This Authentic Instant Pot Chicken Tinga recipe is a flavor-packed delight! Bone-in chicken cooked with a vibrant combination of spices results in a delicious chicken filling that you can use to make chicken tinga tacos, chalupas, burritos, nachos, enchiladas, or a rice bowl or burrito bowl.
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This chicken tinga Instant Pot recipe was adapted from an authentic recipe (known as tinga de pollo) from the state of Puebla in Mexico, which is best known for mole.
Tinga de pollo is a shredded chicken recipe that’s cooked with smoky chipotle peppers, spices, onions, and tomatoes.
This Instant Pot chipotle chicken recipe can be made with pork or beef too. Serve the chipotle flavored meat in tacos, burritos, enchiladas, on a tostada or nachos, or as part of a rice bowl.
My two favorites are chicken and pork tinga. When I make Instant Pot pork tinga, I fry up some chorizo to combine with the pork – it’s pretty delicious! But today’s recipe is for the chicken version.
I love the burrito bowls you get at the Chipotle restaurant chain and this chicken tinga recipe is perfect to make those. Burrito bowls are a great entertaining idea. Make the Instant Pot tinga a day ahead, which allows the chicken to become even more flavorful.
➡ Looking for more Latin recipes? Try my Instant Pot carne asada, arroz con Pollo, or carnitas. Easy recipes you’re going to love!
Ingredients and Tips
🧂 Chicken Tinga Ingredients
💡 Recipe and Ingredient Tips
⏲️ Pressure Cooking Time:
- Bone-in thighs/drumsticks are ideal. Add 1-2 minutes for larger pieces.
- For boneless thighs, reduce to 8-9 minutes.
- Using pork shoulder? Cook 70 minutes
- Trying beef chuck? Cook 55 minutes Pro tip: Cut pork or beef into 3 large chunks!
🍬 Brown Sugar: Sugar balances all the flavors – salty, sour, spicy, and sweet come together perfectly. Feel free to skip it if you prefer.
🌶️ Chipotle Chiles: Skip the canned chipotles and grab a jar of diced chipotle peppers instead. They’re super convenient and last much longer in your fridge.
🔪 Making the Marinade: Blending delivers the best flavor, but fine chopping works too. I use a Vitamix blender with mini blender attachment.
🎛️ Reducing Sauce & Sautéing Chicken: Use a splatter screen when reducing the sauce – it gets bubbly! Don’t skip the final sauté step for extra flavor! Try a frying pan or broiler to crisp up the chicken.
🌮 Serving Ideas: Perfect for taco bars! Top chicken tinga tacos with:
- chopped avocados or guacamole
- pico de gallo
- salsa
- crema
- queso fresco or cotija cheese
- cilantro
- caramelized onions, chopped onions or pickled onions
- chopped serrano chiles, jalapenos or pickled jalapeno
- thinly sliced radishes
- fresh lime
🍗 Make ahead: Cook the chicken and refrigerate. Sauté just before guests arrive!
How to Make Chicken Tinga
See full instructions in the recipe card at the bottom.
⏲️ Instant Pot Method
- Make the marinade.
- Add chicken and marinade to the inner pot.
- Pressure cook.
- Release pressure.
- Reduce to thicken.
- Shred the chicken.
- Saute the chicken.
- Add onions, tomatoes, vinegar, garlic, chipotle chiles, oregano, marjoram, salt, thyme, cumin, and brown sugar to a blender jar.
- Blend until it forms a smooth paste.
- Add broth, chicken, and blended sauce.
- Stir to combine.
- Close the lid.
- Select Pressure Cook mode and cook on high pressure for 12 minutes.
- The display will go from On to 12:00. The float valve will go up after a few minutes. The display will count down to 00:00.
- Do a natural release of pressure or a 15-minute natural release. Once the float valve goes down, the lid can be opened.
- Using a slotted spoon, transfer the chicken from the inner pot into a large bowl and set aside.
- Select Saute mode and reduce the sauce until thickened, about 7 to 10 minutes, stirring occasionally. To prevent splatter from the bubbling sauce, use a splatter screen to protect your countertops.
- Shred the chicken using two forks. Add in desired quantity of sauce, about ¼ to ½ cup. Mix the chicken and sauce.
- Heat a large frying pan over medium-high heat and add vegetable oil. Spread out the shredded chicken on the frying pan and add more sauce if desired. Saute the chicken until brown bits form on the bottom, stirring gently occasionally. Serve pressure cooker chicken tinga in tacos, enchiladas, burritos, on nachos or as part of a rice bowl with any of the toppings described in the tips section above.
♨️ Stovetop Method
- Make the sauce: Blend onions, tomatoes, vinegar, garlic, chipotle chiles, oregano, marjoram, salt, thyme, cumin, and brown sugar into a smooth paste.
- Bring chicken, broth, and sauce to a boil. Reduce heat to medium-low, cover and cook.
- Remove the chicken pieces and set aside.
- Continue cooking sauce until reduced.
- Once the chicken has cooled down a bit, shred the chicken and add some sauce to it.
- Saute the chicken in a large frying pan over medium-high heat. Add the sauce a few tablespoons at a time, until incorporated and the chicken is browned but also saucy.
Chicken Tinga
Equipment
Ingredients
- 1 ½ cup onions coarsely chopped
- 1 can fire roasted tomatoes 14.5 oz (411 grams)
- 2 tablespoon apple cider vinegar
- 2 tablespoon garlic coarsely chopped
- 2 tablespoon chipotle chiles in adobo sauce chopped (more to taste)
- 1 tablespoon Mexican oregano
- 1 ½ teaspoon dried marjoram
- 1 ½ teaspoon salt or to taste
- 1 teaspoon dried thyme
- 1 tablespoon cumin powder
- 1 teaspoon brown sugar
- ¼ cup low sodium chicken broth
- 2 ½ to 3 lbs chicken thighs or drumsticks bone-in skinless (1.2 to 1.4 kg)
- 2 teaspoon vegetable oil if using
For serving, your choice of:
- chopped avocados
- guacamole
- pico de gallo
- salsa
- crema
- queso fresco
- cotija cheese
- cilantro
- caramelized onions chopped onions or pickled onions
- chopped jalapeno or serrano chiles
- fresh lime
Instructions
Instant Pot Instructions
- Combine onions, tomatoes, vinegar, garlic, chipotle chiles, oregano, marjoram, salt, thyme, cumin, and brown sugar in a blender and blend until smooth.
- Combine chicken broth, chicken, and blended sauce in the inner pot.
- Close the lid and pressure cook on High Pressure for 12 minutes.
- Do a Natural Pressure Release (NPR). If you're short on time, you can do a 15 minute Natural Pressure Release (NPR 15). [Read More: The Different Pressure Release Methods]
- Using a slotted spoon, transfer the chicken from the inner pot into a large bowl and reserve.
- Select Saute mode and reduce the sauce until thickened, about 7 to 10 minutes, stirring intermittently. To prevent splatter from the bubbling sauce, use a splatter screen to protect your countertops.
- Shred the reserved chicken using a meat shredder or two forks. Add in desired quantity of sauce (about ¼ to ½ cup) and stir together the chicken and sauce.
- Heat a large nonstick frying pan over medium-high heat and 2 teaspoons of vegetable oil. [See Note 1].
- Spread out the shredded chicken on the frying pan without overcrowding. Add more sauce if desired.
- Saute the chicken until brown bits form on the bottom, stirring gently occasionally. Add more sauce as needed.
- Transfer chicken to a serving bowl. Serve with tortillas, rice or salad and your choice of toppings.
Stovetop Instructions
- Combine onions, tomatoes, vinegar, garlic, chipotle chiles, oregano, marjoram, salt, thyme, cumin, and brown sugar in a blender and blend until smooth.
- Heat a large saucepan over medium-high heat. Add chicken broth, chicken, and blended sauce to the saucepan and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to medium-low and simmer until the chicken is cooked through, stirring occasionally, about 30 minutes. Transfer chicken pieces to a large bowl and set aside.
- Reduce the remaining sauce until thickened.
- Once the chicken is cool enough to handle shred the reserved chicken using a meat shredder or two forks. Add in desired quantity of sauce (about ¼ to ½ cup) and stir together the chicken and sauce.
- Heat a large nonstick frying pan over medium-high heat and 2 teaspoons of vegetable oil. [See Note 1].
- Spread out the shredded chicken on the frying pan without overcrowding. Add more sauce if desired.
- Saute the chicken until brown bits form on the bottom, stirring gently occasionally. Add more sauce as needed.
- Transfer chicken to a serving bowl. Serve with tortillas, rice or salad and your choice of toppings.
Notes
- Prep time does not include steps that are already accounted for in the ingredient list, e.g. skinned chicken, chopped onions, minced garlic, etc.
- Note 1: Sauteing of chicken is optional, but I recommend it!
Nutrition
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I am not a certified nutritionist. I provide my best estimate of nutritional information merely as a courtesy to my readers. If you depend on nutritional information for dietary or health reasons, I suggest using your favorite online nutrition calculator to confirm the nutritional value of this recipe based on the actual ingredients that you use.
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Tracy says
Hi! Can’t wait to try this! I have an Instant Pot Duo 8 qt. Do I need to add additional liquid to the pressure cooking step to ensure it doesn’t burn? And if so, how much more? Thanks!!!
Paint the Kitchen Red says
Tracy, It might be just fine, but if you want to be safe add an extra 1/4 cup of broth. Hope you like the recipe!
katieonwhidbey says
Everything I was hoping for: easy, great flavor, yummy with rice or tortillas. We made a 1/2 batch for the two of us and have plenty of leftovers for later in the week (my favorite). Made with boneless, skinless thighs and the 9 minutes was perfect. Opted to include the tiny bit of brown sugar; also sauteed in a skillet after shredding to produce delicious edges. This will go into heavy rotation!
Paint the Kitchen Red says
I do saute mine as well. I love the browning effect. Thank you for your comment.
Rosie Gutierrez says
This was so delicious. Thank you for sharing. Have you tried making this with chicken breast? I was wondering about how many minutes to add.
Paint the Kitchen Red says
Rosie, I’m not a huge fan of cooking chicken breast in the IP but you can definitely do it. Since you’ll probably be using boneless chicken, you can reduce the cooking time to 7 – 9 minutes, depending on the size of the chicken breasts.
Aaron says
Really delicious and pretty simple. I did use the sugar as well as sautéed the chicken after it came out of the Instant Pot. I also used chicken breast because my wife prefers it. It still came out tender and moist and delicious. We used it for tacos.
Paint the Kitchen Red says
Thanks, Aaron! And I’m glad it worked for you with the chicken breasts. Cooking breasts in liquid is the best way to get them tender in my experience (as opposed to steaming on a rack).
Monica says
This is the best thing I’ve made in months! So flavorful. So easy. I left out the sugar and it was still amazing. I almost skipped the extra step of sautéing the meat. I’m so glad I did the extra step, it added an entire new depth of flavor. This is another great recipe from Paint the Kitchen Red. This has become my go-to website for instapot, as the recipes are always reliable and have never disappointed the family. Thank you!
Paint the Kitchen Red says
Awww, thank you Monica – that’s so kind of you! Thanks also for sharing your modifications! I’m very happy you liked the recipe.
Roslia santamaria says
This looks super tasty!! I can’t wait to give it a try! It’s all delicious ingredients 🙂
Paint the Kitchen Red says
Thanks Roslia! Hope you enjoy it.