. Needless to say, I don’t have to buy tomato sauce any time soon. And I’m sick of gazpacho.
Oh, that’s fantastic!!
I can’t wait to try this. About your canned chipotle chile in adobo sauce leftovers: I dice them up (or whirl them in my bullet/blender) and use as a marinade to cubed beef for my chili pot.
I think you’ll like it a lot. I sure do. And thanks for the chile tip!
Great looking recipe! I plan to try it next week. I’m new to the Instant Pot (Christmas present) but I”m finding that meats are frequently more juicy and tender when I slow release the pressure on my IP. Have you noticed any differences now that you’ve had the pot for a couple of years?
I have not noticed that, but I will pay closer attention to see if release method matters in my cooking. It seems to me that you can shorten the actual cooking time if you wait longer before opening the pot. Maybe that makes a difference?
Ah, that must be it. Thanks again for your recipes and your blog.
Just got the Rival brand version of the Instapot and have quite frankly I was a little afraid of the pressure cooker concept which for me was a throwback to when I was a kid. My mom had an aluminum (can u believe it!) cooker that hissed and warbled and shook and I was warned to keep away from it because it could explode…Enter the millennial suped up version that is safe but still a little daunting for me due to my childhood trauma. I am known for my fabulous mole which I spend way too much time cooking for 3 hours to get the flavors to meld. Enter your recipe where the chikcen was not only cooked to almost falling apart perfection but the mole sauce was pressured in 19 minutes into the succulent chicken and melded into an aged sauce that had us raving for seconds. I followed the recipe exactly. This is a staple now in my arsenal of dishes for company.
Thank you Eclecticmind.
You’re welcome! I’m so glad you liked it!
I’ve been on the road in my camper for the past nearly three months and I think my Instant Pot is one of the top five things at home that I miss. (Also on the list: good shower, washer/dryer, dishwasher, reliable internet.)