Instant Pot-----Whole Chicken

This recipe was super easy and tasty. I think what I loved most is that the leftover meat that we ate for lunch the next day had such a great depth of flavor. This isn't your typical, chicken, carrots and potatoes. It's a totally different spin on it. We served it with white rice, but you could use just about any starch with it. 

Instant Pot Whole Chicken

1 Whole Chicken

1/2 cup cilantro (no need to chop)

Whole head of garlic, peeled (I love garlic)

6 green onions, chopped

1 inch of ginger root (no need to peel)

1/2 cup soy sauce

1/2 cup water

Rinse your chicken, and sprinkle with salt

Turn your Instant Pot onto saute, adjust to the hottest setting

Put cilantro, 1/2 the green onions, 1/2 the garlic and the ginger root inside the chicken

Place chicken in and turn to brown on all sides

Add the remaining garlic and green onions

Add 1/2 cup of water to the bottom of Instant Pot

Pour the soy sauce over the top of the chicken

Close the Instant Pot

Cook on Poultry on high for 25 minutes

Enjoy!

Whole Chicken

I've finally mastered cooking a whole chicken. Now that it's Fall and we use our bone broth almost weekly in meals, we quickly run out of bone broth. In order to get the bones for bone broth, I need to cook a whole chicken.  This recipe took some work to perfect, but the last 3 times it's turned out perfect. So now it's time to share my secret.

Whole Chicken
2-5 lb whole chicken (I love the Organic, pre-brined chicken from Trader Joes)
4 carrots chopped
4 celery stalks chopped
5 red potatoes chopped (I sometimes substitute, sliced butternut squash, acorn squash or delicata squash)
1 whole onion (red or yellow) cut into quarters
1 large rosemary sprig
1 large thyme sprig
1 garlic head (peel each clove individually)
Garlic powder
Salt
Pepper
Olive oil

Turn on oven to 275 degrees
Place Whole Chicken in cooking pan large enough for chicken and the vegetables
Put potatoes (or squash), celery, carrots, onion and whole garlic cloves around the chicken
Pull some rosemary and thyme off the sprigs and sprinkle around the vegetables
Drizzle top of chicken with olive oil, garlic powder, salt & pepper
Place in oven (no foil necessary) @ 275 until chicken reaches 165 degrees Fahrenheit
We then save the bones and that same night make our own bone broth (you can find that recipe in my archives on September 29, 2013). That broth I use for the base of all my soup recipes.
****Mix it up a little bit by substituting the potatoes for a squash, either sliced butternut, sliced acorn, or delicata squash.

Enjoy!