Instant Pot Pressure Cooker Whole Roast Chicken Recipe

This recipe is absolutely one of the staples in my house.  Since we buy 95% of our groceries organic, it can become quite expensive to buy a lot of organic meat each week. Enter, the whole organic chicken. Buying organic chicken whole saves you a ton on the unit price, and you can make three different things out of it and use the leftovers all week!

The weekend is when we do our major food prep for the week.  First, we take out the giblets, and I saute up the liver with some onions in coconut oil on the stove.  I’m the only one who eats it, but it is delicious!! Chicken liver is packed with Vitamin A and is great for people on Paleo, Whole 30, or the Autoimmune Protocol Diet (AIP). Because of the high Vitamin A content you don’t want to eat it every day, but every week is just about perfect. Be sure to saute in a non-toxic frying pan- you can see in the picture I am using one of our non-toxic  (and affordable!) cast iron pans.

We save the chicken neck and put it in the Instant Pot so we can make our weekly bone broth later.  Don’t rinse your chicken!  This is a myth and it turns out it just winds up spraying raw chicken juice all over your kitchen.  Just dump the chicken into your Instant Pot.

Then we roast the chicken (don’t worry, instructions are below) in the Instant Pot.  It is way easier than roasting in the oven PLUS it doesn’t heat the house up which is important in the summer. We used to roast chicken in the oven, but we are so obsessed with time management and efficiency we do everything we can in the Instant Pot now.  The best part is you can walk away.  Get it ready, set the time, let it cook, and go weed the gardens.  Or drink an herbal infusion and journal.  Whatever- no need to check the chicken and baste, etc.  We actually own two Instant Pots because we are obsessed and like to be able to cook beans and brown rice from scratch separately at the same time (yes ma’am, you can cook organic dry beans from scratch in about 40 minutes in the Instant Pot!  You can of course alter this recipe and roast the chicken in the oven – it just takes longer, and you can’t make your bone broth in the same container!

When the chicken is done, we take it out, let it cool a bit, and then pick it clean. We then use that chicken meat all week long. Between two adults and the one wee one, it lasts us through about Thursday if we cook on Sunday.  Mostly we just add it to our evening salads, but sometimes we’ll turn it into a chicken salad with a healthy fat coconut mayonnaise, or we’ll cook up a sauce for it. Be sure you aren’t using toxic plastic to store your chicken in!  Use a non-toxic container like glass. We use the pyrex with glass lids so we can throw it all in the dishwasher and not worry.

Chicken is a fantastic food for most diets, including a Fertility Diet.  It is super high in protein, which is absolutely crucial to making babies.  It is also full of important fertility nutrients like selenium, vitamin B6 and B3.  It is also a safe meat for people who are sensitive to fattier red meats (like women with endometriosis). Having this pre-prepped organic chicken meat ready to use in the fridge is necessary when you are trying to make sure you hit your perfect daily fertility macros ratio of protein, carbs, and fats.  If you are trying to get pregnant, don’t forget the need to tailor any fertility diet to YOUR needs.  Luckily, organic chicken pretty much hits everyone’s needs, unless they avoid meat for personal reasons.

Now- here’s the huge added bonus of the Instant Pot.  After we pick the chicken clean, we put all the bones and skin BACK in the Instant Pot.  We add about 2 Tbsp of apple cider vinegar, some additional broth or water, and then put the Instant Pot on its slow cooking setting for 24-48 hours.  Then we have incredibly healthful and nourishing bone broth, ready to drink all week!

So there you go- three nutritional uses out of your whole organic chicken!  Roasted chicken meat all week, a chicken liver and onions treat on the weekend, and bone broth for the week!  You are killing it with healthy eating!

Instant Pot Whole Roast Chicken Recipe

Ingredients

• One small organic chicken, giblets removed.
• 3 Tbsp unrefined coconut or extra virgin olive oil
• 2 onions sliced (OPTIONAL)
• 5 cloves garlic sliced (OPTIONAL)
• Rosemary 3 sprigs fresh or 1 tbsp dried (OPTIONAL)
• Thyme 4 sprigs fresh or 1 tbsp dried (OPTIONAL)
• Additional herbs if desired
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 tsp fresh ground pepper
• 1 cup of water

Directions

1. (Optional)- Set your Instant Pot to the “saute” function and add in your oil.  Place the chicken in breast-down and brown the skin.  Brown the sides as well.  Remove chicken and set on a plate. We used to do this, and then stopped, as it took too much time and only made the chicken pretty; it didn’t add any value to the taste.
2. Make a layer on the bottom of the Instant Pot with the onions.
3. Place chicken on top.  If you didn’t saute, put the oil on top of the chicken.
4. Dump all the other ingredients on top. Make them pretty, if you like.
5. Add the 1 cup of water to the bottom of the pot.
6. Lock the Instant Pot lid into place and make sure your valve is set to “seal”  Press “Manual” and use the + or – buttons to get to 24 minutes. We don’t vary by pounds, but some recipes suggest 5-6 minutes per pound.
7. Let the Instant Pot do the natural depressurization, i.e., wait until the timer says at least 10 minutes have past since the chicken was done. Then, depressurize completely if necessary.
8. Open top, remove chicken, and let cool.
9. Pick the meat clean and use it all week!
10. Put all the skin and bones back in the Instant Pot to make your bone broth!