Instant Pot Shredded Chicken for Tacos, Burritos, Enchiladas, Sandwiches, or Anything. You're an Adult, You Can Do Whatever You Want!

As I admitted here, I am a huge fan of Mexican and Mexican, Southwest, Tex-Mex, etc, inspired food. I’ve spent hours at a time in the kitchen making moles or even my chili, but I also like to put together quick and easy tasty Mexican dishes using pre-packaged ingredients when I am crunched for time (or feeling lazy). In particular, using jarred salsa to build from. More particularly, the Frontera brand of products. No they aren’t giving me any money to say that (I wouldn’t hate that though. Hey Rick!). I like to use them because they are pretty damn close to the flavors I would use if doing these recipes from scratch. In some cases I use them as is, and others I will use them as a base to tweak for whatever I am trying to make.

This recipe is going to be one of the easiest to put together if you have an Instant Pot. If you don’t I will also give directions on how to do it in a slow cooker and in the oven. This shredded chicken can be used in tacos, burritos, enchiladas, tortas, or making kinda like pulled chicken sandwiches. All kinds of things. Use your imagination. Down the road I will also post more recipes you can make with this chicken. Ok. Let’s get started.

Ingredients:

• 1 cup or half of a 16oz jar of tomato based salsa. (I like to use Frontera’s chipotle, guajillo, or double roasted salsa for this particular recipe.)
• About 1.5 lbs of boneless, skinless, chicken thighs. (Usually the amount in the packs you find in most grocery stores.)
• ½ of a medium white onion. Sliced ¼ inch thick lengthwise. 

Directions:

1. Spread the sliced onions over the bottom of the pot. (I like to also splash in about an ⅛ cup of water here to prevent a burn error at the beginning. The chicken is going to release a lot of liquid, so you don’t really need to add much.)
2. Place the chicken thighs on top of the onions. 
3. Add 1 cup salsa. 
4. Place the lid and set to sealing. Cook on high pressure for 13 mins. Do a natural release for at least 15 mins. 
5. Remove the lid and if there seems to be a lot of fat, skim some of it off. 
6. Turn on the saute function using the middle setting to cook down the liquid. 
7. Break up the chicken with a wooden spoon, heat resistant spatula, or I like to use a potato masher. Break up till it’s “shredded” to the way you like it. I like mine super fine . 
8. Keep stirring until all the liquid has cooked down and as soon as you hear it start to fry, turn off the heat and remove the chicken. 

The finished product.

This chicken is great for quick impromptu tacos. I threw the one together in the pic at the top after recently making this chicken. I topped it with the leftover salsa, a slice of avocado, some parmesan cheese (in place of queso anejo) and some cilantro. Super tasty.

Shredded chicken in the oven or slow cooker:

1. If using the oven, preheat to 325 degrees.
2. In an dutch oven or slow cooker, follow steps 1 - 3 above. Add 1 additional cup of water or chicken broth. 
3. Cook for 2 hours in the oven and about 4 hours on low in the slow cooker. 
4. If cooking in the oven. Remove the pan from the oven and skim off any fat if you like. Pull out the chicken to let cool a bit. If cooking in the slow cooker, pull out the chicken to cool and move the sauce to a pot or pan to finish cooking over the stovetop. 
5. Coarsely shred the chicken with your hands or forks. Or if you have those BBQ “Wolverine” claws, have at it, bub! 
6. Place the pan over medium-high heat and cook down the sauce by half.
7. Add the chicken back in, stirring regularly (and breaking up the chicken more if you like), until the liquid is absorbed and reduced.

Variations:

• You can add in some cooked cubed potatoes to the chicken at the end to make a sort of chicken tinga type of thing. Especially if you use a chipotle salsa.
• You can also replace the salsa with any sauce you think would make for tasty chicken. Like an enchilada or any red chile sauce.
• You can also use a tomatillo green chile salsa for something with a much different flavor but just as tasty.

-Patrick