Instant Pot 20 Minute Chicken Burrito Bowls
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Comes together in less than 10 min prep! The chicken is so tender and the flavors are so good.
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This is a burrito bowl recipe I keep coming back to again and again. And this was the first Instant Pot (IP) recipe I have ever tested that converted me to the pressure cooker fan club. With one pot, tender, juicy chicken and perfectly cooked rice with the easiest clean up in the history of the world, I was completely hooked with the IP magic.
reasons to make instant pot 20 minute chicken burrito bowls
- All-in-one Instant Pot dinner. With the help of the Instant Pot, this is the best kind of dump-and-go dinner recipe. There’s minimal prep time here – no sautéing, no nothing. Throw everything right into the pressure cooker, set your time, and walk away. Dinner will be on the table in lightning fast speed, 20 minutes to be exact.
- Family-friendly. Burrito bowls are a guaranteed hit with the entire family, adding in as little or as many toppings as desired, a little bit of something for everyone to enjoy.
- Great for meal prep. This keeps for 2-3 days, ideal for making these ahead of time for meal prep and reheating as needed.
- Flexible, forgiving recipe. Most of the ingredients can easily be swapped out or omitted as needed. Don’t have black beans? Use pinto or kidney beans. Don’t have canned corn? Skip it or use frozen corn kernels. Want to use thighs over breasts? Give it a quick swap.
tips and tricks for success
- Use chicken breast or thighs. Both will work beautifully here – breast will be leaner whereas thighs will have more fat, yielding more tender chicken than the former. Not a fan of chicken? Ground beef is also a great swap!
- White rice is ideal. Long-grain white rice such as jasmine or basmati rice is best. Brown rice will take too long to cook here.
- Make it spicy. Add in 1 diced jalapeno for a kick of heat!
- Add your favorite toppings. Diced avocado, shredded Mexican blend cheese, cilantro, a squeeze of fresh lime juice, crispy tortilla strips or crushed tortilla chips when you’re in a pinch are all great options.
- Reheat with a splash of chicken stock. When reheating, add a splash of chicken broth or water.
pro tip
Do not stir in the rice.
Adding in the rice at the very end without stirring will prevent the rice to sink to the bottom of the Instant Pot (this is what signals the dreaded burn notice). Layer and sprinkle the rice on top, patting down slightly to submerge. Do not stir. This will lead to burrito-goodness-flavored tender, fluffy rice.
what to serve with chicken burrito bowls
Tools For This Recipe
6-qt Instant Pot®
Instant Pot 20 Minute Chicken Burrito Bowls: Frequently Asked Questions
Black beans, pinto beans or kidney beans are all great here.
Absolutely! To make this a dairy-free chicken burrito bowl, skip the cheese.
Yes! Skip the chicken, add an additional can of beans and use vegetable broth instead.
Leftovers can be stored in an airtight container in the fridge for 2-3 days.
Instant Pot 20 Minute Chicken Burrito Bowls
Ingredients
- 1 pound boneless, skinless chicken breasts, cut into 1-inch chunks
- 1 cup low sodium chicken broth
- 1 (1.25-ounce) package taco seasoning
- 1 (15-ounce) can corn kernels, drained
- 1 (15-ounce) can black beans, drained and rinsed
- 1 cup salsa, homemade or store-bought
- 1 (4.5-ounce) can chopped green chiles
- 1 cup long-grain white rice
- 1 cup shredded Mexican blend cheese
- 2 tablespoons chopped fresh cilantro leaves
Equipment
Instructions
- Add chicken, chicken broth and taco seasoning to a 6-qt Instant Pot® and gently toss to combine.
- Stir in corn, black beans, salsa and green chiles. Without stirring, add rice.
- Select manual setting; adjust pressure to high, and set time for 10 minutes. When finished cooking, quick-release pressure according to manufacturer’s directions. Stir in cheese until melted, about 1 minute.
- Serve immediately, garnished with cilantro, if desired.
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Love this recipe but was wondering if anyone had tried it with ground meat (ground beef) instead of chicken? If so did you make any other adjustments?
I just read your comment. Did you ever make this with ground hamburg? I’m trying the chicken tonight.
I made it once with ground beef. It was okay, but I liked it better with chicken.
My mother is 83 and we went through the learning process of the Instant Pot. This was the first recipe we chose and let me tell you it did not disappoint. So, so delicious and EASY. The Instant Pot might actually be the next best thing since sliced bread smashing all cliches. Thank you.
This is so good and so easy! The only tweaks I made were to use fire roasted corn, fire roasted green chilies and jasmine rice. Followed the steps as written and did not get a burn notice. I guess I’ve been lucky that I have never gotten a burn notice in the year and a half that I’ve been using the instant pot. There is a first time for everything though.
Made this for dinner last night and both picky teenagers loved it. I was worried it would be too salty, so I made my own taco seasoning using half the salt (Allrecipes.com) and used brown rice, so added 1.5 cups water (not stock) and it came out perfectly. We served with salsa, sour cream, avocado, tortilla chips and it disappeared.
Did you add extra time for the brown rice?
If I could only use my instant pot for one recipe for the rest of my life, it would be this! I’ve lost track of how many times I’ve made it. Not only is it so easy but it’s also inexpensive and healthy. And obviously delicious! It’s full of flavour and the leftovers are just as good as it is fresh. As a vegetarian I don’t use chicken but instead I add 1/2 an avocado per serving and I increase the liquid by about 1/3 cup.
This is a staple in our house. Very easy and leftovers and good. The only thing I do differently is once sprinkle the rice on top, I very gently push it down (not stir!) into the mixture just a little bit just to make sure every bit of rice is at least touching (not submerged) in the liquid. This helps makes sure the rice gets cooked all the way.
I serve it with avocado on top and extra cheese!
Damn Delicious! I added an extra cup of broth, made my own spice mix, and gently mixed before cooking. Served cheese, chopped onion, green and red pepper, cilantro and avie on the side. We will have this again!
Left overs were delicious as a dip with taco chips.
Thanks for a great and easy meal!
5 stars for flavor
5 stars for convenience
4.5 stars for recipe:
I made this recipe verbatim except I almost doubled the chicken, it’s delicious. I didn’t get a burn notice, but I did notice that, despite stirring well, the taco seasoning settled on the bottom and looked like it was trying to burn. I think it’s the cornstarch in the mix I have. So that made me sad because it looks like all that flavor didn’t make it into the meal. I’ll try my own taco mix next time, but that was my only complaint. 🙂
Yummy, but received burn notice. Only thing I omitted was the chilies, so I added another 1/2 cup water.
This recipe was DELICIOUS!!!! The only thing I did different was add 2 cups broth like I read in reviews and I made my own taco mix as I read alot of people were getting burn notice and I seen a post that making your own taco blend would probably help with that due to flour being in store bought blends.and when i put the rice on top i just patted it into liquid more . I never got burn notice and this was a HIT in my house definetly will make this again Thank you for such a great recipe
I also rinsed my rice well and used long grain white rice as that’s all I had on hand.
Just be sure to rinse the rice well. Too much starch otherwise and didn’t cook that well.
I’ve commented previously, but wanted to add a followup. This recipe is absolutely delicious and we love it, but a word of warning: **It is a gigantic sodium bomb.**
Using the ingredients as presented yields somewhere between 4000-5000mg of sodium per batch. The recipe indicates it’s four servings, which is 1000-1250mg per serving. That said, for our family this recipe yields something closer to six servings, which I feel is a more reasonable serving size, but still a lot of sodium.
Anyway, half or more of your daily max sodium intake in a single meal is a deal breaker for anyone that’s at all conscious of heart health.
The biggest culprits are the salsa (around 1600-1700mg), cheese (approx. 1000mg if using cheddar like we do) and taco seasoning (around 1100mg for the package, and that’s the reduced sodium variety!)
So we make some modifications to make this slightly less lethal (albeit slightly less Omg delicious), which I’d recommend to anyone that has this in their weekly meal rotation for their family.
1. Use No Salt Added chicken broth. Not just low sodium, but NO sodium.
2. Make your own fresh salsa if you have the time/wherewithal, and watch the amount of salt you use (store bought has equivalent to ~2/3 tsp of table salt per cup, at least for the brand we buy). Otherwise, reduce the amount of store bought salsa you use.
3. Reduce the amount of cheese. One cup is a LOT of cheese in this anyway. We usually do about 2/3 of a cup (around 76g if you have a kitchen scale. Way easier to measure 🙂 )
4. Use no salt varieties of the canned beans and corn. No brainer here.
5. Scale back the taco seasoning or make your own where you have control over the amount of salt in it. Store bought seasoning is LOADED with sodium (about 1/2 tsp table salt per package). If using store bought, I usually only use 1/2-2/3 of the package.
6. Use fresh chopped chilies instead of canned (haven’t tried this yet, myself). Canned chilies here are almost 400mg sodium per can.
7. Of course, this will all result in this meal being noticeably less flavourful than it otherwise would. So to offset the lack of flavour from the salt, we jazz it up with some citrus after cooking (lime juice is great with this). There are also some great hot sauces that add flavour without nuking it with salt as well (note: not Frank’s.. It is also lethally salty. There are lots of proper hot sauces out there that taste better anyway)
With the above adjustments, we manage to get it down to around 2500-3000mg for the batch, which is far more reasonable when you spread it out over 4-6 servings.
Anyway, hope this big wall of text helps someone out there. Bon appetit!
I doubled the recipe and my instant pot did keep giving the BURN notice but I just decided to ignore it and when I opened it up everything was cooked and fine! I don’t know if I’d recommend ignoring the Burn notice but it worked well for me. Tastes delicious and I LOVE that I don’t have to make the rice separate.
Do you have to double the time if you double the recipe?
I followed the instructions to the T and the rice didn’t cook. It should have been stirred in.
I’ve been making this just about every other Sunday and it’s the perfect comfort meal. I had a cold a couple weeks ago and wanted to turn up the spice to help clear my sinuses so I added a small can of chipotle peppers in adobo sauce. Holy cow was the delicious and it also did the trick. I’m making it again today with the chipotle peppers.
Everyone in my family loves this recipe. I make it about twice a month now. A big hit!
Super quick and easy to make and it tastes soo good!
I made this for dinner last night, and had it for lunch today. I took a chance, as I googled for Mexican Instant Pot recipes in the store parking lot. This recipe is my new favorite! Comfort food at its best. I can’t eat dairy, but I used Vio-life vegan cheese and it was absolutely delicious! I added avocado, really nice. Thank you for this yummy, easy recipe. I’d give it 10 stars if I could.
How would I adjust with no rice? I wanna make the rice on the side
I just make my rice on the side and prepare the rest of the recipe as is.
I love a good Instant Pot dinner! I subbed in brown rice and a half cup of water. (Mine needed 20 min. for the rice to cook.) We gobbled it down to the last grain of rice! We topped ours with cilantro, avocado, and a squeeze of lime. Bet it would be yummy tucked into flour tortillas!
This exceeded my and my family’s expectations. My kids who usually don’t like new things all took seconds. Plenty of food for family of 5. I used the Costco medium salsa and basmati rice. Only thing I omitted was cilantro because I didn’t have it handy, but it probably would have been good. Had some Tostitos “hint of lime” chips which went really well with this.