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
- 1/2 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.
Made this twice. It was my second desi dish ever made in my new Instant Pot. Excellent.
I tweaked it first time by adding yoghurt because onions burned a little (not used to cooking in stainless steel instant pot). It offset the bitter taste but also added a great touch of tart. Helps also to thicken the “saalan” (curry) if one prefers that.
Tips for others:
1) sautee onions in another pan e.g. thick cast iron one over the stove.
The onions if sauteed in IP may cause BURN message on the new Instant Pots even if you scrape (“deglaze”) the bottom well before pressure cooking.
2) Cook the chicken well on sautee before adding water and pressure cooking. Gets rid of chicken smell.
3) Second time, I added double the water to avoid the BURN message.
Thank you for the recipe.
Hi Aasiya – so glad to hear you enjoy the chicken curry. Thank you so much for sharing the tweaks you made for the new instant pot which are more sensitive to burns.
Awesome curry. I made this with chicken legs. I did look at one of your other recipes to get the timing right for chicken leg curry but it was so tasty. I usually dont review recipes but today I actually reviewed two of your recipes.
I did skip the whole spices as my family hates it but the flavor from the powdered spices were great and proportions were right. No overpowering taste.
We will definitely be including this in our regular recipes.
Thanks for this recipe!
Thank you so much for taking theme to share your review. I know a lot of people don’t like whole spices while eating. So I suggest you can use a spice pouch or a tea infuser to add the whole spices initially, but remove them after pressure cooking the curry. So happy to hear you all enjoyed the chicken curry!
Hey Meeta – I want to make your moms chicken curry for a dinner party. Ill b using 4lbs chicken how much water do you suggest for the same?
Hi Sneha – I would suggest to just add 1 cup water, even if you increase the quantity to 4 times. Chicken releases a lot of liquid when cooked, so less water would be fine. I hope everyone enjoys the curry!
Thank you Meeta. Will update my post once i make it this weekend 🙂
Hi! I’m planning to make this recipe but wanted to use ginger and garlic paste. If you had to approximate, how much of each would I use for the recipe above? Also if I use bone in chicken leg and thigh, should still cook for 5 min?
Thanks!
Also, can I use tomatoe paste instead of fresh tomatoes?
Hi Nusrat – I would suggest 1/2 tablespoon of each, ginger and garlic. Cook for 6 minutes at high pressure for bone-in chicken. I believe 1.5-2 tablespoons of tomato paste will be enough in this curry. I hope you enjoy the chicken curry!
This is such an amazing recipe! Thank you so much for sharing it. I’ve made it multiple times with boneless chicken and it has come out so well. I love how simple you have made it!
I just bought bone in chicken and am going to make this again!
Thank you for sharing this recipe
Hey Anuj – So glad to hear you enjoy the chicken curry. Thank you for sharing back your review!
This was delicious! Though, I’m not totally clear on what to do with the whole spices after I saute them… do I remove them from the pot?
Hey Catherine – Glad you enjoyed the curry. You want to leave the whole spices in and let the curry cook with them. We usually just eat around them. If you find that inconvenient, then you can add the whole spices to a spice pouch which you can remove after pressure cooking. Hope that helps!
This was amazing!! Followed the recipe down to a T and it came out so so so good.
Thrown with some brown rice and you’ve got yourself a very nutritious meal!!
I was wondering about the fat content, I was looking to reduce the fat content and increase the protein to at least 30grams a serving. (Btw what is the serving size? A cup)
What would you suggest? Could I reduce the amount of oil/ghee to possibly half of what the recipe calls for and just add more chicken?
Hey Omar – So glad you enjoyed the chicken curry. The serving size is about 1 cup. I tried the nutrition with 1.5 pounds of chicken breasts and 1 tbsp of oil, which gave over 30gms of protein and less than 10 gms of fat. Please also use your favorite nutrition calculator to get the exact nutrition details. Hope that helps for the next time you try this curry!
Hi Meeta
Awesome, thank you so much!! I greatly appreciate it. Thank you for your time!!
So, I just tried making this and it turned out AMAZING. Thank you so much for the recipe and the guide. Definitely will be trying other recipes from your site. This was the first time I’ve ever pulled off a home cooked dish like this enough to fool myself into thinking that my mom made it and not me.
I actually tried it out with the bone-in chicken and I can say it made a difference between the karahi I had made before with boneless chicken.
Hey Ali – So glad to hear you enjoyed the Chicken Curry. This one is truly a favorite with mom’s tips. Thank you for sharing back your review!
I generally do not follow receipes. However, this recipe is close to perfect to have that restaurant style chicken curry at home. I have made it twice and last night I made with bone in chicken thighs and it was very good! Thank you!
Hello Raj – So glad you enjoyed the chicken curry. This is definitely my favorite and had to get special tips from mom to get it right. Thank you for sharing back your review!
Dear Meeta,
I just started using the IP Ultra. I have rarely cooked in the past 18 years except for making my mom’s tandoori chicken recipe. Wife does the cooking and I do the cleaning. But the IP has enticed me to cook. I used to cook a lot before marriage. Your chicken curry recipe was the perfect one for me to get started. I made 1.5lbs of boneless thighs and just multiplied everything by 1.5 times, it was so simple and came out superb!!! Thanks so much. I will try your other recipes for sure.
Take care,
Neeraj Arora
Hello Neeraj – So glad to hear that the instant pot is getting you back into cooking food. Even better that you started with the chicken curry. It is definitely close to my heart as I worked on this with my mom. I would love to hear if you try any other recipes!