How to Make Chicken Stock in the Instant Pot (Pressure Cooker Recipe) (2024)

FAQs

Is stock better in a pressure cooker? ›

Not only does it cut down significantly on your total cooking time, yielding stock in less than an hour, but the resulting stock tends to be even better than a classically long-simmered one, with deeper flavor and an impressive extraction of gelatin.

Process filled jars in a pressure canner at 10 pounds pressure 20 minutes for pints and 25 minutes for quarts, adjusting for altitude, according to your pressure canners directions. Turn off heat: cool canner to zero pressure. Let stand 5 more minutes before removing the lid. Cool jars in canner 10 minutes.

Put everything in a large stock pot – Place the chicken carcasses, vegetables, herbs and water in a large 7 litre /7 quart stock pot. 3 litres / 3 quarts of water should just about cover everything. If not, do a bit of pushing and poking to rearrange the carcasses and ingredients more snugly in the pot.

Chicken Broth Comes Out Better on the Stovetop or Pressure Cooker, Not the Slow Cooker. If you want the most flavorful, full-bodied chicken stock you can make at home, do it on the stove or with a pressure cooker, and save your slow cooker for something else.

Cook it too long, though, and you get into a case of seriously diminishing returns. Throughout my testing, I tasted my stocks as they cooked, and I generally found about one and a half hours to be a reasonable endpoint—plenty of time for a flavorful, rich broth, but not so long that it's a major commitment to make it.

Let's clear up this myth. While 2 cups of liquid is certainly way too much for cooking most foods, even the new 1 cup recommendation may be too much as well. It really does depend on the type of food being cooked.

One is having the chicken submerged in the liquid and the other option is placing the chicken on top of the trivet. Submerging the chicken method is great for shredding in enchiladas, etc; while cooking the chicken on the trivet creates a firmer chicken that can be sliced for salads, etc.

Add Liquid

“Jiggle top” cookers need a minimum of one cup of water, while valve cookers need at least half a cup. Put food in the cooker first, then add water. When learning how to use a pressure cooker, make sure the unit is never more than two-thirds full of liquid, so the steam has enough space to accumulate.

Pressure Cooker Chicken Stock. If you are using an electric pressure cooker like an Instant Pot, all you have to do is throw everything in there and program it. You can even leave it on overnight because the “keep warm” setting will keep the temperature in the safe zone without cooking it any more.

Is Broth Different from Stock? There is one major difference between broth and stock: Broth is made from meat and vegetables, but stock is made with bones. While both are flavorful, broth tends to be thinner. It's cooked for less time, and it doesn't contain stock's thick, viscous texture.

Can an Instapot be used as a pressure canner? ›

I know that the Instant Pot Max has a button for canning, however, the research done by the National Center for Home Food Preservation found that it is not safe for canning because the temperature fluctuates during processing. This fluctuation can cause under-processing and you can risk foodborne illness.

A 3:1 ratio by volume of bones to mirepoix is a good starting point when making stock. More mirepoix may compete with the protein, whether chicken or beef. Many chefs prefer a higher ratio of up to 5:1 (bones:mirepoix), so that the chicken and beef flavors are more pronounced.

Use only enough water as needed. Use a tall stockpot to minimize evaporation, and add only enough water to cover the bones by about 1 to 2 inches. If the liquid gets low, you can replenish by adding a little hot water to just keep the bones covered. Never cover the stockpot.

You should do both at different times. Leaving the lid on prevents evaporation, which is good as you're starting to make the stock. Leaving it off allows evaporation, which concentrates the stock and is good to do towards the end of the cook.

A pressure cooker makes bone broth in a fraction of the time the slow cooker does, but both are excellent options. We've shared methods for both below, it all depends on what works best for your timeframe.

Disadvantages of cooking food in a pressure cooker

However, starchy foods may form acrylamide, a harmful chemical, when pressure cooked. Consumption of this chemical on a regular basis may lead to health issues like cancer, infertility, and neurological disorders.

Both appliances produce deep flavors.

Slow cookers utilize long cooking times to develop these richer flavors, while pressure cookers use high heat and pressure to impart as much flavor as possible in a shorter time.