Pressure Cooker Creamy Chicken and Broccoli over Rice
Creamy chicken and broccoli has chunky, bite-size pieces of chicken and broccoli in a creamy cheese sauce, served over fluffy white rice. It’s a family favorite pressure cooker chicken recipe. Can be an Instant Pot recipe, too!
Recently, Alyssa, The Recipe Critic, shared a link to her popular Slow Cooker Creamy Chicken and Broccoli recipe on Facebook. When I checked out the recipe, I knew it would make a wonderful, quick, inexpensive, easy-to-make pressure cooker meal, too.
Making Creamy Chicken and Broccoli over Rice in an Instant Pot
I used light (neufchatel) cream cheese to save a few calories, but feel free to use the full fat cream cheese if you prefer. I served the creamy chicken and broccoli with leftover Saffron Rice Pilaf that I had made the day before, but normally I would have served it with Three-Minute Pressure Cooker White Rice.
My family really liked this meal. I liked it too, and I really liked that it was on the table in less than 30 minutes.
I hope you enjoy the creamy chicken and broccoli recipe as much as we do!
Creamy Chicken and Broccoli over Rice
Ingredients:
- 1 tablespoon olive oil
- 1 tablespoon butter
- 2 large boneless, skinless chicken breasts
- 1/2 cup chopped onion
- 1 14 oz. can chicken broth
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1/2 teaspoon black pepper
- 1/8 teaspoon red pepper flakes
- 1 tablespoon dried parsley
- 2 tablespoons cornstarch
- 2 tablespoons water
- 4 oz. light cream cheese, cut into cubes
- 1 cup shredded cheddar cheese
- 3 cups chopped broccoli, lightly steamed
Directions:
Salt and pepper chicken breasts. Add oil and butter to pressure cooking pot, select Browning. When butter is melted, brown the chicken breasts. Remove to a plate.
Add the onion to the pressure cooking pot, and cook, stirring occasionally until the onion is tender, about 5 minutes. Stir in chicken broth, salt, pepper, red pepper flakes, and parsley. Add browned chicken breasts.
Cover and lock lid in place. Select High Pressure and 3 minutes cook time. When timer beeps, turn off and use a quick pressure release. Remove chicken to a cutting board and cut in to bite pieces.
In a small bowl, dissolve cornstarch in 2 tablespoons water. Select Simmer and add cornstarch mixture to the pot stirring constantly. Add cubed cream cheese and shredded cheese. Stir until cheese is melted.
Add diced chicken and steamed broccoli. Simmer for 5 minutes until broccoli and chicken are heated through.
Serve over white rice and garnish with additional shredded cheese if desired.
Note:
You can cook rice at the same time you cook the chicken. Here’s how I to do it. Use a 7×3 inch round cake pan or similar dish, and add rice ingredients – stir to combine. Skip sautéing the chicken in the first step and just sauté the onion then add the raw diced chicken with the ingredients in step two. Place a rack on top of the chicken in the pressure cooking pot, and place the cake pan on top of the rack. Use this rice recipe https://www.pressurecookingtoday.com/pressure-cooker-white-rice/ and be sure and do a 10 minute natural release.
Really really good food. Hubby likes veges so I added sliced baby carrots and mushrooms for me 🙂 Next time will try over noodles.
Sounds like great additions. Thanks for sharing Deb!
This is a great recipe. I did make two changes. The changes were: I used Better than Bouillon Chicken base as it is low sodium and has no MSG (I am highly allergic to that) instead of just chicken broth. I changed the pepper flakes to 1 Tablespoon of Mrs. Dash Original Seasoning. This is low sodium and also has no MSG. I took your advise and lowed the cooking time to 3 minutes cause I cut up my chicken breasts first. Oh – and I steamed the broccoli for 3 minutes in the microwave while the chicken was cooking in 1 tablespoon of water that was sprinkled over the broccoli. Oh – I have a Power Pro XL so I used the chicken/meat icon to do the cooking on this dish. My 10 quart pressure cooker do not have a saute setting like the 6 quart does. Thanks again for converting the recipe.
Thanks Kathi for sharing your changes – it’s so helpful to others! I’m so glad you enjoyed it.
Could the chicken be cut up before it goes into the pressure cooker?
Hi Kathy – yes, reduce your cook time to 3 minutes.
We don’t eat cream cheese. Is there anything else I can use as a substitute? I love hard and semi-hard cheeses. When I make my broccoli cheese casserole, I use cream of celery soup. Can this be used? Love the recipes since I’m new to PC cooking. My first meal was BBQ ribs, potato salad and corn-on-cob, all made with the PC. Thanks for the recipes.
Hi Lynn – so great that you’re loving pressure cooking and my recipes. You could use cream of celery soup, but you’d want to stir it in before pressure cooker. Enjoy!
I’m new to electric pressure cooking and I have a Instant Pot Mini. Some of your recipes don’t say how many servings they make, so I’m not sure if it would be too much for the “mini”. Is there a good rule of thumb for knowing how many servings a recipe makes and how to down size it for the Mini?
Hi Pat – I do need to get better about remembering to include the number of servings on each recipe. Thanks for the reminder on this recipe. This recipe will work well in your Mini. It serves 4 to 6 people. Enjoy!
This was yummy, however, I would add more of everything (onion, chicken) especially broth so that the sauce goes farther. I used the sauté setting for browning and used manual low for simmer. I also cut up my chicken before browning it and added the salt and pepper at that point because I messed up. It was fine though! I didn’t cut the broccoli up enough. I was worried it would get too soft too fast. Overall, I’ll try it again with some revisions. 🙂
I have an Instant Pot: browning would be Saute, but which button would you use for Simmer?