Tender Instant Pot Chicken Thighs Bone In Recipe! (2024)

Here’s how to make Instant Pot chicken thighs bone in style with a creamy cream cheese sauce your family will love. Easy pressure cooker dinner is done!

I’m back with some more easy Instant Pot recipes this week! This time we have a cream cheese pressure cooker chicken thighs bone in recipe to share with you so you can enjoy the yumminess too. It’s a great recipe our whole family loved with a side of mashed potatoes. (originally published 6/18, affiliate links present)

Instant Pot Bone In Chicken Thighs

Maybe you have veered away from this dark meat. Yes the most popular cut is white meat but seriously once you make these and really give them a whirl you will become a real believer like I did back in the day. Now I use them more than anything else. This is why we love this cut of meat:

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• They’re super cheap
• They have so much more natural flavor to them vs. breasts
• Chicken thighs are really tender

If you have a Ninja Foodi you can follow these same directions or just use air crisp. These use defrosted or fresh meat, if yours aren’t then follow our air fryer frozen chicken thighs recipe.

If you are new to pressure cooking we have a lot of easy one pot meal recipes for you here. To begin with let’s start with a few basic tips:

• Make sure to Bookmark our InstaPot recipes page. We add new ones each week!
• Then PRINT this —–> Instant Pot cooking times cheat sheet that will help you understand how long meat, vegetables and beans take to cook in your pressure cooker.
  • This is a great InstaPot cookbook and a set of wooden utensils are great to grab too.
  • I HIGHLY recommend you buy this non stick pot.
    • You should still deglaze pressure cooker after sautéing but it won’t have as many issues with this better liner.

For reference, this is the pressure cooker I have (a 6 quart) and use for all recipe creations.

Instant Pot Chicken Thighs with Sauce

Of course you can get boneless chicken thighs but I find that they are much more expensive. It isn’t really worth the added expense to have the bone removed, but that is totally up to you. You can really do so many things with them and no matter what they turn out amazingly well.

Here we are going to focus on sauteeing and then cooking chicken thighs in Instant Pot but after that I’ll share a few others. Now that I have an air fryer they are fabulous in that too. There is a big difference between the two with the texture.

This way you are going to get the most tender meat possible, without any crisp. The meat will literally fall off of the bone with no effort at all. Spoon the creamy sauce over the top and serve as is or with a side of vegetables or potatoes. BAM, a wonderful meal in no time at all.

Instant Pot chicken thighs

You can of course add seasonings of your choice to the outside before you sear so they bake on nicely and give it added flavor. There are some suggestions we use below too. This is what you’re going to need:

1. Chicken thighs
   1. bone in timing shared, if boneless skinless set to 8 minutes or use our Instant Pot honey mustard chicken recipe
   2. if you have Instant Pot frozen chicken thighs use this recipe
2. Chicken stock
3. Cream cheese
4. Fresh spinach
5. Sun dried tomatoes
6. Parmesan
7. Garlic powder
8. Olive oil
9. Salt and pepper

You can use the Instant Pot air fryer lid to crisp the skins if that is what you have, or your air fryer! I will talk about a few options to crisp the outside below because you can do it a few different ways and have the texture turn amazing.

Pressure cooker bone in chicken thighs

Now there are 3 steps to making these: We browned the chicken thighs first. You’ll use the saute function for this to get the outside cooked just a bit. To go thru all of them you’ll cook for 10 minutes or so total.

• Then remove the chicken thighs so you can deglaze your Instant Pot after this step to get all the browned bits off so it doesn’t trigger the burn notice.

Return your chicken and use the pressure cooker function to cook your chicken thighs.

When they are done use this Instant Pot air fryer lid to crisp the skins!! Or pop them into the oven using the broil function to get those skins nice and a bit crispy like you see here above.

• Of course you can feel free to skip this last step. However, that 5 minutes will make all the difference in the oohs and ahhhhs you’ll get when your thighs are done.

Creamy Chicken Thighs

While they’re in the broiler you’re going to make the sauce right in your pressure cooker…… Pour the cream cheese sauce right on top and serve!! It is great with a bed of rice, potatoes or steamed vegetables for a healthy choice.

Another pressure cooker chicken thighs recipe I’ve made were these Instant Pot spicy teriyaki chicken thighs with the bone in which turned out absolutely amazing.

Our Instant Pot lemon garlic chicken is fantastic too. There are just so many ways to make this cut of tender meat.

• You can adjust the heat level or just leave the Sriracha out all together in these.
• I haven’t tried it with boneless skinless chicken thighs but I’d imagine it would work just fine.
• I’d try this recipe next, you’ll love them too

Ninja Foodi Bone In Chicken Thighs

Can you put marinade in an Instant Pot?

YES! You can see above how we used our homemade teriyaki sauce as a sort of marinade of sorts. It isn’t the type of marinade it soaks in overnight but rather cooked with the sauce all at the same time. Keeping in mind you shouldn’t use sauces with very high sugar levels because they can burn, sauce is great to use.

• Our pressure cooker hoisin chicken is another example of Instant Pot chicken thighs with sauce that came out amazing. I have used chicken breast pieces as well.

What should I serve with chicken thighs?

I mean there are so many possibilities when it comes to side dishes though right?? I will share a few that we make quite often with this but there are many others. You would want to have more than one of these pots so you could make them side by side. If you have a mini version that works out great for just that.

• I typically serve both dishes with some Instant Pot white rice
• It’s also good with a side of pressure cooker baked potatoes, and/or green beans.
  • They’re part of our list of cheap Instant Pot recipes to enjoy.
• And pressure cooker mashed potatoes are always a win win.

Chicken Thighs in Instant Pot

We’ve made air fryer chicken thighs too that are fabulous. You stick those in raw from the start and you will get the skin you want nice and crispy from the get go. I will say the meat isn’t as tender though. If you’d like slow cooker chicken thighs you can try those too. After you’re through enjoying this easy pressure cooker chicken dinner idea, try these:

• Instant Pot crack chicken casserole is our fave next to chicken and potatoes.
• Pressure cooker lemon chicken casserole is a great one to make if you have leftovers after making this one.
• Easy Pressure cooker cheesy chicken spaghetti is a great one with leftover meat too.
• You should try ourPressure cooker beer can chicken too if you want to buy the whole thing and not chop it into pieces.

I also share these frozen whole chicken instructions too if you are having a forgetful moment like I do sometimes. Our smoked chicken thighs are amazing if you have a Traeger and/or love to cook outside during the year.

How to get crispy chicken thigh skin

Ok so nobody likes rubbery outsides when you want a bite of your tender piece of poultry. NO, you want fork tender meat but the outsides should be crunchy with either seasonings galore or a rich sauce to cook it in. With this pot alone you aren’t going to get the outsides crunchy but there is a way to do it still.

You may have bought one of the new air fry lids that they came out with recently. It is another top that you use instead of the high pressure one that comes with the pot. You can follow my directions below and then move the meat into the basket that came with, and out of the sauce. Put that lid on and give it a crisp! Here are some other methods;

1. Transfer meat to a pan and put under the broiler for 3-5 minutes, or until top of skin gets as crispy as you’d like.
2. Use air crisp function on your Ninja foodi pot.
3. Empty thickened sauce into a bowl and put chicken in an air fryer. Make sure they aren’t overlapping so they crisp as much as possible.
4. Put CrispLid on and set to 400 degrees for 4-8 minutes or until they’re as crispy as you’d like.
   1. Remove and pour cream cheese sauce over the top. Serve.

A few minutes at 400 degrees with a light spray of olive oil on top will do the trick for any of the air crisp or air fry machines you might have at home. You do want to remove from the sauce so the very hot air can circulate around the meat and get the texture you want. It can’t get thru cream cheese y’all. 😉

How Long to Cook Chicken Thighs in Instant Pot

There is a printable recipe card at the bottom of this post for you with recipe notes as well. You can keep it in your recipe box for later or just come back time and time again when you want to make this. First here is a quick rundown to peek at first before you get going. 😉

1. Set pressure cooker to saute. Mix the dried basil, dried oregano, dried thyme, salt and ½ teaspoon garlic powder. Rub on all sides of chicken thighs. (or sprinkle on thighs when you saute them)
2. Add olive oil to pressure cooker and in batches, brown the chicken thighs on both sides. Turn pressure cooker OFF, important step to allow it to cool down. Deglaze pot after this step.
3. When all chicken thighs are browned, place in a circle standing around the edges. Pour chicken stock/broth into the middle.
4. Close and set the value to sealing. Set the pressure cooker to high and cook for 10 minutes. Naturally release for 5 minutes before a quick release.
5. Carefully remove the chicken thighs from the pressure cooker. Place on a baking sheet prepared with non-stick cooking spray.
6. Place in oven set to broil to crisp the skin for about 5 minutes (if you want skin crispy) watching carefully.

Instant Pot Chicken Thighs with Sauce

If you want to thicken the sauce you can do so while the chicken broils. Switch the pressure cooker to saute again and heat the juices to boiling. Whisk in the cream cheese until melted (make sure it is room temp or it won’t melt smooth). Add the parmesan cheese and remaining garlic powder.

When the sauce has reduced to your desired consistency, add the sun-dried tomatoes and spinach. Stir to combine and serve with chicken over pasta or as desired. If you want the sauce to be thicker put 2 tbsp cornstarch in a bowl with 2 tbsp cold water and whisk together, then dump into pot. Stir and allow to thicken on saute as it bubbles it will thicken.

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