Summary:
This is a superb Chicken Adobo with onions and garlic — Filipino comfort food conveniently made in a pressure cooker. The chicken comes out tender and flavorful, and the adobo sauce is simultaneously tangy, sweet, and savory. Don't have a pressure cooker? Check out Baked Chicken Adobo.
INGREDIENTS
- 2 to 2.5 pounds boneless skinless chicken thighs, patted dry and trimmed (Note 1)
- 1/2 cup
low-sodium soy sauce (Note 2) - 1/3 cup
white vinegar - 1 onion, sliced (Note 3)
- 5 cloves garlic, minced
- 3
bay leaves - 2 tablespoons olive oil
- 1/4 teaspoon
ground cayenne - salt and black pepper
For Serving:
- 2 scallions (green onions), sliced
INSTRUCTIONS
- Sear Chicken: Select saute mode on
pressure cooker (Note 4) for medium heat. Season chicken thighs on both sides with salt and pepper. When display reads HOT, add olive oil to coat bottom of pot. Add half of chicken thighs and cook for a few minutes on each side before transferring to plate. Repeat for remaining chicken thighs. Turn off saute mode. - Pressure Cook: Add soy sauce, vinegar, onion, garlic, and cayenne to pot, stirring well and scraping up any brown bits stuck to bottom of pot. Return all chicken thighs to pot in single layer, snugly on top of onions. Top with bay leaves. Secure and seal lid. Cook at high pressure for 10 minutes (Note 5), followed by quick pressure release.
NUTRITION
| Makes 4 Servings |
| Amount Per Serving: |
| Calories 370 (52% from fat) | |
| Total Fat 21g | 33% |
| Saturated Fat 1g | 5% |
| Cholesterol 182mg | 61% |
| Sodium 1540mg | 64% |
| Net Carb 6.5g | |
| Total Carb 7g | 2% |
| Dietary Fiber 0.5g | 2% |
| Sugars 3g | |
| Protein 37g |
PHOTOS
So delicious!!!! I followed the recipe as written with 2 exceptions. I didn’t have low sodium soy sauce and I used rice wine vinegar. I followed Julia‘s recommendation in a previous comment and used 1/4 cup soy sauce mixed with 1/4 cup water. This still didn’t cut the saltiness. So, while thickening in the last stage, I added about 2 tablespoons of brown sugar and the juice of a quarter of a lime. This helped tremendously! In the future, I won’t salt the chicken at all in the beginning and add it at the table, if needed.
The sodium content on my rice vinegar is 480mg compared to white vinegar that is 0. I wonder if thats why yours was so salty
I made this tonight for the first time, and my family smashed it down. They both complain about cauliflower anything, but I served it on cauliflower mash with ghee and they wanted more. I also used coconut aminos and apple cider vinegar instead of soy sauce and white vinegar as I am doing Whole30. This will definitely be going on the keep list. Thank you for the recipe 😊
You’re welcome, Cheryl. Thanks for sharing your Whole30 substitutions!
Any idea what the sodium level changed to?
Sorry, I have no idea what the sodium changed to.
Use coconut aminos. Great taste and less salty.
I used coconut aminos and apple cider vinegar as well. It was amazing! One thing I did is added coconut sugar at the end. Chefs kiss 💋
Kennya,
How much coconut sugar did you use at the end?
Growing up in a small town in the Midwest in the 1950s/60s did not prepare me well to marry a young Filipina wife in 1974. I had to learn to eat new food that I never knew existed. One of those was Filipino Adobo. We happened to have Instant Pot Adobo Chicken drumsticks today for lunch, and it was as delicious as it was the first time I tried it almost 50 years ago. There are a lot of interesting recipes here on the site, but I absolutely encourage you to try the Adobo. Be careful, though, as it can become highly addictive. You’ll want it more and more.
Some notes: There are generally as many variations on Adobo as there are Filipina mothers who cook it. Onions are not often used. Do not use chicken breasts. They dry out too quickly. Pork country ribs or butt/shoulder cut into 1 inch cubes work great also. If you don’t have a pressure cooker just use a dutch oven over the stovetop for about 60 minutes of soft simmering. We like the taste of cider vinegar over white vinegar, but the best is a good vinegar from the Philippines if you can find one. We keep our garlic cloves whole. And we use about a dozen. There is just a good thrill in biting into a whole clove that has been adoboed. The kids would fight over them. Many people claim “next day adobo” is the best there is. They have a good argument.
Love love this dish! The whole family does every single time I make it. So easy and always delicious. The only thing I changed was using coconut aminos instead of soy to make it Whole 30 compliant. Have not used the soy once once and don’t need to! Thanks a bunch 😁
Absolutely love this particular Instant Pot Adobo Chicken Recipe. It is very close to the Adobo recipe I am used to having and I am Filipino. All the other recipes for Instant Pot Adobo does not have a lot of sauce, it’s more like a teriyaki adobo. This ones provides delicious sauce. You are certainly right the key to Adobo is the sauce. We served this Chicken Adobo over Green Onion Garic Cauliflower Rice and a Mango, Tomatoes, Red Onion Salsa (Salad) which is what a lot of Filipino’s have on the side…it was sooo delicious my hubby had 3 servings! Ps I did not salt the chicken since it has soy sauce.
Wow is what I can say. This is my very first meal I’ve ever done in an instant pot. I served it with cauliflower rice and it is to die for! I love tangy and savory and this definitely fits the bill.
This recipes is so good! I also, like other reviewers, used regular soy sauce. With some other reviewer tips, I used 2 tblsps of brown sugar and some lime juice during the boiling of the sauce portion of the recipe to cut some of the saltiness from the soy sauce. I skipped salting the chicken as well. The sauce wasn’t thickening much so I made a cornstarch slurry (1 tblsp cornstarch and 1 tblsp water) and added it to the sauce before serving which thickened the sauce nicely. My husband loved this recipe and we will be adding this to our dinner rotation.
Has anyone used bone in thighs? How much time should I add for that?
We only use bone-in skin-on for this recipe! I feel boneless skinless is too dry. No additional time needed.
I made this exactly as written. The flavors were very good, but even with low sodium soy sauce it was way too salty for my husband and me. Also, it took about a half hour longer than estimated by author. Admittedly, this could be partially due to this being my very first Instant Pot attempt, but with all the preheating necessary before the actual cooking times can be achieved I think some time needs to be added to prep and cook times.
Made it tonight for my Filipina spouse. She said it’s better than what what her mom used to make! Thanks for a great recipe!!
Substituted rice vinegar for the white vinegar.
Was looking for an easy recipe and found this. What an AMAZING meal. Used half coconut aminos and half low sodium soy (can’t resist actual soy sauce)
And just threw in the cauliflower rice during the last simmer process to thicken the sauce. Rice cooked and it’s absolutely delicious.
I am in love with this recipe. Regrettably I did not have the low sodium soy sauce on hand so it was a bit salty, but otherwise it turned out delicious. The onions caramelized perfectly after 15 minutes.
Definitely a favorite!
Thank you so much for the awesome recipe!!! My whole family loved it!!! I used coconut aminos and apple cider vinegar instead of soy sauce and white vinegar. I also did not use any salt and I only used 1/8 tsp of cayenne. I boiled it for almost 20 minutes and the glaze was so perfect that we wanted more of it! 🙂 Maybe we’ll try adding some broth next time…Thanks again!
I realized while making this that it’s very similar to a dish my mom makes with pork instead of chicken. She also adds shiitake mushrooms and hard boiled eggs to it so I added hard boiled eggs to this recipe while it was on the last boil step. they were a very good addition and went well with the overall flavor of the dish. Any Tawainese folks or those in the know on Taiwanese cuisine may recognize the eggs as tasting similar to tea eggs but without the star anaise flavor. Anyway, I agree with other comments that it was too salty even with low sodium soy. Next time I won’t salt the chicken. Thank you for sharing this recipe!
Your addition of hard boiled eggs sounds delicious. I haven’t had tea eggs in a long time, but they’re one of my favorite street snacks (my parents are from Taiwan).
My friends have a Power Quick Pot and I had some drumsticks so I made this tonight. I’m Filipino so this is a pretty good quick healthy version. Salamat!
I just made this for the first time – so easy and incredibly good. The sweet, savory and spice (I may have gone a little heavy on the cayenne) come together so well, and the thickened sauce gets soaked up by the rice perfectly.
The only thing I think I need to figure out is how to cut some of the salt. You DEFINITELY need to use only low sodium soy sauce. I would probably cut back the salt on the raw chicken before searing the chicken, and maybe even cut the soy sauce with a bit of water.
Oh, I made this in my 3qt mini duo pretty easily by going somewhere between half and 2/3 the recipe.
Loved this recipe! My friend commented that it could be toned down a bit with a bit of water or broth because the flavor while excellent was a bit concentrated.
Next time I’ll cut the Cayenne by half only because I’m a wimp but, this was amazing!
This was so good! I used half gluten free soy sauce and half coconut aminos.
I have made Chicken Adobo on the stove top and in my slow cooker probably a million times because we all love it but this recipe is by far the best I’ve ever made! Thanks so much!
Really delicious. My mother in law is new to the InstantPot, and I used this recipe to get her using it. We used thighs with the skin on and bones in. No timing adjustments were necessary since chicken is left in during the boiling process. I will likely use skinless next time (but bone in was VERY tender!). Much of the cayenne ended up on the skin and not in the chicken, which it why I would probably use the skinless next time. Sauce was not thick after 15 minutes, but it had reduced significantly and was amazing delicious! Thanks for the new recipe!
For a 3 quart instant pot do you just cut the chicken and onion in half? Seems you would still want the extra sauce.
If you’re halving the ingredients, I would do so proportionally, so all ingredients are halved. If having extra sauce is important, then keep the soy sauce and vinegar the same without cutting them in half. Note that the pressure cooking time should not be changed even though you’re altering the amounts of ingredients.
The flavor was good and the chicken turned out VERY tender. As other reviews mentioned, even if you use low-sodium soy sauce, 1/2 cups makes it very salty. I even used 1/3 cup and substituted water for the rest and the saltiness was borderline. Lastly, pan searing the chicken was pretty cumbersome inside the deep pot, but I wouldn’t recommend doing it on the stove…then you don’t get those flavorful bits that stick to the pan.
I made this for dinner tonight and it was awesome!! Steamed some broccoli to go with it. Great combination of sweet and spicy. Thanks for the recipe.
Loved this recipe! Made it three times and each time was excellent!
Amazing! Didn’t salt the chicken (per other reviews), followed recipe for everything else. Everyone loved it at dinner.