Instant Pot Chicken Fajitas Recipe - quick and easy dinner for the busiest weeknights! Simply add all ingredients to your digital pressure cooker, close lid and press the button.
These fajitas are so easy, just like my chicken enchiladas. I like to add my Instant Pot Black Beans to the mix too!
Life has been crazy busy lately and I caught myself too many times recently totally overwhelmed at dinner time. I try to stick to our meal plan but things can change so quickly in our schedules that sometimes I simply fail. To no surprise, my Instant Pot always saves the day. I love the fact that I can simply use just a few ingredients and have dinner ready in no time.
These Instant Pot Chicken Fajitas are one of the fastest dishes I've made in my IP. All you need is chicken, sliced into thin strips, 3 bell peppers, one onion and seasoning mixed with oil and lime juice.
HOW TO MAKE CHICKEN FAJITAS IN INSTANT POT?
Cooking Chicken Fajitas in your Instant Pot digital pressure cooker is as easy as adding the ingredients to the insert, closing the lid and pressing a button. It's so easy!! You can save even more time and prep the chicken and veggies the day before. I like the chicken to keep the shape of stripes so I cook it for 10 minutes. If you want a shredded chicken texture, add 3 to 5 minutes. Also, keep in mind that the peppers will be quite broken down if you cook it longer.
If you have more time, you can saute the chicken for 2 to 3 minutes in olive oil in the IP insert, just before pressure cooking. It will add more texture to the meat.
FRESH OF FROZEN CHICKEN?
You can use both to make fajitas in the Instant Pot. That's one of my favorite features of this small appliance: you can use frozen meat! I recommend slicing fresh chicken into strips, as soon as you buy it. Store in ziploc bag, best if you can add the seasoning and oil mixture. Throw it into the IP insert, add veggies and cook for 5 more minutes than if you used the fresh chicken.
WHAT TO SERVE WITH FAJITAS?
The most common side dishes that I make to serve with fajitas is my Instant Pot Rice. Lately, I've been making my 1-Minute Instant Pot Quinoa and storing it in the fridge so I can serve it instead of rice. You can also make my Black Bean Taco Salad. Don't forget the guacamole and pico de gallo!
MORE INSTANT POT CHICKEN RECIPES:
Instant Pot Salsa Verde Chicken
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INSTANT POT CHICKEN FAJITAS
Instant Pot Chicken Fajitas recipe
Ingredients
- 1.5 lbs chicken breast
- 1 red bell pepper
- 1 green bell pepper
- 1 orange bell pepper
- 1 medium sweet onion
- 3 tablespoons olive oil
- ½ teaspoon ground cumin
- ¼ teaspoon chili pepper
- 1.4 teaspoon ground paprika
- ¼ teaspoon salt
- ⅛ teaspoon black pepper
- 2 tablespoons lime juice
Instructions
- In a small bowl, whisk together oil, lime juice, cumin, paprika, salt, pepper and chili pepper.
- Make sure the stainless steel insert is in your Instant Pot. Add chicken strips to insert. Pour oil and seasoning mixture over chicken. Gently toss with metal tongs.
- Wash, core and thinly slice bell pepper and onion. Layer on top of the chicken.
- Add ½ cup of water to insert. Important: please see note.
- Close lid, set the valve to "sealing" position. Press "manual" button, make sure the IP is set to high pressure. Adjust timer to 10 minutes. The Instant Pot will beep after few seconds.
- When it comes to pressure, it will start the timer.
- Once done, the IP will beep. Press "cancel/off" button. Carefully switch the valve to "venting" position and quickly release pressure. When the metal part of valve drops, carefully open the lid away from your face.
- Serve chicken and peppers in flour tortillas. Garnish with chopped cilantro (or parsley) and a dash of crushed red peppers.
Ashlyn says
Instead of the included triviet, we used a metal veggie steamer to better hold the ingredients above the water. Then when it was done, we scooped out the chicken and veggies into a bowl, turned the IP up to saute and let a lot of the water boil off while occassionally adding corn starch to help thicken up the sauce. Once it was thick enough for our liking, we added the chicken and veggies back in, turned it to keep warm and then stirred. Took care of the "soupy" problem while keeping all of the flavor!
Teri F. says
I did the whole chicken in the instant pot using frozen breasts. I poured hot chicken stock over both sides of the chicken so the fajita spice would stick. (Made my own copycat recipe)Sliced chicken when done. I did the peppers and onions on the stove.
When almost done I added the sliced chicken back in to pepper mix along with some of the juice from the IP. Turned out perfect!!
Anna says
Thank you, Teri!
Sam says
I just used it in a frying pan and turned out delicious but definitely bed a high side frying pan.
Anna says
Thank you, Sam!
Larry D says
Added 2 cups of Minute rice after cooking complete.
Good in the wraps or as main dish.
Too much wasted liquid otherwise.
Alicia Vanderwerf says
this is SOOOO good, I made this for my family tonight and while it seemed a little “soupy” after I opened the lid, after I shredded the five (yes five) chicken breasts I put in and added it back to the pot it was perfect! one thing I did add to the recipe was half a jar of salsa! it added something extra to the dish that just made it extra delicious
Alicia Vanderwerf says
also i used completely frozen chicken and cooked it for 11 minutes and instead of using tortillas or rice I turned it into lettuce wraps and it was amazing
Tina says
Hi Alicia!
I was just wondering how were you able to add the seasonings to the frozen chicken? or did you add them after? Thanks in advance!!
Kat says
Great recipe. I’m making this right now. I like to save some of the liquid for rice later.
Anna says
Thank you, Kat!
Eva says
The recipe should state 5 mins not 10 . It was a soup .with 1/2 cup of water. You should add water since the veggies are water!!!! But I trusted the ingredients. Id put the disclaimer in the steps. I missed it because it was hiding under the advertisement after the steps.
Kelsey says
I love it! The only thing I did differently is add garlic powder, onion powder, and oregano. I LOVEEEEE seasonings so Im always extra. Once everything was cooked I took everything out of the pot and left the juices. Put it on saute and I mixed in a cornstarch mixture and it thickened right up. Put the chicken and veggies back in and it was amazing , I put mine on rice.
Thanks for the great recipe, I'll definitely be making it again.
Anna says
Yay! That's wonderful, Kelsey! Thank you for giving this recipe a try and for the feedback!
Jennifer says
I read the note about using a trivet and ending up with soupy fajitas, but I wasn't sure how the sauce was supposed to stay on the meat using the trivet, so we didn't use it. I followed everything exactly and ended up with soup. It wasn't soupy. It was soup. The veggies were completely limp and soft. We used a slotted spoon to scoop out the meat and veggies, but all of the seasoning was in the water left in the pot, so the fajitas ended up tasting very bland. Also, we followed the tip about putting it under the broiler. It dried it out some, but there was still lots of liquid dripping out of the fajita onto my plate, at least a tablespoon. Fortunately, we also heated up some refried beans, so dinner wasn't a total waste.
Anna says
Hi Jennifer! I am sorry you don't like the recipe. You are using a pressure cooker that cooks with steam. The vegetables will be soft as they should be expected. For crisp veggies and roasted chicken, use a skillet or an oven.
Aubrey says
Cook rice at the bottom with the water. Place chicken and veggies on the tray!!
Carly says
So I definitely didn’t read the disclaimer about adding the water and even after adding cornstarch it was still very liquid so I turned it into a soup! I shredded the chicken and added a smidge of chicken stock and some chopped cilantro. It turned into a good fajita chicken soup 😋
Tricia Morris says
My husband has been buying ready-made fajita bowl kits at Costco, so I thought I'd see if I could "beat them" with my IP. I made the recipe last night, and we both loved it! (Similar in general, but oh-so-much better when fresh. I typically follow a recipe to the letter the first time I make it, but I worked with what I had on hand and made the following modifications that may be worth sharing:
1. Used 2 lbs. of thinly sliced, boneless skinless chicken thighs and subbed all seasonings for 2.5 TBS of Penzey's Chicken Taco Seasoning
2. Reduced cooking time to 6 minutes based on my past experience with similar meat/sauce/veggie recipes. I will try 5 minutes next time.
3. Added a bit of corn starch after cooking to make it perfectly "saucy". I served it with rice made in the pot at the same time as a "rice bowl" and topped it with my homemade greek yogurt, salsa, and fresh cilantro.
Thank you for the great recipe! It will be in my rotation!
Anna says
Hi Tricia! Wow! That is wonderful! I love that you made it saucy. Delicious! Thank you so much for trying my recipe and for your review!
Taylor says
I really enjoyed this recipe. As others suggested, I used fajita seasoning in place of the suggested spices and chicken broth instead of water. I also added a few cloves of garlic. After I quick released, I removed the chicken, turned the sauté feature on and added flour (it’s what I had on hand) to thicken the sauce. Then I added the chicken back in. So delicious! It’s definitely a keeper.
Jessica says
I found these to be very bland. I even added four cloves of minced garlic and 1/2 cup of red wine vinegar, not to mention additional salt & pepper as well as crushed red pepper, but still found them to be rather tasteless. Like others, I found them to be way too watered down.
Anna says
Hi Jessica! I would not recommend using 1/2 cup of vinegar in this recipe. Especially the red wine kind. Also, you can always use packaged fajita seasoning or simply increase the amounts in the recipe.
Bruce says
This was awesome!!! To combat the extra liquid, I added 1 tsp of corn starch to the 1/2 c. of water. Got a nice creamy sauce to use. Also, from other recipes, I only set the time for 7 min. then did the quick release. Everything was done perfectly.
Anna@CrunchyCreamySweet says
Hi Bruce! Yay! That's fantastic! I am so glad the fajitas were a hit! Thank you for sharing about thickening the sauce. That is brilliant!
Ashlyn says
Did you add the cornstarch before or after cooking?
Rose Swedenburg says
what do I do if I don't have a trivet for my cooker, can I buy one?
Anna@CrunchyCreamySweet says
Hi Rose! Do you have the Instant Pot? The trivet is one of the accessories included with the IP. You can check the Instant Pot brand website to see if they sell it.
Rick says
My wife liked it immensely. To resolve the consistency issue, I simply dished the fajitas w/a slotted spoon.
Chita says
Absolutely. I bought an accessory pack on Amazon that I use in both my instant pot and air fryer!
Mindy says
Could I make this without adding the water?
Anna@CrunchyCreamySweet says
Hi Mindy! You need the water for the Instant Pot to come to pressure. No water, no steam, no pressure.
i8urchicken says
I never add water when making chicken fajitas in the IP. Enough moisture is expressed from the chicken, onions, and bell pepper that adding water is not necessary. Even without adding any water at all, I still have to drain liquid off after I remove the pot when everything is finished cooking.
Danielle says
Do you need to cut the chicken breasts into strips?
Danielle says
I mean before cooking!
Anna@CrunchyCreamySweet says
Hi Danielle! That's typical for a fajita recipe.
Mark says
Can I use chicken stock instead of water? Figured that might give it more flavor also.
Anna@CrunchyCreamySweet says
Hi Mark! Yep, you can use chicken stock. Let me know how it goes!
Sarah says
I am making these today for our weekly meal prep. I received an IP for Christmas and I am in love with it!
Anna@CrunchyCreamySweet says
Yay! I am so excited for you, Sarah! Let me know how it goes!
Amy says
Perfect. Delicious. Used the trivet for the chicken breast tenderloins and peppers. Used a packet of fajita seasoning. Took out the chicken and peppers while mostly still on the trivet. Used tongs to get the rest out of the pot. Dumped into a bowl, stirred and mashed them a bit. Caramelized onions, sliced avacado, diced tomatoes and cilantro on the side. Heated up flour tortillas and oh my goodness. So good! My pickiest kiddo is on her fourth fajita. Wish I could post the picture I took.
Anna@CrunchyCreamySweet says
Hi Amy! Woohoo! Thank you so much! I am so happy to know the fajitas were a hit! Awesome!
Hanna says
I used a trivet and the water stayed at the bottom. The chicken was good but the veggies were too soggy. Any tips?
Anna@CrunchyCreamySweet says
Hi Hanna! Did the veggies ended up in the water or were soggy on top of the chicken? Maybe use the steaming basket next time?
Adam says
I've made this recipe twice now and my family loves it! I want to leave this comment because I feel like some folks don't understand that this is not going to be like fajitas roasted in the oven or on the stove. It's Instant Pot, of course there will be liquid at the bottom. If you are expecting charred peppers and chicken, this recipe is not for you. I give it 5 stars because it's so easy and it feeds my family. Thank you for sharing it!
Anna@CrunchyCreamySweet says
Hi Adam! THANK YOU!! Well said. I am so glad the fajitas were a hit. Thank you for trying my recipe!
Barbara Brizendine says
I will be making these tonight. After seeing the remarks about the peppers and onions; I think I will finish them off in a skillet to brown them up.
Jennifer Houston says
The taste was okay, could have used a bit more seasoning but the soup was too much. Even using the trivet I felt that my fajitas boiled and steamed. This might be a meal that stays in the cast iron grill pan
Jessie says
Read reviews about how “soupy” this turned out. I decided to try a liquid fajita seasoning from McCormick and not add any water (which was 1/2 a cup total) This still turned out extremely soupy, I’m sure it is from the vegetables breaking down and creating liquid but I had to strain it. It’s tasted ok but the amount of work from fajitas it the cutting, so I would’ve rather spent my time cooking the meat/veggies on the stove to have a good fajita and not a soupy mess.
Anna@CrunchyCreamySweet says
Hi Jessie! That's why I recommend using the trivet to keep the chicken and veggies out of the liquid. I am sorry you didn't like the fajitas.
Brieanna says
When you say set the chicken in veggies on the trivet...do you mean the water outside the inner pot and set the inner pot with ingredients on the trivet? Just got mine and new at this...
Thanks!
Anna@CrunchyCreamySweet says
Hi Brieanna! You should never add water outside the inner pot. The stainless steel pot should be in at all times when cooking. The trivet is placed inside the inner pot to keep the meat and veggies out of the water. You can skip that step and just drain everything before assembling fajitas, but I found it easier to keep them on the trivet.
Angie says
Amazing! So easy and flavorful! I used 2 packets of fajita seasoning, 3lbs of chicken strips, and the pre cut peppers and onions they have at jewel for 5 bucks! Yes there was a ton of liquid in the pot but I put everything on the trivet and pulled it right out! Perfect! Thanks so much for our new go to dinner!!!
Knazz says
This looks good . I will be trying this tonight
I’m going to try it with a packet of taco or fajita seasoning see how it turns out
Anna@CrunchyCreamySweet says
Great! Let me know how it goes!
samir says
This recipe was amazing! I just need to cut the peppers bigger next time or add more. They kind of shrunk down a lot. As for the soup like liquid, I drained it out but retained a little. I then added it back to the instant pot on sauté mode and tossed it in some extra seasoning. I’ll definitely make this again!!!
Anna@CrunchyCreamySweet says
I am so glad you love it! Thank you so much!
Michelle says
This exactly what I am planning on doing. I am trying this tonight. I will leave a review when I am done. I expect it to turn out great!
Cassie Lee says
This is the recipe my sister used to demo the IP. We decided to double the "sauce" and otherwise prepare as directed. We enjoyed it! As a matter of fact I am making it now! 🙂 I would have to say it is great when you remember what and how you are preparing the meal. It is an IP, not a skillet or a slow cooker. Juice drains, veggies pile up nicely. I wasn't cooking in my instant pot for a presentation piece!
Great recipe! Thank you!
Anna@CrunchyCreamySweet says
I am so glad you love it, Cassie! Thank you so much!!
Megan says
My husband and I were pretty disappointed in this recipe, however, my kids liked the chicken. I used less than 1/2 cup of water and it was still overly soupy. I tried broiling after I pulled it out of the IP and drained it but it really didn't help.
Anna@CrunchyCreamySweet says
Hi Megan! It's the peppers and onions that release liquid and can make the final result soupy. If you don't like that, you can saute the vegetables in the IP on "saute" setting, then add chicken and cook as directed in the recipe. I am glad the kiddos loved it!
Brandie says
Mine ended up looking like soup - very watery. I would definitely eliminate the water next time.
Yvonne says
I used the liquid to make rice and it was delicious! Mine were more like burritos but they were a “make again” per my husband.
Anna@CrunchyCreamySweet says
I absolutely love the idea of using the liquid to make rice. Brilliant! Thank you so much for sharing, Yvonne! I am so happy the fajitas were a hit!
Lauren says
Isn't the fresh or frozen part the best?!
Anna@CrunchyCreamySweet says
Right? So easy!
Toni says
This looks really delicious! Would be perfect for weeknights!
Anna@CrunchyCreamySweet says
Saved me lots of times! Thanks, Toni!
Erin says
These sound delicious! Dangerously good...
Jen says
I am such a last minute dinner maker so the fact that I can use frozen chicken for this is a life saver!
Kimberly says
Great idea and these look so cheerful and flavorful!
Demeter says
Getting dinner on the table really couldn't get any easier than this!
Des says
Loving that these can be made in the Instant Pot! Genius!