Chicken Curry is so easy to make in your Instant Pot. The whole recipe can be prepared in your pressure cooker making it an easy weeknight dinner. The warm, spicy curry sauce and chicken is delicious served with rice and naan bread. It’s a cozy and comforting dinner!
If you’re craving some serious comfort food you have to try this Instant Pot Chicken Curry. It’s so warming, flavorful and delicious served with some rice. I love to make it in my Instant Pot because it’s so fast and easy. Perfect for a weeknight dinner.
Chicken curry is an Indian dish that is made with an amazing spice mix of curry powder, garam masala and other seasonings. There are many different variations and this is my favorite way to make it in my Instant Pot. It’s a little spicy from cayenne pepper and the combination of the curry sauce with the tender chicken is just so good.
Making chicken curry in an Instant Pot is such an easy way to prepare it. Once you’ve prepped the ingredients, you just let the pressure cooker do the rest of the work. It’s the ultimate one-pot dinner!
Table of Contents
Ingredients You’ll Need for Indian Chicken Curry
- Coconut oil
- Diced yellow onion
- Minced fresh ginger
- Minced garlic
- Curry powder
- Garam masala
- Cayenne pepper
- Diced green bell pepper
- Cubed chicken breasts
- Canned tomato sauce
- Tomato paste
- Salt and pepper
- Unsweetened coconut milk
How to Make Chicken Curry in an Instant Pot
First, turn on the “sauté” feature on the Instant Pot and add the oil. When it’s hot, add the onion and cook it in the oil until it’s translucent.
Add the ginger, garlic and all of the dry seasonings. Stir to combine them with the oil and onion and cook it all together for one minute.
Add the chicken and bell pepper and cook them for one minute with the other ingredients. Pour in the tomato sauce and, as it starts to simmer, scrape up any browned bits off the bottom of the pot.
Add the tomato paste, salt and pepper and stir all of the ingredients together so it’s all combined.
Place the lid on the pot and turn the vent to “sealing”. Cook on manual for five minutes. When the timer goes off all the steam to vent naturally for ten minutes.
Open the vent to release the rest of the steam and remove the lid. Add the coconut milk and stir to combine. Place the lid back on to keep it warm for about five minutes.
A Few Recipe Tips
For this recipe, I like to add the bell pepper so I don’t have to make a separate vegetable side dish. If you prefer, you can leave it out or you can add more if you want.
For the ginger, I highly recommend using fresh ginger. You can store fresh ginger in your freezer and it will keep for a long time. When you want to use it, just grate it on a microplane in the amount that you need. You can substitute dried ground ginger (the amount is in the recipe card), but fresh ginger is so much better!
Like all Instant Pot recipes, it does take some time for the pot to get to pressure. I have included this time in the cooking time, which is about 30 minutes.
If you want a thicker sauce, remove the lid and turn on the sauté feature. Simmer the sauce for a few minutes or until it reduces to your desired thickness.
Serve your chicken curry with basmati rice and some naan bread to soak up all of that flavorful sauce!
This curry chicken is one of our favorite comfort dinners and making it in the Instant Pot means we can have it more often. It’s so easy – I hope you love it, too!
Other Dinners You’ll Enjoy
Instant Pot Chicken Curry Recipe
Ingredients
- 2 Tablespoons coconut oil
- 1 medium yellow onion diced
- 1 tablespoon minced fresh ginger or 1 teaspoon dried, ground ginger
- 3 cloves or 2 teaspoons garlic, minced
- 1 tablespoon curry powder
- 1 teaspoon garam masala
- ½ teaspoon cayenne pepper or more or less according to how spicy you like it
- 1 green bell pepper diced
- 1 – 1.5 lbs. Chicken breast cut into 1” pieces
- 1 can tomato sauce 8 ounce
- 2 tablespoons tomato paste
- ½ teaspoon salt
- ¼ teaspoon ground pepper
- 1 cup canned unsweetened coconut milk
Instructions
- Set Instant Pot to Saute. Add 2 tablespoonful coconut oil. When hot, add onion and cook until translucent, about 5 minutes.
- Add ginger and garlic, as well as the dried seasonings. Stir and cook one minute.
- Add the chicken and bell pepper to the pot, stirring to cook one minute more.
- Pour tomato sauce and stir, deglazing the bottom of pot a bit. Then add tomato paste and salt, and pepper.
- Give the whole thing one more stir and place the lid on the pot, set vent to Sealing. Cook on Manual for 5 minutes. When done cooking, allow to naturally release for 10 minutes.
- Vent any remaining pressure, then remove the lid carefully. Add the coconut milk and stir. Replace the lid and keep warm for about 5 minutes more.
- If you want to thicken up your sauce a bit, with lid removed, set to Saute and allow contents to heat up and bubble for about 3 to 5 minutes. Then turn Instant Pot off.
- Garnish with cilantro. Serve Chicken Curry warm with basmati rice and naan bread.
Recipe Notes
- I like to add some vegetables into my chicken curries, rather than the extra work of cooking a side dish. You can certainly leave out the pepper, or add more in if you prefer.
- My favorite tip on cooking with fresh ginger: keep your ginger root in your freezer. When you need to use it in a recipe, simply pull it out of the freezer and grate with a microplane into your dish.
Recipe Nutrition
This Chicken Curry is SO easy to make in your instant pot! Simply prep your ingredients and let your pressure cooker do the rest. It’s the perfect comfort food and ultimate one-pot dinner!
No instant pot. Suggestions as to how to do this without one?
Thank you
Another option is if you have a slow cooker you could try it there and cook it for 2-3 hours on high. Good luck!!
I made this last night and it was delicious! I didn’t have green peppers, and I used half chicken thighs, half chicken breast because that’s all I had, but the rest I followed exactly. My husband and two teen boys also loved it; going into the rotation! Thanks for posting this recipe!
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