This creamy Instant Pot buffalo chicken used to be exclusive to my first macro-friendly cookbook, Lillie Eats and Tells. But I decided it’s time to let it live over here! It’s easily one of the QUICKEST and TASTIEST things to ever come out of my Instant Pot, with 18.6 grams of protein per 100 gram serving. In fact, I always double it because we NEVER WANT IT TO END.
We love a fresh grilled or smoked meat like the next food-loving family… but for quick weeknight meals, you just can’t beat having a bunch of shredded, prepped protein on hand. And this one can LIVE ON AND ON. You can reheat it without feeling like you’re microwaving Thanksgiving turkey leftovers. Ew. It stays so yummy and doesn’t need to be eaten the same day.
A Quick Look At The Recipe
- Recipe Name: Easy Healthy Instant Pot Creamy Buffalo Chicken
- Serves: 10 -11
- Calories: 114 cal
- Protein: 18.6g
- Fat: 2.8g
- Carbs: 3.5g
- Why You'll Love It: The easiest, TASTIEST instant pot creamy buffalo chicken. As always, still macro-friendly, low in fat, obviously high in protein and ready to throw into a million meals. A favorite from the first cookbook!
How Long Do You Pressure Cook Chicken Breasts in the Instant Pot?
For this recipe, 30 minutes on manual high pressure for chicken breasts, then let the steam naturally release. If you use chicken tenderloins, you only need 12 minutes. I usually prefer tenderloins, but breasts turn out great here and sometimes feel so easy!
How Do You Make Buffalo Chicken Creamy?
Stir in Greek cream cheese at the very end, once most of the liquid has cooked off. It melts right into the shredded chicken and makes it creamy without a ton of extra fat. If you love creamy buffalo anything, my healthy buffalo chicken dip and buffalo chicken spaghetti squash casserole are must-tries.
Can You Make Buffalo Chicken in the Slow Cooker?
YES. Add the chicken, onion, garlic, Frank’s, seasonings, and ½ cup water or chicken stock (twice what the Instant Pot version uses). Cook on low for 6 to 7 hours or on high for 4 to 6 hours, until it’s easy to shred. Shred it, toss it in the juices, discard the extra liquid, and stir in the cream cheese and parsley.
Important Ingredients and Substitutions
- Frank’s RedHot: A full cup is the buffalo flavor here. I support LOTS of extra hot sauce on top too.
- Greek cream cheese: This is what makes it creamy. Reduced-fat cream cheese works for just a tiny bit more fat. No biggie overall.
- Ranch seasoning: One tablespoon, plus a little Italian seasoning, gives it that buffalo-and-ranch flavor without any dressing.
- Chicken breasts or tenderloins: About 3 fresh breasts make 2 pounds. Tenderloins work too, just change the cook time.
Before You Start Cooking
- Grab frozen diced onion and frozen garlic cubes. They make your life SO MUCH EASIER, and the whole prep is just dumping things in the pot.
- Plan for the pressure time. It’s 30 minutes at pressure for breasts, plus time to come up to pressure and naturally release, then 10 to 15 minutes on sauté.
- Double it if you want. We love to double this recipe and freeze half for later. I don’t even adjust the cooking time!
- Skip the mixer. You can shred with a stand or hand mixer, but two forks right in the pot is a breeze with no extra dishes.
- Weigh the finished chicken if you track macros. One serving is 100g. Here’s how I add a recipe to MyFitnessPal.
If you’d rather skip the math altogether, my macro-friendly meal plans have complete macros on every recipe and come preloaded into MyFitnessPal, Macros First, and Lose It. There’s a new plan every Thursday.
How to Make Instant Pot Buffalo Chicken
- Load the pot. Spray the bottom of the Instant Pot with cooking spray. Add the chicken, onion, garlic, hot sauce, water or stock, and the Italian and ranch seasonings.
- Pressure cook. Close the lid and vent. Cook on manual high pressure for 30 minutes for breasts (12 for tenderloins).
- Release. Let the steam naturally release, then open the lid.
- Shred and reduce. Turn the Instant Pot to sauté and shred the chicken nice and fine while it cooks down for 10 to 15 more minutes, stirring often, until the liquid is mostly reduced and absorbed.
- Make it creamy. Turn off the heat. Stir in the Greek cream cheese and fresh parsley until the cream cheese melts. There shouldn’t be any obvious liquid left.
What to Serve with Buffalo Chicken
One of my all-time favorite ways to eat it is stuffed in a baked sweet potato! It was a fan favorite from the cookbook. Try it in my roasted sweet potato halves drizzled with a little low-sugar syrup… TRUST ME. I even love it cold, tucked into a jicama tortilla (thin sliced jicama) for a low-carb, fresh, crunchy little number.
Another favorite from the book was buffalo chicken taquitos made with our FAVORITE low-carb Cut Da Carb wraps. And there are so many other ways to use it. NO LIMITS. Try buffalo chicken tacos, a buffalo chicken sandwich, low-carb buffalo chicken pizza, an easy buffalo chicken grain salad, or rice bowls with carrot slaw. Nachos, lettuce wraps, and spaghetti squash work too. You get it.
It’s also SO good in macro-friendly crunch wraps. You can find an actual buffalo chicken crunch wrap in my Crunch Wrap cookbook. And for blue cheese lovers, add some crumbles or serve it with a wedge salad with creamy blue cheese dressing. If you despise blue cheese, no fear! It’s not in the recipe.
How to Freeze Buffalo Chicken
This is one of my favorite proteins to keep in the freezer, and it’s on my list of macro-friendly freezer meals. It even makes a great dinner to drop off for a friend.
- Let the chicken cool, then portion it into freezer bags. Label with the date and grams (one serving is 100g).
- Thaw overnight in the fridge, then reheat in the microwave or a skillet.
- Once it’s thawed, it’s ready for taquitos, sweet potatoes, crunch wraps, rice bowls… anything!
- Keeps up to 3 months.
More Instant Pot chicken for the freezer: my Instant Pot smokey honey cilantro chicken, lighter Instant Pot chicken tortilla soup, and one pot skinny white chicken chili.
Buffalo Chicken Calories and Macros
One 100g serving of this creamy Instant Pot buffalo chicken has 114 calories, 18.6g protein, 2.8g fat, and 3.5g carbs. The recipe makes 10 to 11 servings. To log it, search Lillie Eats and Tells Creamy Buffalo Chicken in MyFitnessPal.
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Easy Healthy Instant Pot Creamy Buffalo Chicken
Ingredients
- 2 lbs chicken breast about 3 fresh breasts
- 1 small onion diced (200 g) (I love using frozen diced onions for a short cut)
- 6 cloves of garlic minced (or frozen cubes)
- 1 cup Frank’s RedHot sauce
- 1/4 cup chicken stock or water
- 1 Tbs ranch seasoning
- 1/2 Tbs Italian seasoning
- 3 oz Greek cream cheese or sub reduced-fat cream cheese for just a tiny bit more fat- no biggie overall
- Fresh parsley
Instructions
- Spray bottom of instant pot with cooking spray, add breasts, onion, garlic, hot sauce, water, Italian and ranch seasonings. Close lid; close vent. Set on manual high pressure for 30 minutes for breasts (12 for tenderloins.)
- Allow the steam to naturally release. Open lid and start shredding but while you do, turn the instant pot to “sauté” setting to let it cook down for 10-15 more minutes (or until liquid is reduced and absorbed, stirring often). Shred the chicken nice and fine, so it really asborbs the juices. You can use your stand or hand mixer to shred, but I’ve found this to be a breeze with two forks and no extra dishes. When most of the excess liquid has reduced, turn off heat. Add Greek cream cheese and fresh parsely, and stir until the cream cheese melts and it’s all well-combined. There shouldn’t be any obvious liquid remaining. Use for taquitos, sandwiches, sweet potatoes, pizzas, etc!
- For slow cooker: Place chicken in the slow cooker. Top with onions, garlic, Frank’s hot sauce, ½ cup water or chicken stock (TWICE what the recipe calls for) and seasonings. Combine. Cook on low for 6-7 hours or on high for 4-6 hours until chicken is easy to shred. Shred chicken and toss around in the juices to soak up as much as you can. Discard excess liquid and stir in cream cheese and parsley.
Notes
- I usually prefer tenderloins, but breasts have turned out great in this recipe, and sometimes feel so easy! If you use tenderloins, you only need to cook for 12 minutes.
- We love to double this recipe and freeze some to use later. I don’t adjust the cooking time.
- For tracking purposes, search MFP for: “Lillie Eats and Tells Creamy Buffalo Chicken”
Tried this recipe?
Tag @LillieEatsAndTells on Instagram with #LillieEatsandTells! We’d love to see your creations!
Don’t you need to add water to the instapot? Help me with this step.
The broth is enough liquid to get the Instapot started and the chicken will give off liquid as it cooks.
This is an excellent recipe. I did use my crockpot. My husband and I loved it. The leftovers were used for lunch. I will defiantly make this recipe again.
Great recipe! I used a chipotle BBQ sauce instead of the Frank’s Hot Sauce to make this kid friendly and adjusted the sauce / stock ratio to further reduce the heat. We have been eating it with baked potatoes this week and will try tacos next. This is a keeper. Quick, delicious and packed with protein.
PS I used a mix of skinless chicken breasts and thighs and cooked them for 25 minutes in the instant pot. Worked brilliantly.
How long would you cook in the instapot for thighs? I’m an instapot newbie and thoroughly confused after googling. Recommendations ranged from 6- 13 min for thighs and 8 – 10for breasts with natural and/or quick releases. Ack!
Doubles this recipe for my husband’s & my meal prep for the week. Paired it with some t rice and veggies. We LOVED it!! Can’t wait to try it in other things…I’m thinking sliders.
Made this last night and it was absolutely delicious!! I was so excited to have plenty of leftovers to freeze!
Love this! It is beyond easy and so versatile: top a sweet potato, buffalo air frier fries, air fryer taquitos, nachos, a Crunchwrap. Literally anything!
What is Greek cream cheese? :o)
My local Walmart sells Green Mountain Farm Cream Greek Cheese. It’s delicious and what I use in this recipe.
This was so yummy, but SUPER spicy! I only used 3/4 cup of the Franks and I would reduce it again next time to 1/3 or 1/2 cup. We are total wimps on spicy stuff though. The flavor was outstanding though!
That was my thought , too! Big wimp on spicy things, also, but then thought maybe a little more cream cheese would help . Gonna try that when I make it!
Easy and DELICIOUS. ThIs on repeat weekly in my kitchen for lunch. I always have the inGredients on hand, and I make enOugh for a week of lunches!
I have enjoyed every recipe on this site we have tried, but oh my, this one is my favorite so far. So good!!! I made it for the first time last night and already pulled another 4 pounds of chicken breasts out of the freezer to make a double batch in a few days!
I love this buffalo chicken recipe. You can make a double batch and freeze half of it. It thaws well and it makes it easy to put a quick meal together.
This combo is just the best! Love all of the flavors. Comforting, filling, DELICIOUS.
Great for serving to company since you can customize your potato to your preference!
This looks great- how would you convert this to a crockpot?
Oh so yummy!!! I’m serious you guys!! And this is coming from someone who DOES NOT LIKE Buffalo sauce! I don’t even like spicey food, but this isn’t too spicey. But my husband loves Buffalo sauce so I figured I’d try this! And oh my heavens I loved it! 🙂 so yummy and SO easy! Just put it in the pressure cooker and it does it all for you 🙂 yum!! I’ve made this several times (the first time I bought the wrong hot sauce 🤦🏼♀️ I bought regular hot sauce instead of Buffalo sauce – they were both the orangey color haha anyways it was actually very good with a different hot sauce still!) anyways! Try this! You won’t regret it 🙂
Seriously….save and make this. You will not be disappointed. I’ve made this numerous times and anyone who has tasted asks for recipe. So many options on how to use as well.
SO. DANG. GOOD. This was my first EVER instant pot creation. I have to admit I was intimidated to use it. Holy moly, am I mad that I waited so long on this one. It is to DIE for. I didn’t even have time to put it on my tortilla and just ate it straight with a fork. Wow. Thank you. 🤤🤤🤤
Have you ever tried using Trader Joe’s chili pepper sauce in place of Frank’s? I grabbed some today at TJ’s since I didn’t want to run to a different store for one item, but now I’m not sure about it.
Which ranch seasoning do you use?
I just googled to make my own. Much more healthier in my opinion versus store bought.
Hi- if I wanted to make this little kid friendly using less Buffalo sauce – would I sub equal part broth/water to replace/lease buffalo sauce? Thank you!
Love this recipe! Do you think I could do it with pork tenderloin?