Try this Instant Pot Lemon Garlic Chicken recipe for dinner this week! Easy pressure cooker meal for those busy weeknight dinners! You can make your side dish using the pot-in-pot method to cut down the amount of time in the kitchen. This recipe is keto-friendly and gluten-free.

So let me show you what it looks like.

So come along with me and let’s make some garlic lemon chicken in the instant pot.

Ingredients:

Let’s take a look at the ingredients needed to make this recipe.

Chicken Thighs: You’ll need six to eight boneless, skinless chicken thighs,

Olive Oil: some olive oil, or as I like avocado oil,

Salt & Pepper: some salt and pepper,

Garlic Powder: a teaspoon of garlic powder,

Chili Flakes: Some red chili flakes are optional. If you don’t like them, don’t put them in.

Italian Seasoning: Two tablespoons of Italian seasoning,

Minced Garlic: Four teaspoons of minced garlic,

Onion: half a yellow onion, diced,

Lemon: one lemon. You’re going to need the zest from it and all the juice from it.

Chicken Broth: About three-quarters of a cup of chicken broth.

Salted Butter: Three tablespoons of salted butter.

Heavy Cream: You need about a quarter cup of heavy cream. You can always put a little bit more in if you like.

Thickener: I use some type of thickener. I’m using xantham gum because it is keto-friendly, but you could use cornstarch if you’d like also.

I’m making a pot in pot rice. So I have two cups of Calrose rice and with that, I’m going to use two cups of water.

If you’re not going to do the pot-in-pot rice, you can skip these two ingredients.

Preparation:

Let’s get started with preparing our ingredients. You can see my cutting board is slippery, so I put a wet paper towel underneath it, and it stops it from moving and sliding, which will help prevent injuries.

So now I’m taking my yellow onion and I’m going to peel it and use half of it and just dice it up. Half a medium onion diced is about half a cup.

Now I’m going to take my rice and the pot that I’m going to cook it in and I’m going to give it a good rinse. This is a really important step otherwise your rice is going to be very sticky.

So I rinse it and I sort of mash it together with my hand in the cold water and I keep doing this until the water is no longer Milky and clear. Usually at least three times.

Then after I’m done rinsing it, I’m going to drain it well, and then I’m going to put in my measured water, which is exactly two cups of water and use the same measuring cup that you used for the rice.

Although my chicken was already de-boned and di skinned. I just like to go back and take off a little bit of the excess fat. That’s just a personal preference of mine.

So I’m just going to go through all the chicken and take off any large areas of fat. If you don’t like to do this, you can skip this.

Making Lemon Garlic Chicken In The Instant Pot

Now I’m going to get my Instapot ready by hitting the saute button and as you can see, it comes on for 30 minutes automatically. While I’m letting it warm up I put in my oil.

While it gets warm-up, I’m going to go ahead and season all of my chicken thighs. So I’m going to put down some salt on it, some pepper, garlic powder, and some chili flakes. And then I’ll repeat it on the second side. And remember if you don’t like any heat, you do not have to use the red chili flakes. Those are completely optional.

Once the instant pot says hot, it’s ready to go and I’m going to start browning my chicken. And since I’m going to brown eight, I’m going to do four at a time

While I’m letting my chicken brown on one side, I’m going to go ahead and zest my lemon. I want to give off as much zest as possible. After I zest my lemon, I’m going to go ahead and slice it in half and now juice it.

And I just use my fingers. You could use a strainer. I just like to catch the seeds in my hand, of course, my hand is clean and then I just keep the juice in the bowl till we’re ready to add it to the recipe.

Now that I browned half my thighs on one side, I’m going to flip them over. Give them a few minutes on the other side. Just be careful when you’re flipping them over, they might be sticking a little. You don’t want to tear them. Then I’m going to repeat this for the second batch of chicken.

Now that we’ve found all the chicken I’m putting in my three tablespoons of butter and as you’ll see, it helps deglaze the pan a little bit. We don’t have to worry about it being completely glazed at this point because once we start cooking the onions, it will happen naturally.

So now I put in my onions and now I’m scraping the bottom, but as my onions cook and the water comes out, it will help keep deglaze the pan.

As you can see the sticking at the bottom is coming off and all those brown bits are going to be part of our sauce, which is going to just add so much flavor.

So keep scraping until you’re sure that the bottom of the pan is completely clean and nothing is sticking. Otherwise, you might get a burn error and those are not fun.

Now we add in our three-quarters cup of chicken broth, and if your pan is not glazed before, this will help get the bits off the bottom. I’ve just added my lemon juice and all the zest from my lemon.

Adding in two tablespoons or so of Italian seasoning. This is going to add a lot of flavor to our sauce that we’re sure nothing has stuck to the bottom.

There are no brown bits stuck to the bottom. We’re going to put our chicken back in and we’re just going to put them in a layer at the bottom. And one more layer on the top. Just stack them up flatly.

Now I’m going to put the rack that came with my instant pot on top of the chicken and then put in my pot of rice and water on top of that. Time to seal our lid. But the first thing I do is make sure that my rubber seal is in there nice and flat. Line up my Instapot lid, lock it in place and ensure the vent is set to the ceiling.

Now you hit cancel. If your sauteed feature was still on and we’re going to do pressure cook, high pressure for 7 minutes.

Once it cooks for seven minutes, we’re going to let it do a natural release for 10 minutes. We’re going to hit cancel, then push the valve to the venting and we’ll be waiting for the pin to drop that will tell us it’s safe to remove the lid. There we go.

Open the lid and you can see the cooked rice. I’m using the silicone gloves that I got with one of my accessories to remove the hot things, but you can use any type of potholder.

Now I’m going to carefully take out the cooked chicken. It’s going to be very tender and you just don’t want it to break and fall into a lot of pieces.

So carefully remove it. Hit cancel. Now we’re putting it back on saute.

I’m putting in my heavy cream, I’m starting with two tablespoons and I’ll be adding a little bit more as you’ll see it just wasn’t enough. So I’m going to stir it.

You can see the sauce is getting rich and I’m going to taste-test it to make sure it’s good. I noticed that it just didn’t look creamy enough for me. So I added in the remainder of my cream, which came to about half a quarter cup.

Now I’m adding in my xanthan gum thickener. I like my gravy to be a little bit thick. Once it reaches the consistency that you like, go ahead and give it another taste test. Make sure it’s how you expect it.

You could either add a little more red chili flakes or a little more salt. Give it a good stir and there you have it. Garlic lemon chicken in the instant pot.

Lemon Garlic Chicken In Instant Pot { Keto Friendly & Gluten Free }

This lemon garlic chicken is an easy pressure cooker meal for those busy weeknight dinners! You can make your side dish using the pot-in-pot method to cut down the amount of time in the kitchen. This recipe is keto-friendly and gluten-free.

Ingredients

8 boneless, skinless chicken thighs
2 tbsp olive or avocado oil
1 tsp salt

1 tsp pepper
1 tsp garlic powder
4 tsp minced garlic

1/2 tsp crushed red chili flakes (optional)
2 tbsp Italian seasoning
3 tbsp butter, salted

1/2 medium onion, diced
1 lemon (zested and juiced)
3/4 cup chicken broth

1/4 cup heavy cream
1 tsp xanthan gum (or other thickener)
2 cups white rice

2 cups water

Instructions

Dice the medium-sized onions.
Rinse the rice, repeat it three times till the water becomes clear. Drain the rice well and add 2 cups of water.

Remove unnecessary fat from the chicken pieces.
Turn on the instant pot by hitting the Saute button. Timer automatically set for 30 minutes. Let it warm up by adding the oil.
While IP gets warm-up, season your chicken thighs with salt, pepper, garlic powder, and some chili flakes. Season both sides of the chicken. If you don't like heat, you do not have to use chili flakes.