Cooking frozen chicken in the Instant Pot

[Shel_B]

The idea of taking frozen meat and cooking it directly from frozen is not a new idea.  There is an old discussion here about cooking sous vide directly from frozen, and I've seen several videos and read some comments about cooking beef (steaks and chuck for pot roast) that way, I don't recall seeing anything about so doing with chicken in the Instant Pot. I'm thinking about making chicken broth or stock in that way, or just cooking the chicken for use in salads and sandwiches.

 

Might there be some issues with that, or can I just dump the frozen chicken into the pot and crank it up? Has anyone cooked chicken this way? How were your results?

 

 

Edited October 17 by Shel_B (log)

[liuzhou]

https://www.allrecipes.com/article/cooking-frozen-chicken-in-instant-pot/

[chromedome]

I do it with bone-in frozen rabbit and chicken. I just use the "Meat" preset and walk away, couldn't even tell you without checking how long that is. My GF has chewing problems and likes things cooked to a pot roast consistency, and occasionally I need to let it go a few extra minutes to arrive at that. If you're looking for a less-cooked texture I can't help you with the timing, but I'm sure other sources can. Bottom line, there's no particular reason not to.

[Shel_B]

5 hours ago, chromedome said:

I do it with bone-in frozen rabbit and chicken. I just use the "Meat" preset and walk away, couldn't even tell you without checking how long that is. My GF has chewing problems and likes things cooked to a pot roast consistency, and occasionally I need to let it go a few extra minutes to arrive at that. If you're looking for a less-cooked texture I can't help you with the timing, but I'm sure other sources can. Bottom line, there's no particular reason not to.

 

 

Thanks for you comments and suggestion.  I mostly wanted to know if it was doable, and it seems that that's the case.

 

I never used the preprogrammed settings, but your mentioning them sent me to the Instant Pot site to find out more about them.  Useful info there ... Thanks!

[Shel_B]

12 hours ago, chromedome said:

I do it with bone-in frozen rabbit and chicken. [...] Bottom line, there's no particular reason not to.

 

Well, I found a reason not to, at least for me.

 

When I make stock, I always parboil the chicken and rinse the pieces under running water before starting the actual stock-making process.  All sorts of debris and junk are cleaned from and from and, to a degree, from within the chicken.

 

By putting the chicken into the IP frozen, without parboiling, the stock was somewhat (a little) murky and had a somewhat less-than-clean-and-fresh taste compared to the stock from non-frozen and parboiled chicken.  It'll be OK for some recipes, but for others only non-frozen and parboiled chicken will be satisfactory.  For example, putting the stock into a heavily-flavored chili should be OK, but tomorrow I'm going to cook up some chickpeas in the chicken stock for use in a couple of chickpea-forward dishes and I'm concerned about the results.  I'll post my findings when that's done.

 

So, while the experimenting isn't complete, I am sure that going forward I won't be cooking chicken in the IP directly from frozen.  However, it's nice to know it can be done with reasonable results, but I can't think of any reason to do it other than having a time constraint. 

 

 

Edited October 18 by Shel_B
edited content (log)

[chromedome]

23 minutes ago, Shel_B said:

By putting the chicken into the IP frozen, without parboiling, the stock was somewhat (a little) murky and had a somewhat less-than-clean-and-fresh taste compared to the stock from non-frozen and parboiled chicken.  It'll be OK for some recipes, but for others only non-frozen and parboiled chicken will be satisfactory.  For example, putting the stock into a heavily-flavored chili should be OK, but tomorrow I'm going to cook up some chickpeas in the chicken stock for use in a couple of chickpea-forward dishes and I'm concerned about the results.  I'll post my findings when that's done.

 

Did you use natural release, or quick release?

 

Because I never blanch my chicken/turkey/rabbit beforehand, but the stock comes out nice and clear if I do the natural release. If I do a quick release, the sudden pressure change makes it boil furiously for the first couple of minutes and then you get a murky stock. I do that typically when I'll be using it immediately to make gravy, and speed is a consideration (or when I'll be doing a pureed soup, and clarity won't matter).

[Shel_B]

11 minutes ago, chromedome said:

Did you use natural release, or quick release?

 

Because I never blanch my chicken/turkey/rabbit beforehand, but the stock comes out nice and clear if I do the natural release. If I do a quick release, the sudden pressure change makes it boil furiously for the first couple of minutes and then you get a murky stock. I do that typically when I'll be using it immediately to make gravy, and speed is a consideration (or when I'll be doing a pureed soup, and clarity won't matter).

Natural release ... let the pot cool down until the button went down.

 

To be fair, the stock was murky compared to my usual blanched stock.  I bet a lot of people would consider it fine.  I did until I started blanching the chicken and compared the results.

 

Bottom line, the difference wasn't great, but it existed, and I feel better results can be had for not much extra time and work.