After a great deal of contemplation, I finally bit the bullet, and purchased an InstantPot approximately 3 months ago.  For those of you that are saying what the heck is an InstantPot??? It’s an electronic pressure cooker.  The version I purchased has several features, and can be used to sauté, make yogurt, and slow cook among other things.  

So far I absolutely LOVE it!  I decided on the 8 quart InstantPot Duo, and purchased it at Boscovs.  I was able to use a coupon and rewards dollars, making the purchase even more exciting.  (Go ahead feel free to begin the dork comments).  

The purpose of this particular post is to not only share my excitement of InstantPot ownership, but to share my experience of preparing a whole roasting chicken in an extremely simple way.  

This was my first attempt with a whole chicken, and in my opinion, it turned out great.   

My steps were are listed in order below.  

1. Remove chicken from packaging.  Rinse.  Place on plate or tray and pat dry with paper towel.   

2. After patting dry apply spices liberally.  In this case I used salt, pepper, onion powder, garlic powder, thyme and rosemary.

3. Flip chicken over and apply spices to other side of chicken.  

4. Turn instant pot onto saute function.  Add approximately 2 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil to pan.  InstantPot will say HOT on the front screen when ready.   

5. Once InstantPot is hot, place chicken breast side down in pan to brown.  This only took about 3 minutes.  Then flip chicken and sear underside.   

6. Once seared I removed the chicken and sat on a plate.  I then added 1 cup of chicken stock to the pan and with a spoon scraped the tasty bits off the bottom.  I didn’t want any of those pieces to burn while the chicken cooked, so I thought it would be best to deglaze.  This only takes a few seconds.   

7. Add chicken back to instant pot.  Lock lid and set button to sealed. 

8.  After some online research I decided on a cook time of 35 minutes.  This was based on advice of multiplying the weight of chicken by 5.5.

9.  Once the 35 minutes was up I let the InstantPot do a natural release.  And that’s it.  Take chicken out and enjoy! 

It may seem like there are a lot of steps, but all the preparation took just a few minutes.  You can walk away and work on other things during the cook time.  Not to mention the clean up is simple.  I will be sharing other recipes as I continue my InstantPot adventures.