Chicken Cacciatore, Instant Pot; floods

The Instant Pot and I are becoming friends.

To be honest, some of my hesitancy in using it to prepare dinner main courses (rather than beans or soups or certain vegetables) is that it doesn’t seem to be quicker. In fact, in some cases it takes longer to make something in the Instant Pot than it does in a skillet.

I’m not interested in a lot of recipes in the cook book I have – we don’t eat pulled pork sandwiches for dinner. Or pulled turkey, pulled vegetables, pulled beef….. And I don’t need 25 recipes for ribs.

But I’m learning.

When I make something worth posting – I’ll post it.

This was.

Click here to Pin Chicken Cacciatore, Instant Pot

Chicken Cacciatore, Instant Pot

Print Recipe

My recipes are for 2 in a 6 qt Instant Pot so it takes about 10 minutes to come up to pressure. That, plus the 10 minutes cooking time and 10 minutes release time adds up to 30 minutes in the Pot.

• Author: Kate
• Prep Time: 5 minutes
• Cook Time: 40 minutes
• Total Time: 45 minutes
• Category: Chicken
• Method: Instant Pot

Ingredients

Scale 1x2x3x

• 4 chicken thighs, skinless 
• 1 onion, chopped
• 1/2 red pepper, chopped
• 1 tbs olive oil
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 tsp smoked paprika
• 2 tsp dry mustard
• 1 tsp oregano
• 1/2 cup (4oz, 120ml) white wine
• 1 cup (8oz, 250gr) tomatoes, peeled, chopped, with all juices
• 1 tbs Worcestershire sauce
• 1 – 2 bay leaves

Instructions

• Set the Instant Pot to Saute for 5 minutes.
• Add olive oil, onion, red pepper and sauté, stirring frequently once it’s hot.
• When it turns off add the garlic, paprika, and mustard. Stir to combine.
• Add white wine and scrape up any browned bits. 
• Arrange chicken thighs on onion / pepper.
• Top with oregano, tomatoes, and Worcestershire sauce.
• Tuck in bay leaves.
• Secure cover, set Instant Pot to High Pressure for 10 minutes.
• Natural release for 10 minutes then quick release.
• Remove bay leaves and put chicken thighs on a small platter. Keep warm.
• Set the Instant Pot to Saute for 4 minutes to thicken the sauce.
• Spoon sauce over chicken and serve.

Notes

Substitute green pepper for the red. If you have more tomatoes than you need for this you can freeze them for another use – and food bag.
Use chicken stock / broth instead of white wine.

Nutrition

• Serving Size: 1/2 recipe
• Calories: 558
• Sugar: 9.4 g
• Sodium: 385.3 mg
• Fat: 20.7 g
• Saturated Fat: 4.4 g
• Trans Fat: 0.1 g
• Carbohydrates: 19.5 g
• Fiber: 4.6 g
• Protein: 62 g
• Cholesterol: 280.1 mg

Keywords: chicken cacciatore, instant pot

We had an interesting day yesterday.

I may have mentioned recently that we’ve had a bit of rain. Enough rain, actually, that there has been flooding. Not at our house, of course, as we’re on a hill and nowhere near a river. Since it didn’t affect us directly, we haven’t been paying close attention.

Perhaps we should have….

Mon mari had his annual appointment in Bordeaux yesterday. Since we haven’t been doing much during the pandemic we decided we would leave early and do a bit of shopping. Nothing too exciting but I wanted to stock up at Eurasie (the Asian supermarket) and stop at the garden store – thinking spring.

We normally take the old road about half-way to Bordeaux (it’s shorter but not faster) then get on the motorway. As we got closer to the river we noticed a lot of flooding.

The Garonne river flows from Bordeaux to the Mediterranean and it’s the canal next to it that we ride our bikes along.

About 5 minutes before the turn to cross the river and get on the motorway, the road was flooded and there was a detour. We had not idea where the detour would lead us so I got on my phone and Google maps.

While I was perusing our options I discovered that there was a new Eurasie store. It would have been out of our way normally, but with the detour we would be going right past it – almost.

With the new plan mapped out we had a lovely drive through an area we’d never seen and through lots of villages we’d never heard of.

We made a quick stop at the Eurasie store, a quicker stop at the garden store and still got to the appointment on time.

We took the motorway back.

We got to our exit and there was a sign advising us that there could be a problem…. Nicely vague.

I had seen a photo of the bridge over the river and new it was open, so we assumed it was other routes of the exit that were a problem.

The bridge was open (I think).

We couldn’t get to it.

We actually couldn’t get more than a kilometer or 2 in any direction.

We tried. And tried….

I called our neighbor and asked her to let our dog out while we calmly and quietly discussed our options. Drive back to Bordeaux? Drive the same distance in the other direction? Do you remember where other bridges are?

We decided to drive back towards Bordeaux.

At the exit that we couldn’t get to from the other direction earlier there were no warning signs. We got off.

There was flooding all around us but the road was high enough. We crossed the river and got within a half kilometer of where we had been sent on the detour earlier – but on the other side.

We followed the detour signs, got up to high ground and back on Google maps… But only for a few minutes. We were back in familiar territory, about 40 minutes from home.

But…. We were out after curfew !!!!

Fortunately no one saw us.

Guapa was very, very happy to see us.

It really was sad to see so many farms, barns, and houses flooded….