I have read many success and many failure stories with the ever-so-popular Instapot. Honestly, I decided to just stay away. Until yesterday. You see, I had the rare opportunity to purchase 20 lbs of boneless chicken breasts for $20 (and who wouldn’t jump on that opportunity!). The downside to it was that the 20lbs of chicken was frozen together. So, there was no easy way for me to thaw small portions of the chicken, and there was no way for my family to eat 20lbs of chicken before it went bad, had I thawed it all together. My original plan was to thaw all of the chicken and to take as much time as I could over 2 days to crockpot cook all of it for shredding and freezing for later use. And that isn’t a bad option…it’s just slow…really slow.
Then, my mom offered to use her Instapot to help me cook all 20lbs of chicken, and that was a game changer!
My little sidekick, Addison, and I headed to my Mom’s house with our now thawed 20lbs of chicken breast. Mom added a bit of organic chicken broth to the bottom of her instapot, and then added my chicken (we salted and peppered the chicken, but no other seasoning). I’m not going to pretend to know all of the “details” of how to use her instapot. I’m still very new to it. But she put it in, locked the lid, and 5lbs at a time, my chicken cooked. It took 30 minutes to cook, 20 minutes to cool, and 5-10 minutes to cool, shred, and bag. Then we repeated 3 more times (due to the large amount of chicken that I had).
During the 30 minutes of cooking and 20 minutes of cooling, we talked…we played with Addison…we walked the dogs…we ate…we just enjoyed time together. There was no standing over the stovetop. And there was no all day waiting for a crock-pot.
This was enough to sway my original thoughts on the Instapot. Am I running to go buy one? Not yet…but why would I when I can go use my Mom’s and enjoy time with her?! But am I already thinking of what other things I can pre-cook and freeze to make our busy life easier? Absolutely! My first question to my Mom was, “can I do this with ground venison?” — and, to answer that, YES!! She tried it yesterday afternoon, just to see. So, I will for sure be pre-cooking several pounds of ground meat very soon to freeze and use for more quick meals!
What am I planning for this cooked shredded chicken? Fajita Quesidillas, Chicken Salad Sandwiches, Chicken Casserole, Granny’s Chicken Stew, Chicken and Dumplings, Chicken Spaghetti, BBQ Chicken Sandwiches, Chicken Pot Pie, and more! And it’s all cooked now, so that makes my prep and cooking so much more convenient and fast! What would you make with 20lbs of pre-cooked, shredded chicken? I’d love to hear more ideas.
