Instant pot chicken thighs are great for meal prepping for busy weekday lunches as well. For another amazing variation, check out my instant pot short ribs recipe.
Instant pot chicken thighs for meal prepping
Sunday is my meal prep day. We sleep in a little, enjoy some brunch (a quick breakfast fried rice or a breakfast potato hash or French crepes or French toast for something fancy), and then I get to work prepping our lunches for the rest of the week. While my lunches are pretty simple, I like to make them filling and flavorful for my husband. He works long hours, and barely has enough time for lunch, so my plan is always to make lunch the one thing that he looks forward to during the day! 🙂 So this means I cook in bulk on Sundays. The oven was always my best friend (I still routinely make pork carnitas or oven-baked chicken fajita for our lunches in this way), UNTIL I got my hands on the Instant Pot. Instant life change. I missed my multi cooker back from my time living in Australia, so I was really excited to put my Instant Pot to good use.
These instant pot chicken thighs are great for packed lunches
These honey soy chicken thighs along with some steamed rice and stir-fried vegetables are among my husband’s favorite packed lunches. The chicken is a little spicy, a little sweet, and chock-full of great flavor! This is easily the BEST honey soy chicken, and can be made in the instant pot easily and quickly. This honey soy instant pot chicken will be ready in 30 minutes, and you can easily meal prep for 1 whole week with this chicken. How awesome is that? Making a big batch of Instant Pot chicken thighs is super easy. The only trick is to get the cook time just right, and this takes a little trial and error. And since I’ve been making instant pot chicken thighs regularly, I’ve perfected the timing! 🙂 My husband and I prefer our chicken to be perfectly cooked, juicy, and with a little bite to it (NOT soft and soggy!). Unless I’m specifically making pulled chicken, I don’t want the meat to be really soft. So here I’m going to give you tips to make sure you cook these Instant Pot honey soy chicken thighs to perfection! And I guarantee this will be your family’s favorite instant pot chicken thighs recipe ever! 🙂 These Asian flavored instant pot chicken thighs are made with authentic Asian spices, and they are so easy to prepare and keep so well.
Here’s why you’ll love these instant pot chicken thighs
You don’t have to sear each chicken piece before cooking. While this step does add flavor, it takes ages to sear the chicken in an instant pot, so it’s no longer a quick recipe if you need 20 minutes just to sear the chicken. Instead, you’ll be BROILING the chicken after it’s cooked in this recipe, in the oven or toaster oven. This step caramelizes the chicken thighs, with some of the leftover sauce going right on top, adding even more flavor. You can make as little as 4 pieces of chicken, or as many as 12 pieces of chicken with this instant pot chicken thighs recipe. The more chicken you cook, the more liquid you will have left in the pot as well, but you can thicken the liquid with more cornstarch slurry. You can use boneless chicken thighs, OR bone-in chicken thighs. The cooking times will need to be adjusted accordingly. Boneless chicken thighs (large; about 200 – 250 g / 7 – 9 oz in weight per piece) take only 7 minutes. Smaller chicken thighs will only take about 5 minutes. Bone-in chicken thighs (large) take about 11 minutes, while the smaller ones can take about 9 minutes.
Ingredients for this recipe
These instant pot honey soy chicken thighs are made with only 7 ingredients.
Chicken Soy Honey Garlic Chicken paste or cubes Onion Star anise (my secret ingredient!)
You don’t have to make a spice paste or anything, since you’ll simply be mixing in everything in the IP. I do like to add some spring onions and sesame seeds after cooking the chicken. These are not essential to the recipe, although I do highly recommend them. Star anise is truly the star ingredient in the sauce! It adds amazing flavor to these instant pot honey soy chicken thighs, and gives them an authentic Asian flavor. Then once the chicken is cooked, I like to broil the chicken pieces for just a few minutes under the grill, with a little of the honey garlic sauce on top. This achieves 2 things.
Caramelizes the chicken Caramelizes the honey garlic sauce on top, creating an additional layer of flavor.
This way you can broil all of the chicken at once in the oven, instead of searing the chicken in batches in the instant pot. And while the chicken is grilling in the oven, stir in a slurry of cornstarch and water to thicken the sauce to the consistency you like. These flavor-packed honey soy chicken thighs will be ready in 3o minutes! 🙂
How to meal prep with instant pot chicken thighs
If you use a separate rice cooker, you can cook the rice at the same time as these instant pot chicken thighs. Basmati rice, jasmine rice, medium grain rice, brown rice, or even red rice are all great options. Or you could substitute the rice with quinoa if you like. I also like to cut up some veggies that can be eaten raw, to go with the rice. The veggies will soften a bit, as we reheat the meals, but you can avoid this by packing the vegetables separately if you like. Some veggie options I like are,
Bell peppers Carrots Shredded cabbage Snap peas
I also like to add some easy, steamed or stir-fried vegetables too.
Broccoli Carrots Asian greens like bok choy (like I’ve used in this post) Mushrooms Zucchini Beans Cauliflower Or even a bag of frozen veggies.
Then I portion out about 1 cup of cooked rice (or a little more for my husband) into lunch boxes, and divide the veggies between them. Finally, I add a piece of delicious honey soy chicken, along with a generous spoonful of sauce on top with sliced green onions and sesame seeds. DONE! I usually make at least 6 meal prep boxes. These keep well for up to 4 days in the fridge, and up to 2 weeks in the freezer. So I like to keep 3 boxes in the fridge and the rest in the freezer. And then every time I remove one from the fridge, I replace it with one from the freezer (to allow the frozen lunch to thaw in the fridge overnight).
Other uses for these chicken thighs
This chicken can also be used to make the most flavorful chicken fried rice! Chop the chicken and serve it with a salad. Or use them as a filling for wraps and sandwiches.
Equipment I use for this recipe
Instant pot – I use a 6qt instant pot in my kitchen. If you have a different sized pot, please make sure there is at least the minimum liquid amount recommended for the pot.
