This Mexican Instant Pot Chicken and Brown Rice features a delicious blend of Mexican spices for a fast and healthy THM E meal.
Do you ever need meals that are easy to throw together?
Like the kind you can almost make with your eyes closed?
That are both family friendly and healthy?
With ingredients you can usually find in your pantry?
Then have I got a meal for you!
One of the first meals I ever made with my Instant Pot was a simple brown rice and chicken receipe seasoned with soy sauce and garlic.
I still make it that way sometimes, but I like taking tried and true recipes and changing up their flavor.
Like when I turned classic eggroll in a bowl into a Mongolian beef tasting version.
If you’re not comfortable making those kinds of changes yourself, I’ve got you!
This recipe gives that first pressure cooker brown rice and chicken recipe a mildly spicy Mexican flavor.
Okay.
Mildly spicy.
That might be an oxymoron.
This recipe has a little heat from the ground chipotle powder, but it has lots of other seasonings and spices.
So it’s not hot spicy.
It’s seasoned spicy.
With a little kick!
If your family prefers less heat, just reduce or omit the chipotle powder. You could substitute smoked paprika for that smoky flavor without the punch.
If you follow the Trim Healthy Mama lifestyle, this is considered an E meal.
That means it has less than 45 net carbs (total carbs minus fiber), and less than 5 grams of added fat.
Be sure to check back often because I’ll be sharing all kinds of twists I’ve since made to this recipe!
Can You Cook Rice and Chicken at the Same Time in an Instant Pot?
One of my favorite parts about this recipe is it’s a one pot meal!
Combine the brown rice, liquid, chicken, chiles, and seasonings all in your pressure cooker, set the timer and your done.
And you know what that means, right?
Only one dirty pot to be washed!
Score!
I shared some of my other favorite tips to make cleaning up easier in the kitchen, but only having one dirty pot has got to be the easiest.
Can I Use a Slow Cooker or Crockpot Instead of a Pressure Cooker?
It took me a little while to hop on the pressure cooker bandwagon, but once I did that’s the one I use most often.
I love that I don’t have to remember to get everything started well in advance.
But if you don’t have a pressure cooker yet, no worries!
You can definitely make this Mexican Brown Rice and Chicken meal in a slow cooker or crockpot.
I do have a few tips for you if you choose to use a slow cooker.
- Be sure to spray the inside of your pot with cooking spray. This makes clean up so much easier! The starch in the rice can leave a sticky residue that’s hard to get cleaned up without the spray.
- Increase the amount of liquid to 4 cups of broth plus 1 cup of water
- Cook on HIGH for 4 hours, but you may need to adjust the time depending on your slow cooker. I’ve tried cooking on LOW but the rice always turns out sticky and kind of soupy when I try using the crockpot’s lower temperature setting.
Ingredients in Spicy Mexican Instant Pot Chicken and Brown Rice
There are a few key ingredients that make this recipe so healthy.
I love tweaking ingredients to make an ordinary recipe even healthier for me and my family!
Brown Rice
This recipe is written specifically for brown rice.
If you substitute another kind of rice you’ll need to make adjustments to the amount of liquid used and the cooking time.
The reason we choose brown rice over white rice on THM is it has a lower glycemic index.
What does that even mean?
In a nutshell, brown rice takes longer for your body to digest.
Which means it doesn’t cause a spike in blood sugar and insulin production.
Plus, brown rice has more natural nutrients like magnesium, phosphorous, and potassium.
Bone Broth
When you cook rice, most recipes call for water, but if you’re making a savory recipe, try substituting bone broth instead!
Bone broth isn’t just flavored water.
Instead, bone broth contains gelatin from boiling the bones and connective tissue. The gelatin provides amino acids which are an important building block of protein.
In fact, bone broth contains much more protein than regular broth.
There’s some evidence that bone broth has even more healthy benefits like aiding weight loss, healing the gut, and improving joint health.
Family-Friendly Ideas for Serving This Easy Meal
When I tell people how I eat I’m often asked how that works with my family.
Isn’t THM a diet?
Do I have to cook separate meals?
No, and no!
My favorite part of of my THM lifestyle is it’s so easy to make it work for family meals.
We all eat the same thing. But my husband and kids add in fats when I’ve made an E meal. And they add healthy carbs when I’ve made an S meal.
Feel free to message me if you ever want more details about what that looks like!
This Instant Pot brown rice and chicken recipe is delicious and it’s one of my family’s favorites throughout the year.
Another fast and delicious meal is this skillet meal made with ground turkey and brown rice..
Let’s take a look at a few ways I serve it.
When I’m making one-pot meals like this, I love to serve veggies that don’t take much time to prepare.
Or dirty up another pot!
A few of my favorite options:
- A plate filled with cut raw veggies
- Coleslaw mix tossed with lime juice, salt, and pepper
- A green salad
And sometimes I just add coarsely chopped bell peppers to the pressure cooker to cook with the rice and chicken!
When I serve this meal I set out shredded cheese, wedges of light Laughing Cow cheese, chopped tomatoes, plain Greek yogurt (or sour cream), chopped cilantro, and diced onions.
Everyone can add any of the toppings they like.
Sometimes I make it look pretty in little bowls, but lots of times I just put out the packages.
Just keeping it real for you!
You can even set out tortillas and use all the ingredients and toppings for a tasty burrito.
I’m also a fan of making meals that can stretch.
One of my favorite tricks is to double this recipe and use the leftover rice with shredded chicken to fill stuffed bell peppers another night!
Tips for Making Brown Rice in an Instant Pot
Be sure to spray the inside of the pressure cooker with cooking spray to prevent the rice from sticking.
I’ve also found that rinsing the uncooked rice before using it can help to remove extra starch and reduce sticking.
Put the rice in the bottom of the pot and then add the bone broth.
Spread the seasonings on the chicken before adding it to the pot.
Place the chicken on top of the rice for best results, then add the diced green chiles on top.
Before serving this dish you can also shred the chicken and mix it in with the rice.
Be sure to leave a star rating and review after you make the recipe!
This helps other people to find and enjoy it too.
Plus it means the world to us!
Spicy Mexican Instant Pot Chicken and Brown Rice
Spicy Mexican Instant Pot Chicken and Brown Rice featuring a delicious blend of Mexican spices for a fast and healthy THM E meal. You can also cook it in a slow cooker if you prefer!
Ingredients
- 2 - 2.5 lbs boneless, skinless chicken breasts (raw)
- 2 cups brown rice (uncooked), do not substitute any other kind of rice because the liquid amount and cooking times will also need to change
- 2 1/2 cups low sodium chicken bone broth, you can use low sodium chicken broth if you can't find bone broth
- 8 oz diced green chiles
- 1 tsp salt
- 1/4 tsp ground black pepper
- 1/2 tsp ground chipotle powder
- 1 tsp dried oregano flakes
- 1/2 tsp garlic powder
- 1/2 tsp onion powder
- 1/4 tsp ground coriander
- 1/2 tsp ground cumin
- 4 Tbsp green onions, thinly sliced
Instructions
- Lightly spray the pot insert for your Instant Pot with cooking spray. See the notes below for slow cooker/crockpot modifications.
- Rinse and drain the brown rice and add to the Instant Pot.
- Add chicken bone broth and diced green chiles and stir.
- In a small bowl combine all seasonings. Coat chicken with seasonings and place on top of the rice.
- Attach the lid and use the manual button to set the cook time to 24 minutes at high pressure. When done cooking, you can either do a quick release or a natural pressure release.
Notes
To use a slow cooker or crockpot:
- Be sure to spray the inside of your pot with cooking spray. Assemble the ingredients in the same manner as for a pressure cooker.
- Increase the amount of liquid to 4 cups of broth plus 1 cup of water
- Cook on HIGH for 4 hours, but you may need to adjust the time depending on your slow cooker.
Please note that we are not medical or nutritional professionals.
We include nutrition information for our recipes as a courtesy to our readers. However, due to wide variations in brands, nutrition data is subject to change for every user. Nutrition data is calculated using WP Ultimate Recipe and we subtract all sugar alcohols from erythritol and xylitol from the final carb count because that is how THM calculates carbs. Please refer to our complete Nutritional Disclosure for more details.
Nutrition Information
Yield 8 Serving Size 1 gramsAmount Per Serving Calories 322Total Fat 4gSaturated Fat 1gUnsaturated Fat 0gCholesterol 73mgSodium 568mgCarbohydrates 38gFiber 2gSugar 1gProtein 31g
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