Instant Pot Chicken and Dumplings

Comfort food for the win! Instant Pot Chicken and Dumplings is creamy and satisfying, and takes less time without sacrificing any of the flavor.

Why Make Chicken And Dumplings In The Instant Pot?

I already have a fairly classic Chicken and Dumplings recipe that takes about an hour and is wonderful. But honestly, sometimes it’s just too many steps and ingredients for what I have energy for. Since I love using my Instant Pot for so many other comfort food dishes in less time, I decided to see if I could make a recipe work in the Instant Pot.

It took a few tries and adjustments, but I was able to further simplify my recipe and get great results in even less time. Less time, fewer dirty dishes, but still that cozy dish that I love. Now I can enjoy chicken and dumplings more often and so can you!

Can I Use Homemade Biscuits?

You can absolutely use homemade biscuit dough for your dumplings here. I tested this recipe with homemade biscuits as well as the refrigerated Pillsbury biscuit dough and both worked well. If you love everything from scratch, try my buttermilk biscuit recipe or these great drop biscuits.

However, I was trying to streamline the recipe process and cut down on time, so I stuck with the tube of biscuits for the recipe instructions.

How To Make Instant Pot Chicken And Dumplings

First, select the Sauté button on the Instant Pot to preheat. Keep the lid on while preheating, it will come up to temperature faster. When “Hot” is displayed, add in your butter, carrots, celery, onions, chicken, salt, and poultry seasoning. You can use store-bought or homemade poultry seasoning.

Cook in the Instant Pot, stirring occasionally, until the onions are soft, about 5 minutes. Press the Cancel button and then stir in chicken stock. Place the lid on the Instant Pot and lock it in place. Point valve to Sealing then press the Pressure Cook button and set time for 2 minutes. (It will start cooking while it comes up to pressure, so while it may not sound like enough time, it works perfectly.)

Meanwhile, remove the refrigerated biscuit dough from package. The biscuits will puff up significantly in the boiling liquid, so it’s important to “thin” them out first by tearing them in half lengthwise before cooking (so you have two thin circles, not two half moons). Then cut the circles into quarters for the perfect dumpling bite when they’re cooked in the liquid. Set aside for now.

Switch valve to Venting to quick-release pressure. Press the Cancel button, then press the Sauté button and bring to a boil. This should only take a minute or two since the pot is already quite hot.

Remove the lid and stir in the cream. Drop in your biscuit pieces and stir to distribute. Cook, stirring occasionally, until biscuits puff, are cooked through, and sauce is thickened, about 6 to 8 minutes.
Stir in the frozen peas and serve immediately.

A complete comfort food meal, all done in the Instant Pot! It’s seriously so good.

Why Add The Biscuit Dough At The End?

Now, you may be thinking… why don’t we just pressure cook everything together? That’s what the Instant Pot does best, right? Yes, the pressure cooking is great to cook the chicken quickly and build flavor in a short amount of time. But for this recipe, it ended up being much better to add some things after the pressure cooking was over.

So here’s the issue. Adding cream or other dairy to a pressure cooker for pressure cooking doesn’t always turn out well. It can easily break apart and separate, looking curdled. Adding the cream at the end is therefore a must. But, if you pressure cook the biscuits with the chicken and broth, then when you go to add the cream at the end, the biscuits are all puffy and in the way. They make it hard to get the cream in and stirred.

I found other recipes that have you pressure cook the biscuits with the chicken, and so I did try it. What they have you do is to remove some or all of the biscuits with a slotted spoon to pour in the cream, stir it, and thicken everything. I found it messy and inconvenient to do that.

The solution was to use the heat that is in the Instant Pot after pressure cooking to quickly cook the biscuits in the liquid using the Saute function. Since the Instant Pot is already hot, bringing it to a boil to cook the biscuits and thicken the liquid was fast and absolutely provided the best and most delicious final dish. So, you’ll cook your veggies, chicken and broth for a short time using pressure-cooking. Then you pour in some cream and add your biscuit dough. It works really well and is the easiest and least messy way to do it by far.

I hope you love this Instant Pot Chicken and Dumplings recipe as much as I do!

Podcast Episode: Making Instant Pot Chicken And Dumplings