This easy Instant Pot chili verde is a keto and paleo friendly recipe using chicken thighs, tomatillos, and chile peppers.
Taste and Texture
Chili verde is a saucy green stew made with fresh tomatillos, hot peppers, onions, and garlic. It has that unique tomatillo taste, a bit tart and fruity in flavor. Peppers and onions add bulk and help thicken the stew, and also give a refreshing aroma to the whole dish. The cumin, cilantro, and lime juice give the stew a decidedly Mexican flavor.
Chicken thighs provide the meat component, and they’re nearly shreddable by the time the pressure cooker is done with them. Juicy and tender, they easily soak up the delicious chili verde sauce.
The sauce is somewhat thick, more like a stew than a soup, and easily clings to the chicken pieces. It thickens up considerably after pureeing the vegetables, and more so after simmering in the last step.
Ingredients in Chili Verde
I use boneless and skinless chicken thighs, which the pressure cooker easily transforms into fall-apart-tender meat. You can also substitute with pork or beef, but depending on the size of the individual chunks of meat, you’ll need to modify the pressure cooking time.
For the green sauce, I use fresh tomatillos and green chile peppers like poblanos and jalapeños, similar to salsa verde. I remove the seeds to reduce the heat, but you can include them to increase the spiciness.
All of these ingredients are added to the cold pressure cooker pot at the same time — no need to first brown ingredients on the saute setting. I add the chicken thighs on top so that they can be easily transferred to a cutting board after pressure cooking.
Just a small amount of water is added — 1/4 cup — because the ingredients themselves have a lot of water content that will be released as they start cooking. There should be no issue getting enough liquid to pressurize the pot. For reference, I use a 6 quart Instant Pot.
Ways To Enjoy
As-is. You can pour a bowl of this comforting stew and eat it by itself as a simple, low calorie meal. This is what I do.
With sides. You can pair chili verde with cauliflower rice or zucchini noodles. This is helpful for soaking up extra green sauce. Or you can serve it over mashed cauliflower.
As a filling. You can use this as a filling for enchiladas, burritos, tacos, tamales, and more. Leftovers keep well in the refrigerator, and you can save them for later use in Mexican style dishes.
Instant Pot Chili Verde
This easy Instant Pot chili verde is a keto and paleo friendly recipe using chicken thighs, tomatillos, and chile peppers.
Ingredients
- 2 pounds boneless skinless chicken thighs (about 8)
- 12 ounces tomatillos (about 7) husked and quartered
- 8 ounces poblano peppers (about 3) stemmed, seeded, and chopped
- 4 ounces jalapeño peppers (about 2) stemmed, seeded, and chopped
- 4 ounces onions (about 1/2) chopped
- 1/4 cup water
- 5 cloves garlic
- 2 teaspoons ground cumin
- 1 1/2 teaspoons salt
For finishing:
- 1/4 ounce chopped cilantro leaves (about 1/3 cup packed), plus more for garnish
- 1 tablespoon fresh lime juice (about 1 lime)
Instructions
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Add tomatillos, poblanos, jalapeños, onions, and water to the pressure cooker. Distribute garlic, cumin, and salt on top. Lastly, add chicken thighs. Secure and seal the lid. Cook at high pressure for 15 minutes, followed by a manual pressure release.
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Uncover and transfer only the chicken to a cutting board. Cut into bite-sized pieces. Set aside.
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Add cilantro and lime juice to the pressure cooker. Use an immersion blender or countertop blender to puree the mixture.
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Select the saute mode on the pressure cooker for medium heat. Return the chicken to the mixture. Boil for about 10 minutes to thicken the sauce, stirring occasionally. Serve and garnish with additional cilantro.
Nutrition Info
This recipe yields 6 g net carbs per serving.
| Nutrition Facts Per Serving |
| Calories 310 | |
| Total Fat 15g | 22% |
| Saturated Fat 0g | 0% |
| Trans Fat 0g | |
| Cholesterol 182mg | 61% |
| Sodium 910mg | 38% |
| Potassium 270mg | 8% |
| Total Carb 10g | 3% |
| Dietary Fiber 4g | 15% |
| Sugars 4.5g | |
| Protein 37g |
Can this recipe be made without a pressure cooker?
I haven’t tested this recipe on the stove top. It would need some tweaks to get the liquid amount right, but the gist of the recipe would be the same.
This recipe is PERFECT! My only complaint is that I didn’t double it! Yum! Thanks for developing and sharing!
So stinkin’ yummy. This dish is always my favorite when I go out for Mexican: I love the tartness and the brightness of the tomatillos—but could never quite get it right when I made it at home…. until now. On those cold nights (which, admittedly we don’t have a lot of here in LA!), I will be making this,
I did sub boneless chicken breasts—not a fan of thighs—and pressurized for 25 min total. It worked just fine.
Really really good recipe.
I made this late last night, and in my crockpot. It’s still cooking on low, I changed it to 2 large chicken breast. I buy the Kirkland brand, frozen bag at Costco, I get about 14 breast for $18, and they’re very large and individually wrapped. I used the 16oz jarred Herdez salsa verde, as tomatillos aren’t as common here in my area on east coast. I used a purple onion, they’re sweeter to me. I used 1 poblano, about half the size of my hand. I used just 4 seeds, as I’ve never used before, and I like little… Read more »
Thanks for sharing your experience, Heidi. I’m glad to hear that you were able to make this in the crockpot as well as make ingredient adjustments to your liking.
I like the way you ‘make it work’. Touché.
My favorite instant pot recipe! Thank you so much for sharing.
Hi, could you use tomatillo salsa instead of fresh tomatillos in this recipe?
I haven’t tried that myself, but I think it could work. Just use a 12 oz jar of tomatillo salsa or salsa verde.
What would the cook time be if I substitute chicken breast instead of thighs?
I would increase the pressure cooking time to 20 minutes. If your breast pieces are on the larger side, like more than 8 oz each, then I would increase to 255 minutes.
Sounds delicious! I want to double the recipe, should I double the cooking time?
Keep the pressure cooking time the same 🙂
This recipe is awesome. I substituted hatch chilies because our family loves them. They keep demanding I make it over and over! It’s very easy AND delicious.
Yum!! I definitely need to try this with hatch chilies sometime 🙂
Im confused where it days add the lime and cilantro to the cooker but then after says to blend it in a blendervv
There are 2 ways you can do this. One, you can use an immersion blender, which means you can blend directly in the Instant Pot using this appliance. Two, you can use a traditional tabletop blender, which means you need to pour the contents of the pot into the blender.
Original I was reading it as the cilantro and lime was to garnish/topping, not to incorporate into the actual sauce.
Delicious recipe! I used boneless country style pork ribs and changed the pressure cook time to 22 minutes. I followed the other ingredients pretty exact and it turned out perfect. My husband lived in Mexico for a couple years and he was raving about how much this dish reminded him of his time there. Thanks for the excellent recipe! I definitely will be making it again!
Can this recipe be made in crockpot instead?
Hi Mireya! Yes, I think you can make it in a crockpot, although I’ve never tried it before with this particular recipe. Since there isn’t any sauteing, it should be pretty easily translatable to a slow cooker.