Mom’s authentic Chicken Curry recipe made in Instant Pot or Pressure Cooker. This chicken curry instant pot recipe is made in a simple onion-tomato gravy with the aroma of whole spices. This is the best Chicken Curry you will ever have!
I wanted to recreate my mom’s chicken curry in the instant pot and tried it multiple times. But I was not getting the exact favor that comes when she cooks the curry….something was missing! But guess what, mom is visiting and shared her secret tips for the chicken curry.
Mom’s Chicken Curry Tips
- Sauté the onions for longer, about 4 mins until the oil starts separating .
- Add the tomatoes and sauté the onion-tomato mixture for longer, again about 4 mins until the oil separates.
- Add the chicken and cook it on sauté for 2-3 mins, before you pressure cook.
You get the idea, basically sauté the ingredients perfectly, to get the perfect chicken curry. Another great thing about this curry is, there is no marination required. So no pre-prep for this recipe.
Step-by-step Chicken Curry Instant Pot Instructions
Start with getting the main ingredients ready.
- The whole spices in one bowl. If you want to make this recipe simpler, you can skip the whole spices. What you lose with that is the aroma, but trust me, it will still be as flavorful.
- The ground spices in one bowl.
- Chicken cut into pieces. I used boneless chicken breasts in this recipe, but mom says bone-in chicken tastes even better. This is next to try, but I do like the convenience of boneless chicken.
Now we are ready to start cooking! Start the instant pot in Sauté mode, and heat ghee or oil in it. I prefer ghee to get the richer taste, especially homemade ghee in the instant pot. Add the whole spices and sauté for 30 seconds to get the aroma. Add the green chili, onions, ginger and garlic to the pot. Sauté for about 4 minutes until the onions turn brown and the oil separates. Now add the tomatoes and ground spices. Sauté for another 4 minutes until oil separates. Remember mom’s tips, this sautéing of onions and tomatoes is what gives a great taste to the chicken curry. Keep stirring at about 1-2 minute interval, so the onions and tomato don’t get stuck to the bottom of the pot.
Let’s add the chicken pieces to the pot. Stir it well, so the chicken is coated with the onion-tomato masala. Sauté the chicken for a couple of minutes. Now add half cup of water to the pot. The trick is to add less water, as the chicken also releases water.
Change the instant pot setting to manual mode and cook for 5 minutes on high pressure. Quick release the pressure, as we don’t want to overcook the chicken. Stir in the lemon juice and garnish with cilantro.
Look at the end result, doesn’t it look appetizing? I had this chicken curry for three meals at a stretch, first with roti (Indian flatbread), then with rice and finally with naan.
Don’t have an instant pot or pressure cooker, use the same steps to cook chicken curry in a pan. After adding chicken to the pan, cover pan with a lid and cook for about 15 minutes. Stir every 3-4 minutes, so the chicken does not stick to the pan. You would need to double the amount of water (1 cup) when cooking in a pan.
Try this Chicken Curry instant pot recipe and let me know how you like it.
- Recipe posted 3 months ago: Bell Pepper and Potato Stir Fry
- Recipe posted 6 months ago: Vegan Spinach Tofu Curry
- Recipe posted 9 months later: Potato Curry in Tomato Gravy
Want to find other easy Instant Pot Indian Recipes? Here are 23 Best Instant Pot Indian Recipes for you to try!
Recipe Video
Mom's Chicken Curry - Instant Pot Pressure Cooker
Ingredients
- 1 pound Chicken boneless, cut into 1-2 inch pieces
- 3 tbsp Ghee or Oil
- 1 Green Chili Pepper small, chopped (optional)
- 1 inch Ginger finely chopped
- 5 cloves Garlic finely chopped
- 1 Onion medium sized, finely chopped
- 2 Tomato medium sized, finely chopped
- 1/3 cup Water
- 1 tbsp Lemon juice
- 1/4 cup Cilantro to garnish
Whole Spices
Spices
- 2 tsp Coriander powder (Dhaniya powder)
- 1/2 tsp Cayenne or Red chili powder
- 1/2 tsp Garam masala
- 1/4 tsp Ground Turmeric (Haldi powder)
- 1 tsp Salt
Instructions
- Cut the boneless chicken into small pieces, about 1-2 inch in size.
- Heat the instant pot in Sauté mode and add oil to it. Add the whole spices and sauté for 30 seconds to get the aroma.
- Add the chopped green chili, onions, ginger and garlic to the pot and sauté for 4 minutes until they turn golden brown. Keep stirring at regular intervals.
- Add the chopped tomatoes and spices. Sauté for another 4 minutes, while stirring at regular intervals.
- Add the chicken and sauté for 2 minutes. Then add the water and stir it with the chicken. Deglaze and scrape off anything stuck to the bottom of the pot.
- Change the instant pot setting to manual/pressure cook mode on high for 5 minutes.
- When the instant pot beeps, quick release the pressure manually. Stir in the lemon juice.
- Garnish with cilantro and chicken curry is ready to serve.
Notes
- If you want to simplify this recipe, skip the whole spices in this recipe.
- To make this less spicy, you can skip the green chili.
- If using bigger pieces of chicken, increase the pressure cooking time to 7 minutes. I used chicken breasts when making this curry, but chicken thighs would work great too.
- Green Chili Pepper: I typically use Thai or Birdeye Chili Pepper for this recipes. Don't forget to adjust to your taste.
- This recipe was created in a 6qt Instant Pot DUO60 Multi-use Programmable Pressure Cooker.
Note: Nutrition values are my best estimates. If you rely on them for your diet, use your preferred nutrition calculator.
Nutrition
If you are looking for more chicken recipes, check out Chicken Korma, Keema Matar, Chicken Chettinad, Saag Chicken and the famous Butter Chicken. Like goat meat, check out our Mutton Curry recipe.
Absolutely love this curry. It was the first one I made in my instant pot (still taking off in Ireland) and it was fab. I’m going to try and triple it today for a party….fingers crossed
Watery. Does not accouny that the tomatoes and chicjen give off water. And flavorless because so much steam from the pressure watered down what was a good dish in sautee mode.
Hi G – Sorry that you did not have a good experience. If you had a lot of liquid, then the cause could be that the initial sautéing of the tomatoes and chicken was not done well. When they are sautéed well for 4-5 minutes, then the water is already much less, which is why I add some water before pressure cooking. Also, feel free to add less liquid and/or saute after pressure cooking to get the desired consistency.
Curry turned out delicious. However, a little watery and not much flavor in the chicken itself. Maybe I added too much water as I wanted to have it roti and wanted more sauce. If add mor onions and tomato will that solve the problem? Thanks.
Hi Rita – Glad you enjoyed the curry. Thank you for the honest feedback. You can cook off the extra liquid on saute mode for a few minutes. For next time, definitely add less liquid (1/4 cup or less) as chicken releases a lot of liquid too. You can also include the quantity of onions and tomatoes to get more gravy. Do adjust the amount of spices accordingly too.
I’m very confused. Why isn’t curry in the ingredients?
Hi George – We are making curry from the basic ingredients here, which is why there is no curry powder or curry paste used in this recipe. Hope you give it a try!
I made this yesterday. The only thing I changed was I halved the whole spices and didn’t use bay leaf as I didn’t have any. It turned out absolutely amazing. I didn’t need to add any lemon as the curry taste itself was so delicious. Thank you for such an easy and tasty recipe.
So glad to hear you enjoyed the Chicken Curry!
I just recently got an instant pot. I was looking for some recipes that I could do and still be on the strict diet that I am on which is called the Best Bet Diet. The BBD is gluten-free, dairy-free, soy- free and then some. I already make a pretty good chicken curry but I wanted to try something different with my new instant pot and saw your recipe and decided to try it. It was delicious! Thank you! And tell your mother thank you! 😋💕
Hi Jan – Glad to hear you enjoyed the chicken curry. I will pass the love to my mom 🙂
Meeta, I thought your chicken curry was delicious and very flavorful. It has been added to my weekly rotation of meals. I was wondering if I make the Onion Tomato Bhuna Masala, how many cups of it I should use for this recipe? Also, do I add all the spices listed for chicken curry or do I add less since the Bhuna also has some spices in it? Thank you for sharing your mom’s chicken recipe, my family thanks you too!
Hi Gauri – So glad to hear you enjoy this chicken curry. Use 1 cup of the masala in this recipe. You can add the spices as is, as in the masala very less spices are added. Thank you for the kind words!
I would not make this again.
Nice ingredients but this is a dish fundamentally unsuited to cooking under pressure. It would taste better perhaps if it were cooked on a stove top. I made it to the letter (well, I did cook the onions/spices/tomato mix a little longer) and found it bland – because the flavours did not have time to develop. I chose the best ingredients and took great care over the cooking.
100% agree. I should have read your comment before I tried it.
Hi Chandra – Sorry to hear you did not enjoy the chicken curry. It is a taste preference. Feel free to try the same recipe in a pan on stovetop!
Hello Mostyn – Sorry to hear you did not enjoy the chicken curry. It is definitely a preference of taste. This chicken curry would be great to cook on the stovetop too, and this is a pressure cooker adaptation of the classic homecooked Indian chicken curry.