I Roasted a Chicken in My Instant Pot and Kind of Hated It

I know. This is a terrible discovery. And I semi-despise myself for even discussing this revelation. But I'm all about honesty. And I won't bend the rules...even for my beloved Instant Pot.

Why am I not a fan? For starters, it takes roughly the same amount of time to roast a whole chicken in my IP as it generally does to roast one on the convection setting in my oven. Granted, I could have just skipped the part where you sear the chicken on both sides, but I am a sucker for the crispy chicken skin that comes from roasting a chicken. I mean, hello, who isn't?! So I took the extra time and did this thing where I sautéed the chicken before pressure-cooking it. Why? Because the fact that my Instant Pot also has this magical setting that allows you to sauté something in it before pressure cooking blows. my. mind. So clearly, I had to test it out. 

And I actually tested it three times. Yes. In the past month, I have IP "roasted" three whole chickens. Lawd have mercy, can you say chicken at every stinking meal? And kudos to my mother for pulling the chicken from the bone on this past one because....well, it's a little challenging to do that with one fully-functional arm. (Thanks, Momma!😁)

Speaking of the arm..just a quick update on the post-surgery healing going on over here. Let me start by saying that while I am a lover of all things natural and spend 98% of the time I spend working on the health of my gut, I am also a believer that we have been blessed with this thing called "modern medicine" that, when not abused, is a wonderful thing in the short-term. I needed to have this massive screw drilled into my arm to fix a severe fracture thanks to a moment of stupidity. And by "massive" I mean an 8-inch screw. IN MY ARM.

Yeahhhhh...this has been a journey. And I think my body is the most excited to see that thing go! The human body is an amazing machine that has the God-given ability to health itself, although sometimes it needs a "push" or "jolt" to move in the right direction. 

I had this screw in my body for exactly 9 months and 7 days. By month 5, my body started giving me little signs of "It is time for this hardware to leave, lady. It has done its job and it is time to go." I went back to my Ortho at month 6 (who is amazing, by the way, and I trust him 100%. He actually performed surgery to fix a tear in my hip labrum when I was 19. Clearly, I'm slightly accident prone. 😬)  and he informed me that, no, it was not time for the screw to come out because it still needed a little more time before he would be satisfied with the progress that I had made. So we made a deal to remove it in 3 more months. I say "deal" because that's nicer than saying that I threatened him with an all out meltdown, screaming tantrums and alligator tears included, if he wouldn't remove it then. Ahem. 😇

By the time March rolled around, I was having episodes 2-3 times a week where my arm would stove-up temporarily and cause serious pain. From the start, whenever I straightened my arm the head of the screw would graze my bone, but it was getting more and more painful as time went on. These were all not-so-subtle hints that my body knew it was time to go back to normal function, metal-free. So thankfully, I am now metal-free and happier than ever! A little banged up and bruised, but much better.

Now, back to this chicken disaster.

It's not that the chicken tasted bad. It was actually pretty good. The problem was that 1) it didn't seem very "roasted" and 2) it looked kind of funky. And by funky I mean, kind of like someone who has a sunburn on one side of their body. 

See what I mean? Now, granted, I could have wrestled with the bird to brown every.single.side. of it, but I mean......one whole chicken filled up my entire Instant Pot to the brim. And I wasn't really in the mood to wrestle with tongs or a carving fork to force it to turn on every side. Just flipping it one time was enough of a workout for me, thank you very much. 

The general gist of roasting a chicken in an Instant Pot is that you spend approximately 15 minutes browning your chicken on all sides using the sauté setting, then locking the lid in place and pressure cooking it for approximately 45 minutes. To me, it comes out more "roasty-like" if you use the rack insert so that the chicken isn't sitting in its juices. But it still just doesn't compare to an oven-roasted chicken. I think that Instant Pots are better used for hard boiling eggs, roasting butternut squash, making fast-paced bone broth, and a plethora of other things that don't require wrestling with a chicken. And that awesome "Sauté" setting would be better used to make this soup...which I do believe I will have to try soon!

Don't worry. My Instant Pot is still the best invention since sliced bread and I'm sure another IP recipe will make an appearance in the near future. Because I heart my Instant Pot, guys. 

XOXO,

Heather