Instant Pot Chicken & Sweet Potatoes
This recipe for Instant Pot Chicken and Sweet Potatoes is a one-pot meal that combines juicy chicken breasts with sweet potatoes and canned tomatoes. It’s a healthy, hands-off dinner that is ready in just 35 minutes.
As a busy nutritionist and food blogger, I’ve tested dozens of pressure cooker chicken recipes. This one in particular is a fan favorite (the recipe video on YouTube has almost 5,000 views). The chicken is moist and tender when cooked in the Instant Pot and the other ingredients add flavor and nutrition.
You aren’t going to believe how delicious this dish is considering the ingredients are so simple. The flavors are kid-friendly and appropriate for picky eaters. Plus, this recipe is budget-friendly too! See all my tips for eating clean on a budget.
Key Ingredients
- Chicken breasts or chicken thighs can be used as the base of this recipe. Chicken is a nice source of lean protein that is low in fat.
- Sweet potatoes are an excellent complex carbohydrate that round out this one-pot healthy meal. They are on my list of Orange Vegetables and are a rich source of beta-carotene. You can also use purple sweet potatoes or the white-fleshed Japanese sweet potatoes too.
- Canned tomatoes are inexpensive and easy to keep on hand in the pantry. They add flavor, moisture, and extra nutrition to this easy chicken recipe.
Be sure to check the full recipe card at the end of this post for the exact measurements.
Recipe Steps
Step One: Sauté the chicken and onion using a bit of oil to add flavor. Feel free to skip this step if you are in a hurry.
Step Two: Cancel the sauté function and add the seasonings.
Step Three: Add the remaining ingredients including the chopped sweet potatoes, tomatoes, and broth.
Step Four: Cook on high pressure according to the recipe instructions. Carefully remove the lid and stir in the chopped cilantro and lemon juice.
Use a serving spoon or spatula to serve your cooked chicken and sweet potatoes. This dish is best served hot right out of the pot.
Recipe Substitutes
- Chicken – chopped chicken breasts or chicken thighs can be used.
- Sweet Potatoes – orange, purple, or white-fleshed sweet potatoes are great. You can also try Japanese sweet potatoes which have a purple skin but white flesh.
- Feel free to get creative with your seasonings. If you don’t have any of the ones listed, you can always use spices like oregano, rosemary, turmeric, curry powder, or Italian seasoning.
Storage Tips
- Store any leftovers in an airtight container in the refrigerator for up to 4 days. Reheat on the stovetop or in the microwave before serving.
- You can also freeze this recipe for up to 2 months. The sweet potato texture may be altered slightly, but it is definitely a freezer-friendly meal.
Carrie’s Nutrition Highlights
This recipe was designed to offer a balanced meal including protein, fat, and complex carbohydrates. This helps keep blood sugar balanced.
Additionally, by adding some fat to the meal, this helps the body absorb the nutrients including the beta-carotene from the orange sweet potatoes.
Recipe FAQs
Yes, you can use frozen chicken. Just add 10 minutes to the time (so 18 minutes total). It is best if your chicken is already diced, though.
It’s better to use boneless chopped chicken breasts or thighs so that the sweet potatoes don’t get overcooked.
Yes, you can, but some people prefer to peel sweet potatoes so they have a smoother texture once cooked.
No, the cooking time stays the same.
Yes, but the dish won’t have the natural sweetness that comes from the sweet potatoes.
Instant Pot Chicken & Sweet Potato Recipe
Here’s an easy Instant Pot Chicken & Sweet Potato Dinner recipe that only takes 35 minutes from start to finish. It’s a delicious chicken recipe perfect for busy weeknights. This healthy recipe has simple ingredients that all come together in a flavorful and satisfying dish.
- Total Time: 38 minutes
- Yield: 4 1x
Ingredients
- 1 tablespoon cooking oil (I used olive oil)
- 1 onion, chopped
- 1 pound boneless, skinless chicken breasts, cut into 1-inch pieces
- 1/2 teaspoon dried thyme
- 1/4 teaspoon garlic powder
- 1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- 1/2 teaspoon sea salt
- 1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper
- 1/2 cup water
- 2 medium sweet potatoes, peeled and chopped (about 3 cups)
- 1 14.5–ounce canned chopped tomatoes, with the juices
- 1/4 cup chopped fresh cilantro (optional, for topping)
- 1 medium lemon or lime, juiced
Instructions
- Drizzle your cooking oil into the Instant Pot bowl and press the Sauté button. Let the oil heat up for about two minutes.
- Place the onion and chicken in the pot. Use a wooden spoon or spatula to stir the onion and chicken while they cook for a few minutes.
- Add the thyme, garlic powder, cinnamon, salt, and pepper.
- Cancel the sauté function and add the water, chopped sweet potatoes, and tomatoes, and stir to combine.
- Lock on the lid and set the cooking time to 8 minutes on high pressure.
- When the cooking time is up, let the pressure release naturally for 10 minutes, then quick-release the remaining pressure.
- Remove the lid and stir in the cilantro and lemon or lime juice.
- Serve immediately or store in the refrigerator in a tightly-sealed container for up to 4 days.
Notes
- The total cook time for this Instant Pot dinner recipe includes 10 minutes of time for the pot to come up to pressure and then 10 minutes for a natural release.
- Store any leftovers in an airtight container in the refrigerator for up to 4 days.
- You can use chopped chicken breasts or chicken thighs in this recipe. You can use orange, purple, or white-fleshed sweet potatoes.
- Feel free to get creative with your seasonings. If you don’t have any of the ones listed, you can always use spices like oregano, rosemary, turmeric, curry powder, or Italian seasoning.
- You can easily double this recipe so you have more servings. It’s one of my favorite meal prep meals that you can serve in different ways. Serve it plain one night, with rice another right, and as a burrito bowl another night. See all of my meal prep tips for beginners or my favorite Instant Pot meal prep accessories.
- If you want to use frozen chicken breasts in this recipe, increase the cooking time to 18 minutes.
- Prep Time: 10 minutes
- Cook Time: 8 minutes
- Category: Main Dish
- Method: Instant Pot pressure cooker
- Cuisine: clean eating
- Diet: Gluten Free
Nutrition
- Serving Size: 1/4 of recipe
- Calories: 263
- Sugar: 3 g
- Sodium: 235.1 mg
- Fat: 12.7 g
- Saturated Fat: 4.8 g
- Carbohydrates: 9.5 g
- Fiber: 2.2 g
- Protein: 27.5 g
- Cholesterol: 98 mg
More Easy Instant Pot Recipes You Might Like
- Instant Pot Chicken Soup with Rice
- Instant Pot Chicken Thighs and Potatoes
- Instant Pot Beef Chili with Sweet Potato
- Instant Pot Salmon with Vegetables
- Instant Pot Pork Chops and Rice
- Instant Pot Whole Chicken & Vegetables
Also, don’t miss my epic round-up of Instant Pot chicken recipes.
Don’t Miss These Instant Pot Resources!
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About the Author: Carrie Forrest is the author of the best-selling Instant Pot-authorized cookbook, The Healthy Meal Prep Instant Pot Cookbook. She has a master’s degree in public health with a specialty in nutrition and receives over 5 million annual visitors to her site. Send Carrie a message through her contact form.
I really want to try this recipe, but I cannot have tomatoes in my diet. I’m worried that if I do not sub something else in place of the tomatoes, it might not have enough “liquid” for the Instant Pot. Do I need to worry about this? Can I leave the recipe as-is (minus tomatoes) and it will work out, or can you recommend an appropriate substitution?
That’s right you would need to substitute the tomatoes. I haven’t tested it with anything else. Let me know if you find a good sub!
Carrie,
Did you find there was no need to deglaze the pot after sautéing the onion and chicken before adding the rest of the ingredients and putting the lid on to pressure cook?
I haven’t had to do that but you can if you want to! 🙂
Very tasty. The sweet potatoes almost disintegrated… maybe I cut them too small. Will try releasing pressure after 5 minutes next time to see if they hold their shape better. Flavors were great and I won’t change any of the ingredients.
Hi Carrie, how big is the actual serving size ? 1.5 cups, 150 grams? Trying to track how serving size would be measured for. Macro tracking.
I would estimate that each serving is about 1.5 cups. It is essentially the recipe divided by 4 since it makes 4 servings.
One of my all-time favorite Instant Pot recipes!!!
This recipe looks amazing, but I’m wondering if there’s something I could replace the onion with? My fiancée’s allergic to everything in the onion family
You can just leave out the onion! 🙂
We usually replace onions (in any recipe) with poblano peppers, but I bet any kind of pepper would be delicious.
So this looks good. But I like to eat the potato skins since they contain fiber and other nutrients. Is it okay to keep the potato skins on in this recipe? Also, how long do you saute the chicken and onions in the beginning? 3 minutes each side?
Yes absolutely!
Following.
This was delicious and very easy! I didn’t have any lime or lemon juice or cilantro but I still felt like it was very flavorful. I used Italian-flavored tomatoes because that was what I had in my pantry, and used 1/8 tsp of ground thyme. I think I could’ve used a little more, but I know ground spices are more concentrated (?) and couldn’t remember the right ratio. At any rate, I’m definitely making this again. You have a way of making it easy and interesting to incorporate veggies and protein in one easy dish!
Thanks, Christy! I’m thrilled you liked this recipe. And I appreciate the compliment. I actually don’t love vegetables so I try to sneak them in whenever I can without being too obvious ha ha! 🙂
It’s so crazy, but I found a printed copy of this recipe randomly yesterday and decided to make it again (the original date that I’d printed it was 9/10/19) last night. My family, including my 11 year old son, LOVED it, so I came back to your blog today to see what other recipes you have, and lo and behold, you’d ran THIS SAME RECIPE again yesterday, the day we were enjoying it. What a coincidence. This recipe is absolutely delicious, my son said it was possibly his favorite dish that I’d ever made. Thanks for making me look like a hero with such an easy, straightforward, healthy recipe.
Oh I love that coincidence, Jessica!!!! I had just taken some new photos for this one and decided to re-publish it. So glad you enjoyed it and your son too!
Thank you Carrie for sharing this recipe, it was delicious! Though the consistency looked quite different from your pictures. It turned out really soupy for me. What would you recommend I do next time to have it more stew-y? Should I just omit the water or would I get a burn warning?
Furthermore, I want to increase the amount of chicken breast, would I need to make modifications or?
Thanks again!
Hi Mali, that’s interesting because there is very little liquid in this recipe. Where do you think the liquid came from? As far as adding more chicken, that should be fine! But I really wouldn’t decrease the liquid because you will get a burn notice.