Instant Pot Crack Chicken Pasta – chicken pasta loaded with cheddar, bacon and ranch! Seriously delicious! 4 minutes of cook time. We ate this two days in a row. Chicken, ranch dressing mix, bacon, chicken broth, water, cream cheese, penne pasta and cheddar cheese. Everyone cleaned their plate! Even our picky eaters!!
Remember this recipe.
Pin this recipe to your favorite board now to remember it later!
Pin This RecipeHow many of you LOVE the Instant Pot?!?! I’ve owned one for over a year, but I just started using it. In case you aren’t familiar with the Instant Pot, it is an electric pressure cooker. You can cook just about anything in the Instant Pot. You can cook it fast or use it as a slow cooker.
Today I am sharing one of our favorite pasta dishes – Crack Chicken Pasta. Chicken and pasta loaded with cheddar, bacon and ranch. This is seriously DELICIOUS! The best part is that it takes less than 20 minutes from start to finish. Everything cooks in the Instant Pot – even the pasta! Woot Woot!
We made this Instant Pot Crack Chicken Pasta for lunch two days in a row. It was that GOOD!! I loved that I could cook everything in the Instant Pot. Only one pot to clean! I sautéed the chicken and then dumped everything else in and closed the lid. It takes the Instant Pot a few minutes to come to full steam, but once it is locked the pasta is ready in about 4 minutes. LOVE that!! Can’t wait to experiment more with the Instant Pot!
Instant Pot Crack Chicken Pasta
Ingredients:
- 1- lb boneless skinless chicken breast, cut into bite-sized pieces
- 2 Tbsp olive oil
- 1 (1-oz) package ranch dressing mix
- 1/4 cup cooked chopped bacon
- 1 (8-oz) package cream cheese
- 1- lb dry penne pasta
- 3 cups low-sodium chicken broth
- 2 cups water
- 2 cups shredded cheddar cheese
Instructions:
- Preheat Instant Pot on “Sauté” setting; add oil, chicken, and ranch packet, stirring to coat. Cook chicken 2–3 minutes.
- Add pasta, broth, and water to pot.
- Close lid, lock pot, select “Manual” setting and 4 minutes time. Cook pasta until time is up, then quick release and open Pot.
- Stir in cream cheese, cheddar cheese and cooked bacon until combined; let pasta set
- 5 minutes to thicken. Serve immediately.
Steph
Remember this recipe.
Pin this recipe to your favorite board now to remember it later!
Pin This Recipe
Can this be made in a rice cooker?
I also wanted to ask…what did you garnish it with in the pictures? Something green and something red.
bacon and parsley
I don’t know if this has already been suggested (as I haven’t read all of the comments) but this would be fantastic with smoked salmon instead of bacon pieces! I haven’t tried it myself yet. But I think I’m going to!
Husband-approved! Made this as shown in a 6-qt Duo Instant Pot. Used frozen chicken thighs, chopped into bite-sized pieces, sauteed with about a half-cup chopped onion and a teaspoon of chopped garlic. Delicious! Made healthy-sized servings and was eaten the following day as well. Pre-cooked bacon was fine here, softened the cream cheese for 30 minutes and added in chunks. After resting time, sauce was perfect. Thank you so very much for this, it’s a keeper for our #BigAssBus!
Honestly, so so so good. Would be easy to add veggies (peas, chopped asparagus, broccoli, spinach, etc) but of course, we loved it as is even without the bacon! I’m attempting to make this a freezer meal so I will let you know how that goes. My favorite part of this meal is how inexpensive it is, my family’s favorite part is eating it!
Thought I had cream cheese and I don’t!!! Hopefully heavy cream will be a decent supplement??
I wouldn’t use heavy cream. The sauce would be SUPER thin, but you can make this any way that you would like.
It I double the recipe and all it’s ingredients will it fit in an 8 qt ninja foodi? Also can I use rotisserie chicken?
I don’t know. I’ve only made this in a 6-qt Instant Pot.
I made this the other night, but instead of 3 cups of broth and two cups of water, I used 4 cups of broth (an entire carton), 1/8 cup of dry sherry and 7/8 cup of water. It was delicious.
Oooh, that sounds good! I love adding Sherry to creamy chicken recipes! Thank you!
Could I use bow tie pasta?
I used rotini and it was awesome!
Sorry, I also fry my bacon in the instant pot, take out all except about 1 tbsp of the grease, add the bacon so the chicken is fried in bacon grease.
Sounds delicious!
Has anyone used ranch dressing rather than the dry ranch seasoning? Curious as that’s what I have on hand at the moment!
For how long to cook I read somewhere and what I use is whatever the time it says to cook the pasta divide it in half and take off 2 minutes, If cooking in a instant pot. My pasta says 8 min so half is 4 min take away 2 min. My pot can only go down to 5 min at 2 min I start letting the pressure out that takes about 5 min or so.. I set it on Pasta setting and pressure of 7 I have a kuraidori pot. Works like a dream..
How can I adapt this for the 3qt IP?? Its just my husband n I and an apartment sized frig for leftovers 😊
I’ve made this a dozen times, as I made it once and my husband deemed it his favorite. It’s really easy so I don’t mind lol. I usually dump a little leftover liquid before I add cheese and I add green onion as garnish to mine.