Instant Pot or Slow Cooker Chicken Tinga (Mexican Shredded Chicken)

The following is a guest post by Pamela Salzman, a natural foods cooking instructor, holistic health counselor, and writer behind the food blog of her own name, PamelaSalzman.com. She is the author of Kitchen Matters: More than 100 Recipes and Tips that Will Transform the Way You Cook and Eat and is the Culinary Nutritionist for Clean Eating Magazine. She lives in Manhattan Beach, California with her husband and three children.

There is no more popular night in my house than taco night. I don’t know if it’s the fun in building your own taco, the variety of possible topping options, the tastiness of all the different textures and flavors, or all of the above. For a busy working mom like me, I also give tacos two thumbs up for generally being a pretty easy and healthful meal.

What is Chicken Tinga?

A new favorite taco dinner with my family, and, more recently my cooking class students, is Chicken Tinga. It’s a classic Mexican dish with shredded chicken (or pork) in a spicy, smoky, tomato-y sauce.

Tinga is super flavorful and the heat can definitely be adjusted to your preferences. In my classes this spring, I served the tinga with the options of putting it on top of pinto bean tostadas or traditional taco style with corn tortillas and toppings. But at home, we’ve also enjoyed the saucy chicken in a bowl over rice with grilled veggies and lots of guacamole. So good!

There are always variations with any recipe and Chicken Tinga is no exception. I had a Mexican friend help me create this version and the only ingredient that I used outside of the traditional recipe is dried chipotle peppers instead of using canned chipotles in adobo, which is a ketchup-y, vinegary sauce. A chipotle pepper is actually a dried, smoked, ripened (red) jalapeño. Where I live in Los Angeles, it is really easy to find bags of dried chili peppers in any supermarket, as well as cans of the chipotles in adobo.

I really try to stay away from acidic foods in aluminum cans though since aluminum can leach into the food—hence my choice to use dried chipotles. I bet you could even wing it with a little ground chipotle powder if you couldn’t find the whole version.

My Thoughts on the Instant Pot

Although I am not an avid Instant Pot user, my students are constantly asking me to show them great recipes that work well in an Instant Pot, specifically for cooking with pressure. Chicken Tinga was a perfect recipe to demonstrate how to use the Instant Pot and highlight some of the useful features as well as be honest about some of the misleading ideas about using a pressure cooker.

I will be the first to admit that the Instant Pot has not changed my life, and I am not here to make anyone feel as though she/he “needs” this appliance. If you are in the market for a slow cooker, then the Instant Pot (or similar multi cookers) is probably the way to go since it is both a slow cooker and a pressure cooker (and a rice cooker, etc.).

For someone who has no time in the morning to put ingredients in a slow cooker, and returns home late and needs dinner on the table quickly, an Instant Pot could be useful. I tend to use it mostly for cooking beans, bean and lentil soups, and bone broth.

How Instant is it?

Although the manual is a great way to learn how to use the machine and offers a helpful chart about how long to cook different foods, what many people don’t realize is that when using a pressure cooker, it takes the machine a decent amount of time to actually achieve pressure before it starts cooking anything.  The more food or liquid in the machine, the longer it takes to come to pressure.

So when a recipe boasts that you can make dinner in 9 minutes, that usually doesn’t take into account the time it takes the machine to achieve pressure.  In my classes, I doubled this recipe (using 5 pounds of chicken) and it took the Instant Pot 20 minutes to achieve pressure + 12 minutes to cook (I often add a little extra time when doubling a recipe) + 2 minutes to release pressure.  

So it’s still a great, quick, hands-off way to cook, but it’s not exactly as “instant” as it may appear.  In fact, the best way to utilize the pressure cooker is with recipes that take a long time on the stove/oven, not with recipes that are already pretty fast.

I thought this would be a great recipe to share for summer since it’s great for entertaining and an Instant Pot doesn’t heat up your kitchen the way an oven does.  You can even keep food warm in it which makes it really nice for serving food to a crowd buffet-style. For those of you who are not Instant Pot fans, fear not. I have included instructions on how to make this in a slow cooker or the oven!

This Instant Pot Pork Roast is another family favorite!

Instant Pot Chicken Tinga

Pamela Salzman shares her Instant Pot or Slow Cooker Chicken Tinga recipe and discusses some of the pros and cons of the Instant Pot.

4 Average

Prep Time: 5 minutes mins

Cook Time: 20 minutes mins

Total Time: 25 minutes mins

Course: Dinner

Cuisine: Mexican

Method: Freezer Friendly

Diet: Dairy Free, Egg Free, Peanut/Tree Nut-Free

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Servings: 6 people

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Ingredients

  

1/2x1x2x…

• 1/2 medium onion (peeled)
• 2 large garlic cloves
• 1 1/2 cups tomato puree (crushed tomatoes or diced tomatoes)
• 1/2 cup water (or chicken stock if you have it)
• 1 1/4 tsp sea salt
• 1 tsp oregano (dried)
• 1 tsp cumin (ground)
• 1/8 tsp allspice (ground)
• 2 tbsp cider vinegar
• 1 dried bay leaf
• 2 dried chipotle peppers
• 2 – 2 1/2 lbs in pieces chicken (boneless, skinless (thighs work best))
• 12 corn tortillas (warmed)

Suggested accompaniments

• avocado
• cabbage (shredded)
• lettuce (shredded)
• cilantro (fresh)
• onion (diced or pickled)

Instructions

 

• With the lid off, set the Instant Pot to “Sauté” to pre-heat.
• In a blender, combine the onion, garlic, tomato puree, stock, salt, oregano, cumin, allspice, and vinegar. Blend until smooth.
• Warm the oil in the Instant Pot. Add the mixture from the blender as well as the bay leaf and dried chipotle. Bring to a simmer and turn the machine off (usually this button says something like “keep warm/cancel”).
• Place the chicken pieces in the sauce and cover with the lid, locking it into place. Set the valve to “sealing” and the machine to “manual” for 9 minutes. When the machine has finished cooking, you can opt for a quick release (turn valve to “venting”), and be careful of the steam that will come out of the valve.)
• After the pressure has been released, open the lid and turn off the machine. Then set the machine to “Sauté.” Transfer the chicken to a plate or bowl. Remove the bay leaf and smash the chipotle peppers a bit. Allow the sauce to simmer while you shred the meat with two forks. Taste the sauce for salt. (If you want the sauce to be spicy, blend the chipotle peppers + sauce with an immersion blender.) Transfer the chicken back into the sauce and serve.

Notes

Slow cooker method: You can sauté sauce on the stovetop if you’re up for it, otherwise just put everything into the slow cooker and cook everything on LOW for 6 hours or HIGH for 4 hours. I like to reduce the sauce a little while I am shredding the chicken. Do this either on the stovetop in a saucepan or turn the slow cooker to high and leave the lid off.

Oven method: Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Sauté sauce ingredients over medium heat in a 5-quart Dutch oven or ovenproof pot with a tight-fitting lid. Add 2 cups water or chicken stock, plus bay leaf, chipotle peppers, and chicken. Cover and bake until chicken is fork-tender, about 2 hours. To finish, place the Dutch oven on the stove over medium heat. Remove the chicken and simmer the sauce.

We recommend organic ingredients when feasible.

Nutrition Facts

Nutrition Facts

Instant Pot Chicken Tinga

Amount Per Serving

Calories 879 Calories from Fat 477

% Daily Value*

Fat 53g82%

Saturated Fat 15g94%

Cholesterol 255mg85%

Sodium 767mg33%

Potassium 1047mg30%

Carbohydrates 31g10%

Fiber 5g21%

Sugar 4g4%

Protein 68g136%

Vitamin A 820IU16%

Vitamin C 13.4mg16%

Calcium 101mg10%

Iron 5.2mg29%

* Percent Daily Values are based on a 2000 calorie diet.

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