Instant Pot Filipino Chicken Adobo is a traditional Filipino dish served with rice, made faster with the help of your modern pressure cooker.
Growing up, the scents of vinegar, fish, and eggs permeated the air of our house seemingly 24/7.
The stove and oven were constantly working to help my family produce some large feast or another, and I’m sure that everywhere I went, my hair, my clothes all told the tale of my day’s meals.
One of the fragrant dishes that I remember eating frequently is chicken adobo.
Filipino Chicken Adobo
Filipino chicken adobo has a deliciously strong, beckoning aroma, thanks to its vinegar and garlic base.
It’s fantastic and AMAZING, and I am pretty sure that if your hair does NOT smell like vinegar and garlic after cooking this dish, you’re doing it wrong. Trust me: smelling like this dish is TOTALLY WORTH IT. It’s so good!
“I’m Filipina & my mother used to make adobo all the time when I was a kid, although she never taught me how to make it. I found this recipe and I have to say it tastes almost identical to my mom’s adobo chicken and it’s super simple to make and requires ingredients you probably already have in your pantry! 10/10 recommend.”
-Reader maria
Using your Pressure Cooker to Make Adobo
Traditional Filipino chicken adobo can take hours to make. If you don’t have an Instant Pot or pressure cooker, you would marinate the meat for a few hours and up to overnight.
Thanks to the Instant Pot, this meal can be on the table in about 45 minutes. No marinating needed!
I use a combination of skinless, boneless chicken thighs and skin-on, bone-in chicken thighs, but you can also use a combo of chicken thighs and drumsticks.
I use a bit of chicken stock or broth to cut the vinegar a bit in my recipe. You still get that signature garlicky, vinegar scent and taste, though.
This Instant Pot Filipino Chicken Adobo is garlicky, sweet and salty, and tangy. It’s perfect served with a side of white rice.
Chicken adobo was a meal my family would make as a child at least once a week, if not a few times each week. It’s a great recipe to double and reserve some leftovers to enjoy the following day. Try it with some noodles or even with a salad the next day!
This Instant Pot Filipino Chicken Adobo recipe brings back such happy memories from my childhood, and now I love cooking it for my family, too. I hope it brings you and your family as much joy!
Instant Pot Filipino Chicken Adobo Recipe
“Don’t make any other recipe! This is the B E S T! Sooooo yummy!!!”
– Reader Ashley
Instant Pot Filipino Chicken Adobo
Ingredients
- 5 pieces chicken – (I use a mix of skinless, bonless chicken thighs AND skin-on, bone-in chicken thighs)
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1/4 tsp black pepper
- 1/2 tbsp ground paprika
- 2 tablespoons olive oil
- 2/3 cup soy sauce
- 1/4 cup sugar
- 1/2 cup chicken stock or broth
- 1/2 cup white distilled vinegar
- 4-5 cloves garlic, minced
- 1 medium yellow onion, sliced
- 1 bay leaf
- 2 scallions, sliced thinly
Instructions
- Season the chicken pieces with salt, pepper, and paprika evenly on both sides.
- Turn the Instant Pot to SAUTE, on high. Add oil, and allow the oil to heat for about a minute.
- Working in batches, add chicken to the Instant Pot and saute until brown on both sides. This takes about 6-8 minutes, depending on the thickness of your chicken pieces.
- Once all chicken pieces are browned evenly on both sides, add the soy sauce, sugar, vinegar, chicken stock or broth, garlic, bay leaves, onions, and 1/2 teaspoon pepper. Stir ingredients together.
- Follow the manufacturer instructions for properly placing the pressure cooker lid on and setting it to seal. Set to PRESSURE COOK (or MANUAL, depending on your IP) on high for 9 minutes. After the pressure builds, the IP count down from 9 minutes. At the end, when it beeps, carefully use tongs or a thick kitchen towel to turn to Quick Release. Once the float valve is completely down and all steam has been released (mine takes about 2-3 minutes for quick release; your time may vary), carefully unlock and open lid.
- Press the SAUTE setting and bring the remaining sauce to a boil, then allow it to reduce until it turns a nice dark brown color. This takes about 15 minutes.
- Once the sauce is reduced to your liking, remove bay leaf and hit CANCEL. Transfer chicken to a serving plate and garnish with scallions. Serve inmediately.
Notes
Using Frozen Chicken Thighs? No problem!
A few readers have asked about using frozen chicken thighs, so I thought I would add the note here. You can absolutely start with frozen! You’ll just need to adjust cooking times.
Skip the browning section of the instructions, and simply allow them to pressure cook longer. A general rule of thumb for frozen thighs: cook on high pressure for 20 minutes for boneless, and 25 for bone in. Always check the chicken with a meat thermometer to make sure it’s at 165 and completely cooked.
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Have you ever had Filipino chicken adobo?
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Mmmmmmm though it’s not wrong to pile on more garlic by eating this with garlic rice right…
You can never have too much garlic! ;)
Looks delicious! And I love that you can make it so quickly thanks to the instant pot.
It looks really succulent and delicious. HAHA you said if your hair doesn’t smell like garlic and vinegar it isn’t right. I am sure you are correct. It is something that one has to try out. Thanks for sharing.
This Filipino chicken adobo looks mouth-wateringly delicious! I can hardly wait to make this next week. I’m adding this to my meal plan. :-)
These look delicious! I don’t often make things like this, but will certainly give this a try
Nicole
NicoleParise.com
I am always using my crock pot to cook great braises such as this. I am so excited to try this recipe!!
I love seeing the many ways everyone cooks this dish. This is my favorite Filipino dish that my mom makes
I’ve been trying to get into the swing of using my instant pot. This sounds like a delicious recipe to try out this week!
Well, I’ll be making this now that I have an Instant Pot! Looks fantastic – I love vinegar in food.
The flavor of this dish must be out of this world! I love trying new ethnic cuisines!
You are just hell-bent on making me learn how to use my Instant Pot, aren’t you, Marlynn? OK, fine. 😉
Hi Marlynn,
Thank you so much for sharing this great recipe. My wife and I have been craving adobo chicken. We found this on Pinterest and KNEW we had to make it. It came out soooo good! Even our picky kids loved it!
I’m so glad your whole family loved it! Thank you for trying my recipe!
You have listed Sugar in the ingredient list but do not mention it in the instruction. Same with the onions. Please clarify.
This is the first time I heard of chicken adobo, I can’t wait to give it a try, it looks so tasty
What a delicious recipe! Made it for lunch and loved it!
I am so glad that you loved it, Anna! Thanks for making this recipe!
This looks tasty! These are absolutely mouth watering! It will quickly disappear in our house, very tasty and flavorful!
Made this and it is absolutely delicious! Will definitely make again!
Used chicken thigh (bone in) and drumsticks. Made pot in pot rice at the same time too. So I pressure cooked for 6 minutes and natural released for 10.
Absolutely perfect!
Thanks for such as tasty recipe!
So glad to hear you loved it, Liv!
Thanks for the recipe! My husband bought an Instant Pot for me this past week and I tried making adobo following your recipe. It turned out delicious (I’m making it again tonight). When you bring it to a boil at the end in the sauté setting, are you supposed to turn it off when it comes to a boil? It wasn’t clear in the instructions. Also, I believe traditional adobo calls for whole pepper corn. Would you recommend using that? Thanks again.
Hi Laurie! Glad you love the recipe! If you follow the instructions at the end, you leave it on sauté and let it reduce until it reaches the consistency of your liking and then you hit cancel. And as I wrote in the post, there is no single “traditional adobo” recipe. Our Filipino adobo recipes can vary greatly based on where in the Philippines our families are from, and even within our own families, everyone has a different generations-old recipe. Our large Filipino family never used whole pepper corn, but if you want to add it, you certainly can :) Thanks again!
This Recipe has joined a *very* Short list of dinners all four of my family members love. The fact that it’s fast and easy is just a bonus. Thank you!!
So glad to hear this, Erin!! Thank you, and I hope your family continues to enjoy this recipe for years to come!
I mixed all the ingredients of the liquid in the morning and added the onion and bay leaves to it as well. I also added a bit of red chili flakes to compliment the sweetness. The mixture sat until I was ready to seat the chicken in the afternoon, and I think that made the flavor even more exquisite. This dish was amazing! Thank you