Instant Pot Garlic Parmesan Chicken and Rice is creamy, rich comfort food with chunks of white chicken meat. It is probably my favorite chicken Instant Pot meal to date.
This delicious meal can easily be made in 30 minutes and serves 4 to 6 people. It’s perfect for a weeknight meal and is best served with a green salad, or steamed broccoli or green beans.
Heavy cream, a can of condensed chicken soup, and cream cheese plus lots of Parmesan cheese makes Instant Pot Garlic Parmesan Chicken and Rice an insanely creamy and cheesy meal.
Garlic powder and onion powder give it all the extra flavor it needs.
Lefotvers reheat well.
You can use chicken thighs instead of chicken breast.
The cream cheese that’s added at the end is what really makes this a wonderfully delicious chicken and rice. Kids will love this Instant Pot Garlic Parmesan Chicken and Rice. It has a fair amount of garlic flavor, but it is not too strong.
For best results, shred your own Parmesan cheese from a block of Parmesan instead of buying pre-shredded.
I use the Instant Pot DUO60 6 Qt 7-in-1 Multi-Use Programmable Pressure Cooker, Slow Cooker, Rice Cooker, Steamer, Sauté, Yogurt Maker and Warmer and love it. It can also be used as a slow cooker and a yogurt maker.
The whole family will be happy with this Instant Pot meal. It is so, so easy to make.
More Instant Pot Recipes
Instant Pot Garlic Parmesan Chicken and Rice
Ingredients
- 1 1/2 pounds boneless, skinless chicken breasts
- 2 tablespoons butter
- 1/2 cup chopped onion
- 2 1/2 cups water
- 1 1/2 cups heavy cream
- 1 (10.5-ounce) can cream of chicken condensed soup
- 2 cups uncooked long grain rice
- 2 teaspoons garlic powder
- 1 teaspoon onion powder
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1 teaspoon pepper
- 1 1/2 cups shredded Parmesan cheese
- 1/2 cup shredded cheddar or colby jack cheese
- 1 tablespoon chopped fresh parsley
- 4 ounces cream cheese, cut into chunks and softened
Instructions
- Cut chicken into strips.
- Turn Instant Pot to "Saute" mode. Add butter. When melted add chicken and onion and cook until most of the pink in the chicken is gone.
- Add water, heavy cream and chicken soup. Stir.
- Add rice, sprinkling it in so that it is evenly distributed. Add garlic powder, onion powder, salt and pepper. Do not stir.
- Place lid on. Make sure valve is in "sealing" position. Pressure Cook on HIGH for 5 minutes. Manually release pressure.
- Once the pin drops, remove lid and stir in cream cheese. Stir in Parmesan cheese, cheddar, and parsley. Place lid back on for a few minutes to melt cheese. Stir and serve. It will thicken up as it cools.
Notes
Want to Save This Recipe?
Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links.
Did this recipe step by step and instant pot kept saying burn because this recipe causes the rice to stick. Come to find out we shouldn’t be putting the heavy cream in until after it cooks. Hoping I will help someone else from wasting all the ingredients.
Oh wow! 2x my burns, I release pressure, unstick and start again. My picky son loved it last time I made it, but the burn notification is a bummer. Next time I’ll remember to add the cream when we add tye ceeam cheese. I guess.
I made this recipe and it turned out delicious! The taste kind of resembles stroganoff. I cooked it exactly as the instructions recommended with the exception that I used 2 lbs of chicken. I didn’t get any burn notices or had to adjust the recipe. The rice was only slightly under cooked but I blame my choice of rice, if anything I should have added a bit more water.
So after you saute the chicken, onion, and butter, do you remove the chicken while the pressure cook is heating up? I am confused as to why you would leave it in there. Help!!
Leave the chicken in.
Turned out great without cream cheese. Also I added sliced baby Bella mushrooms.
I followed the instructions but used chicken broth instead of water. For the rice I used Success boiling bag white rice! It came out perfectly. No hard rice!
WORST recipe ever. I was so excited to try this recipe out and man do I regret not reading the reviews before buying my ingredients.
Got the burn message that everyone speaks of. Couldn’t continue to cook so I had to empty the pot and place the content into a baking dish. It’s in the oven now. I sure hope it’s salvageable and that I won’t have to order pizza.
Ok so after reading the reviews I could see how rice wouldnt get cooked, this is what I had to do and I didnt get burn notice.. 2tbs of butter once melted add chicken and onion and cook so they are white not pink and no brown. Add liquids then add rice, I didnt stir. Add seasoning…needs WAY more. Pressure cook for 9min and natural release for 10min. And manual release half way just to help it soup start to come out but it didnt. Add cheeses, stir close for on min. Came out fully cooked it really just needed way more seasonings, to much in there to only have 2tsp. If each thing.
Thank you for these tips! If only I’d read them before cooking. I thought the flavor was good, but not a fan of the crunchy rice. Definitely good enough to try again and I will go with your timing.
All great tips- listen to her 👆 I fid add raw broccoli and it disappeared which is good for my kids, I also used 1/2 cup whole milk and 1/2 half and half b/c I didn’t have heavy cream
My other tip is I didn’t stir but.. make sure all the rice was well submerged and went easier on the cheese. All in all , everyone ate it!
I tried this recipe for the first time tonight and followed the directions exactly and the recipe was delicious. My 8 year old son who is a very picky eater loved it and wants it again.
I need to double this recipe for a large group. Can I bake it in the oven?
This was okay. It has wayyyy too much cheese! I think next time we’re going to omit the cheddar and cut the Parmesan in half. As for the rice being hard/ instant pot giving off a burn warning. We didn’t have that problem because we didn’t follow the recipe. We had just got our instant pot so we remembered reading that you should only pressurize thin liquids, and dairy based liquids don’t have enough water content, which actually causes the burn warning. So instead we sauté the chicken as stated in the recipe, then we got out the recipe book that came with our instant pot and there was a “perfect brown rice”
recipe. We added the rice according to that recipe with the chicken as well, and followed that recipe for the rice. Once that was done we then added the cream, cheeses, soup, etc after and placed the lid on for a couple minutes to let everything melt and mix together. It was kind of a tedious recipe considering we merged two different recipes together to make sure everything got cooked right.
How do you go from sauté to pressure cook without having to cancel the heat? My food burnt while pre heating. How do you avoid that? Do you always have to have the food already in while it pre heats? This is the first time I’ve tried using the pot now I’m discouraged lol
I usually let the pot pre-heart with only a bit of oil then add any meat or veg I want to fry first. If you let them heat with the pot you wont get browning and meats tend to stick really bad.
I wish I would have read the reviews before I tried this Pinterest fail. A lot of curse words, a lot of hard rice and a big hit to my cooking confidence, a lot of wasted ingredients went in the trash. I’m glad I wasn’t the only one, I feel better now. I wish I could rate it at 0 stars, the only successful comments, the writer edited the recipe. I kept getting burn warning with a whole lot of hard rice. Oh well, live and learn.
This is only my second time using my instant pot. My recipe the first time was just ok. Wasn’t impressed. But this recipe was SO good. I’m a huge risotto fan and for me, it resembled an American style risotto with chicken. Definitely a very indulging, heavy dish but very comforting. I would definitely make again and probably add some spinach next time. I was really worried about it burning based on everyone’s comments but I was fine.
Made this tonight. Turned out delicious! Only thing I varied from the posted recipe is doing a natural release for 12 minutes to make sure the rice was good and tender.
Made this tonight for the first time. I followed the instructions exactly. My husband LOVES it, and declared it his new favorite. Since this is rice I did not do a quick and let it release naturally. I think if you skip that part the rice would be hard. I added a little cayenne pepper to my plate and enjoyed the kick. Next time I will add broccoli to make it a little healthier.
SO… I got all the ingredients and then read the instructions again and THEN I read the reviews. I was so disheartened. BUT, given what I knew I… 1. added extra butter when sauteing the onions and chicken 2. followed the directions exactly 3. cooked on high manual for NINE minutes 4. used a towel when letting the steam escape. This recipe turned out PEFECT. I would steam broccoli or make peas to add next time to the final product.
Don’t even dare try this recipe unless you have the patience of a saint. This horrible recipe sent the burn message at least 7 times until I finally gave up and put it on my stove. Even then I don’t know how it’s going to come out because the rice was already halfway cooked. No way will I EVER try this recipe again. Horrible horrible horrible. If I could give negative stars I would and it still wouldn’t be enough to express how much I hate this recipe!
I should have read the comments, followed exactly and my rice isn’t cooked. I’m attempting to add more time before I call this a fail. As a previous commenter added-use cooked rice.
Mine spewed liquid all over my kitchen also ugh. It takes good but definitely going to have to clean the outside of my brand new Instant pot. How come this happened? Too much liquid??
When you do a quick or manual release place a towel over the steam valve.
Followed as written and loved it!
My husband loves this! With a newer model I was worried about the burn notice…I pre boiled the rice and sauté the chicken with onions and butter before hand and it came out perfect with no issues 🙂