Instant Pot Chicken Saag (Chicken & Spinach Curry) is a delicious dish from north India. A step-by-step recipe to prepare this in the Instant Pot or Pressure Cooker.
Chicken is simmered in a creamy spinach sauce. Sounds exotic? Don’t worry, it is super easy to make. This curry is full of flavor and loaded with nutrients. You will always find some version of this curry in any Indian restaurant and is a popular one to order.
“Saag” is basically a Punjabi term used for leafy green preparations. These could be make with spinach, mustard greens, chard, etc. In this Chicken Saag, I used spinach, but feel free to use other greens that you like. This curry is a healthy way to incorporate leafy greens in a kids meal. My daughter loves everything saag, so I make multiple versions of it – Palak Paneer, Saag Paneer with mustard greens and Vegan Palak Tofu.
How to make Chicken Saag in Pressure Cooker?
This is a very quick, one-pot recipe. Start the instant pot and add in the oil, cumin, ginger and garlic. Then add in the chopped onions and sauté for a few minutes. The ingredients can be cut into large pieces as we are going to blend them later. Add the spices and stir them with the onions. Add water and deglaze the pot (important for newer versions of instant pot). Then add in the spinach leaves and place the chicken on top of the spinach leaves. Cook on manual or high pressure for 8 minutes.
When the instant pot beeps, quick release the pressure manually. Remove the chicken pieces on the top and keep aside. Then use the immersion blender to grind the ingredients in the pot to a smooth paste. You can also use a normal blender to grind and then transfer the saag back to the instant pot. If needed, cut the chicken pieces to the desired size and transfer them back to the saag in the pot.
Simmer for a few minutes so the chicken is mixed well with the greens. Use a glass lid when simmering as there could be some splutters when spinach boils. Chicken Saag is ready to be enjoyed with naan or rice.
Enjoy the goodness of spinach and chicken in this hearty and healthy recipe. Give this recipe a try and I am sure you are going to love it as much as we do!
Equipment and Ingredients used to make Chicken Saag
If you are looking for more Instant Pot Chicken Curry Recipes, check out these –
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This one-pot Chicken curry with spinach is one of the delicious north Indian dish. Chicken simmered in a creamy spinach sauce, makes it a nutritious dish for all.
- 10 oz Spinach (Palak)
- 1 lb Chicken thighs boneless, cut into 2-3 pieces
- 1 tablespoon Oil
- 1/2 teaspoon Cumin seeds (Jeera)
- 1" inch Ginger chopped
- 6 cloves Garlic
- 2 Onion medium sized, cut into pieces
- 1/4 cup Water
- 1/4 teaspoon Ground Turmeric (Haldi powder)
- 1/2 teaspoon Cayenne or Red chili powder
- 2 teaspoon Coriander powder (Dhaniya powder)
- 1 teaspoon Salt
Start the instant pot in SAUTE mode and heat oil in it. Add cumin seeds and saute for 30 seconds
Add the cut onions, ginger and garlic. Saute for couple of minutes. Add the spices and stir well. Add water and deglaze the pot.
Add the spinach and carefully place the chicken pieces on top of the spinach. Press CANCEL and close the instant pot lid with vent in sealing position.
Press MANUAL or Pressure Cook mode for 8 minutes. When the instant pot beeps, do a quick pressure release. PRESS Cancel.
Open the lid, remove the chicken pieces and set aside. Blend the spinach and other ingredients to a creamy texture preferably using an immersion blender.
If needed, cut the chicken into smaller pieces and then add it back to the spinach curry.
Press SAUTE and give the curry a quick boil. This could splutter out, so cover with a lid.
Chicken Saag is ready. Enjoy with naan, roti or rice.
- If you don't have an immersion blender, you could transfer the ingredients to a regular blender, blend to a smooth paste and then transfer them back in the instant pot insert.
- I used spinach in this recipe. However I have made this using spinach and chard or spinach and mustard greens, and they come out great.
- If the chicken is not well cooked, then boil for a bit longer in step 7.
- If using chicken breast, cut into 2-3 pieces and pressure cook for 6 minutes.
Note: Nutrition values are my best estimates. If you rely on them for your diet, use your preferred nutrition calculator.
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I keep getting burn message. Why would that be ?
Hey Roma – Sorry to hear. Asking some questions, so we can try to figure out the issue.
Are you using an 8qt instant pot? In 8qt, as the surface area is more, sometimes more liquid is needed.
Was there much time lag between adding water and starting pressure cook? Sometimes while on saute, if the liquid dries completely, then there is very less liquid remaining to pressure cook which can lead to burn message. Please let me know if this helps.
I’m on a keto diet and I’m wondering where the 22g of fat is coming from. They only fatty things in here are the oil and the chicken thighs. I’ve seen recipes that finish the saag with heavy cream or coconut cream. Without something like that, I’m curious to know how this has 22g of fat per serving. Thanks!
Hello Scott – I checked the nutrition calculator. It says total 75gms of fat in the chicken and 14 gms in the oil, and some in other ingredients. Please check with the nutrition calculator you prefer to confirm. Hope you enjoy it!
This is so delicious! Thank you so much for posting the recipe. Can we substitute lamb? If so does the time change? Thanks again!
Would it work to double the recipe?
Hey Dani – It should work, with the same cooking time. Hope you enjoy the Saag.
Wonderfully recipe! My husband and I are planning on adding this to our regular dinner rotation. I’m going to try your instant pot Kheer recipe next. Thank you!
Hey Nicole – Glad you and your husband enjoyed the Saag. I would love to hear how the kheer turns out 🙂
Hi Meeta,
This recipe looks great and I can’t wait to try it. However, I just have one question.
The nutritional value states there is 1160mg sodium per serving. I think this is wrong. Your recipe is for 4 servings. But there is only one teaspoon of salt added and none of the other ingredients contain salt or sodium of any negligible amount. A teaspoon of regular table salt has 2325mg of sodium (and kosher salt has about 1800mg). So the amount of sodium per serving would be far less, about 581mg per serving if table salt is used (or 450mg if kosher salt). Does that make sense or am I missing something?
Thanks!
Hello Pam – You are right. When I put the ingredients through the new nutrition calculator I am using, it does give 732mg. Now I am not sure why it is not lower as you mention, but it is definitely in the better range now 🙂 I hope you enjoy the saag chicken. Would love to hear how it turns out!
Hi Meeta –
I only accounted for the table salt. So perhaps it is accounting for the natural sodium in the chicken and the spinach but yes, still a big win. Yay.
Can’t wait to make this for tonight’s dinner. 🙂
Made this last night and made some adjustments. Cooked the onions first and then added the garlic, ginger, and spices. Seemed odd to cook the garlic for so long. Also, had issues with my pot coming to pressure because of the lack of liquid. I used chicken breasts and even after multiple heat up attempts and the full 6 minutes cook time after finally coming to pressure, they were still raw in the middle. I went ahead and cut them and put them in the sauce to finish the cook on them. Overall a really good dish, though. Thank you!
Hey Chris – Sorry I missed seeing your comment earlier. I am glad that even with the issues faced you still liked the Chicken Saag.
I will make it clear in the recipe that the chicken breasts must be cut into pieces (I did that for the thighs). I wonder if you are using a 8qt instant pot, I have heard that the 8qt needs more liquid due to the larger surface area.
Hi Meeta—
This looks delicious! Have you ever made it with lamb? I’m partial to lamb saag and am wondering what adjustments would be necessary here to do that.
Thanks!
Michelle
Hey Michelle – I love lamb and goat meat more than chicken too 🙂 I believe this can be made with lamb, just extra cooking time will be needed for lamb. If you can precook lamb a bit, then it would easily add to the recipe as is. Another option is to try cutting lamb in small pieces and add it to the recipe and cook for 15 minutes. The only downside is that the spinach might not be as green when cooked for long. However someone reported that they used frozen chicken, cooked this curry for 15 minutes, and loved the taste. So give it a try 🙂
Hello Meeta,
Great recipe however I have a question. Whenever I make anything that has spinach in it like for e.g dal palak, the spinach loses its beautiful green colour ? Is there any way to avoid this? How did you get your spinach saag to look so green?
Thanks in advance,
Hey Annett – Great question. I usually try to cook spinach for as less time as possible. In this case, it is 8 minutes as that much time is needed for the chicken to cook. If I am adding paneer, in place of chicken then I cook the spinach for lesser time. If you want the very vibrant color, you can cook chicken separately, and only cook spinach for 2 mins at high pressure. Then add in the cooked chicken pieces. Traditionally saag is simmered on the stovetop for a long time and sometimes the color may not be too vibrant, but it is certainly very flavorful. Another thing that is done is adding a dollop of ghee on the cooked saag to get the extra flavor kick. Hope that helps 🙂
Hello Meeta – I made this as my first ever Instant Pot recipe, and it turned out great! I used a bag of baby spinach and baby kale leaves. This recipe is a great way to use up those ever so slightly wilted greens in the back of the crisper drawer.
Also, my chicken was still a wee bit frozen, so I added an extra 4 minutes of cooking time – perfect!
Hey Rachel – This is definitely my way of using up the greens too. I am happy to hear that you chose this as your fist instant pot recipe and enjoyed it 🙂
What cooking time would you suggest for chicken breast?
Hey Mariam – Sorry for the late response, somehow the comment went into moderation and I missed seeing it before. I suggest the same cooking time as in the recipe for chicken breasts too. Hope you enjoy the Saag!
Thanks for the great recipe – If I want this a bit spicier, should I just add a bit more red chili powder?
Hey Paul – Glad you liked it! To make this spicier, you can add 1-2 green chilies (Thai or Birdseye or another that you prefer) or more red chili powder.
This was easy and delicious!
I started it as written with no added liquid but the IP overheated. I opened it and added about 1/4-1/3c of broth and then it was fine. Also used 1t ground cumin and 1t ground coriander (instead of 2t coriander) due to my own taste.
Hey Lori – Glad you liked the saag. Thanks for sharing the adjustments you made.
This was perfect! And so easy!
Thank you ❤️
Perfect! Made exactly as written and we loved it!
Thank you so much.
Awesome! So glad to hear you loved it ????
Thank you for this recipe for one of my favourite dishes. I made this as written except I used two 300 gram packages of frozen spinach, thawed and lightly squeezed, in place of the fresh spinach and my thighs were bone in. It worked out perfectly Delicious!
Great to hear. Frozen spinach works great for saag as well. Thanks for sharing back!
I prefer my saag a little thicker. Would it work to just blend the spinach a little less, so it isn’t so runny? Thank you.
Sure, do adjust to your taste. You can just do a quick blend and not a smooth sauce.
I made it. I was a little afraid to not use any liquid. So I did add a little water. Found that my immersion blender did not work but my food processer… boom! Very good. ♡
Hey Marla – thanks for sharing. Glad you liked it ????
And you are super quick! I just posted this morning and you already made it ❤️