Instant Pot Chicken Marsala
Instant Pot Chicken Marsala with seared chicken, mushrooms, wine, and bacon is a richly flavored and super easy weeknight meal that’s elegant enough for a party.
❤️ Why You’ll Love This Recipe: This is a super flavorful chicken dish that’s much quicker than the stovetop method. It has a short ingredient list and is mostly hands-off, too!
This pressure cooker chicken marsala recipe gets a major flavor boost from bacon. It’s always a crowd-pleaser and you can even make it ahead of time for dinner or a party.
This is one of the best Instant Pot chicken recipes, complete with smoky bacon in a savory chicken broth. Serve it over mashed potatoes, rice, or with a side of fluffy bread.
The original inspiration for this dish came from my friend Megan, from the blog Megan’s Cookin’. I adapted it to make things even faster and more hands-off using an Instant Pot / pressure cooker.
INGREDIENTS YOU NEED
Here’s what you need to make the best Instant Pot chicken marsala:
- Peppered bacon: You can use your favorite kind of bacon if you’re not a fan of pepper.
- Chicken thighs: Use boneless, skinless thighs and remove any excess fat before you start cooking.
- Sweet Marsala wine: You can find this at most grocery stores that sell alcohol or at a liquor store. In a pinch, another sweet wine will work.
- Vegetable oil and butter: To brown the chicken and enrich the dish with extra flavor.
- Chicken broth: you can use low-sodium store-bought broth or make your own.
- Mushrooms: Feel free to use your favorite kind of mushrooms, or a mixture of a few varieties
- Cornstarch: This will thicken up the stew once you’re done pressure cooking.
How to Make Chicken Marsala in an Instant Pot
This easy recipe will work in any brand of electric pressure cooker, including the Instant Pot, Ninja Foodi, or Power Pressure Cooker XL.
The first step in making this easy chicken marsala is to brown the bacon, then the chicken thighs. When you render the bacon fat and it crisps up in the pressure cooker, you’ll have wonderfully flavorful fat to cook your chicken in. Don’t pour it out!
Brown the chicken thighs until they’re nicely seared on each side. Next, add your marsala to deglaze the pot and scrape up any browned bits stuck to the bottom. These add extra flavor too.
Now you can add the chicken and broth back to the pot and start pressure cooking. While the chicken cooks, you’ll quickly sauté your mushrooms on the stove.
Finally, when the pressure cooking time is done, release the pressure and use a slurry of cornstarch and water to thicken the sauce. Combine everything together and serve!
Important Tips for Making Instant Pot Chicken Marsala
Browning is an important step in this recipe. It adds a little extra time, but you’ll be glad you did it. When you brown meat, it develops a complex and rich flavor that’s impossible to replicate.
You’ll want to cook the mushrooms on the stove because they’re so full of water. When you pressure cook, no moisture gets to escape, so the mushrooms would just swell up and stay rubbery, rather than golden brown and crisp.
Frequently Asked Questions about Chicken Marsala
You can use either a dry marsala or a sweet marsala, depending on your preference. We prefer the sweet marsala since we’re cutting it with chicken broth as well, which keeps it the sauce from being too sweet.
We love to serve this hearty Instant Pot chicken dinner with a starch underneath. You could use mashed potatoes, pasta, rice or any grain you like.
Sure, if you’d like to replace the thighs with boneless, skinless chicken breasts, that will work. Chicken breasts have a shorter cook time at pressure—I’d start with a 7 minute cook time and a 5 minute natural release. To check for doneness, I recommend using an instant-read thermometer. Make sure that chicken thigh or breast is at least 165°F in the thickest after cooking.
Yes, store any leftover chicken and sauce in an airtight container in the fridge for up to three days. Reheat leftovers on the stove or in the microwave to serve.
MORE Instant Pot Chicken Thigh Recipes
Try these other family-friendly weeknight recipes next:
- Instant Pot Chicken Thighs in Peanut-Lime Sauce is a savory Asian-inspired recipe with brightness from fresh citrus.
- Korean Chicken Thighs have a sweet and slightly spice sauce and scallions on top.
- Instant Pot Braised Paprika Chicken starts with frozen chicken thighs and has a creamy tomato sauce on top.
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Instant Pot Chicken Marsala
Instant Pot Chicken Marsala with bacon and mushrooms is a savory and saucy weeknight dinner the entire family loves.
Ingredients
- 4 slices peppered bacon, diced
- 3 pounds boneless, skinless chicken thighs, well trimmed
- Salt and pepper
- 1/2 cup sweet Marsala wine
- 1 cup chicken broth
- 1 tablespoon vegetable oil
- 3 tablespoon butter, divided
- Chopped parsley or chives for garnish
- 8 ounces mushrooms, sliced
- 2 tablespoon cornstarch
- 3 tablespoon cold water
- 2 tablespoons chopped parsley
Instructions
- Select Sauté and add diced bacon to pressure cooker pot. Brown the bacon until crisp, stirring frequently. Remove bacon to a plate, leaving the bacon fat in the pot. Set aside
- Season the chicken with salt and pepper. Add chicken to the pot and brown on both sides in the bacon fat. Cook the chicken in batches. Remove the chicken to a platter, leaving the fat in the pan.
- Add the marsala to deglaze the pot and let it almost completely evaporate to concentrate the flavor and remove most of the liquid.
- Add the chicken broth and browned chicken to the pot, along with any juices that have collected on the platter. Be sure to scrape the bottom of the pan to ensure no browned bits remain. Lock the lid in place.
- Select High Pressure and 10 minutes cook time. (It will take about 10 minutes to reach high pressure.)
- While the chicken is cooking, heat a large sauté pan over medium-high heat until hot. Add oil and 1 tablespoon butter. When butter is melted, add the mushrooms and cook until golden. Season with salt and pepper.
- When the cook time ends, use a quick pressure release. Carefully remove the lid and remove the chicken from the cooking pot to a serving dish.
- Combine the cornstarch and water, whisking until smooth. Add the cornstarch mixture to the sauce in the pot, stirring constantly. Select Simmer and bring to a boil, stirring constantly. Stir in remaining two tablespoons butter. Add mushrooms and stir to coat with sauce.
- Taste, and adjust seasoning if desired. Combine sauce with chicken in the serving bowl. Serve topped with crumbled bacon and chopped parsley.
Nutrition Information:
Yield: 6 Serving Size: 1Amount Per Serving: Calories: 504Total Fat: 28gSaturated Fat: 10gTrans Fat: 0gUnsaturated Fat: 17gCholesterol: 298mgSodium: 871mgCarbohydrates: 6gFiber: 1gSugar: 1gProtein: 58g
Nutrition information is calculated by Nutritionix and may not always be accurate.
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I used Marsala cooking wine. The sauce wasn’t as sweet as I had expected. Should I have used Marsala dessert wine? It was still good.
Hi Rich – Glad you enjoyed it. Supermarket cooking wine is not a real Marsala wine and often contains corn syrup (https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/23/dining/marsala-wine.html), you’ll want to use a dry Marsala wine for this recipe. Although if you do want it sweeter, you could try a sweet Marsala..
Can you use chicken breasts instead of thighs? What adjustments need to be done time-wise?
That’s a great question! Boneless, skinless chicken breasts will work—I’d start with a 7 minute cook time and a 5 minute natural release.
Hi Gem – no need to adjust the time. In the pressure cooker, as long as the meat isn’t thicker or thinner, the cook time remains the same. Enjoy!
If I decrease the recipe to 2 pounds of chicken thighs, how woul I adjust the cooking time? TIA. You have such great recipes! Happy Mother’s Day.
I really LOVED this. I could not find peppered bacon so I put pepper on both sides of the bacon before I put in the small food processor to chop into small pieces. Also I waited until Sunday to buy the stuff to make it, so I could not find Marsala wine. (Wine store was closed.)
So I used Red Cooking wine from Walmart. But this was still amazing served over a bed of tri-color quinoa. I am going to share this recipe on FB so others will have the link to Pressure Cooking Today website. All of the recipes I have gotten from there have been really excellent. This is really good eating.
Thanks for sharing your tweaks Michael! Glad it was a hit.
I was wondering what to do with my chicken thighs today, so I thought I’d come here and check. I was able to score four and only four slices of peppered bacon from the butcher counter at my local grocery store. I was in the wine aisle and found both sweet and dry Marsala wine, and once again your excellent directions came to the rescue. Followed the recipe exactly except that I did add one clove of garlic for a minute before deglazing because, well, garlic. This was so delicious that even my husband, who doesn’t like much, told me how good it was, and is excited for leftovers. I think next time I might use regular bacon instead of peppered, but there will be a next time! No wonder I tell all my friends that I’ve never had a bad recipe from your site!
What a fun story Pam – it was meant to be. Glad it was a hit. So nice to hear you love my recipes. Thanks!
I made this last night. Really delicious! My bottle of Marsala just said Marsala, so I don’t know if it was sweet or dry, but the meal was fantastic. Thank you!!
How many people does this dish serve? Am having a dinner party for 10.
Hi Gayle – this serves 6, so I’d probably double it for a dinner party of 10.
Looks Delish! The only change I would make is to sauté the mushrooms in the pressure cooks first…to save me from having to wash another dish! ?
Thanks! That is definitely a good option. Just don’t crowd the mushrooms.
If using frozen chicken how long should I cook it in the pressure cooker for? Thanks!
Hi Randa – as long as the chicken thighs are not frozen in one big clump, you won’t need to add any extra time. Skip the browning, because frozen chicken doesn’t brown. Enjoy!
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So i finally bought a pressure cooker. It’s a stove top and I have a gas stove. I’m having quite a time trying to figure out what the heat should be to cook with. I made spanish rice last night and the bottom burned. Any suggestions? Should I send it back and spend the money to get an electric pressure cooker? lol
Hi Christine – there is a much bigger learning curve when using a stove top pressure cooker because every stove is different. From FB it sounds like you’ve decided to exchange it for the Instant Pot 🙂
You’ve got to forgive me, I’m a husband trying to surprise his wife. What do you mean by “deglaze” the pot? Do you mean clean it the remaining bacon fat? Or are you adding the wine to the bacon fat, and letting it heat until evaporated?
Sorry, it’s probably a rookie question.
Hi Pete – what a nice surprise. It just means add the wine and then use a spoon to scrape up any bits that stuck to the bottom of the pot while you were browning. They are very flavorful and add a lot of flavor to the sauce. Enjoy!
Could you cook the noodles in with the chicken at the same time?
Hi Von – You would have to change the recipe significantly and add enough water to account for what the noodles would absorb. So a cross between this recipe https://www.pressurecookingtoday.com/2014/07/macaroni-in-a-lemon-cream-sauce/ and the chicken marsala recipe might work if you diced the chicken so the cook time was only 5 minutes. Only you’d need even more water or less noodles. Let me know if you try it. 🙂
One of my favorite dishes…. can’t wait to try it in my new pressure cooker!!!
How fun! Enjoy!
Make this delicious recipe with a few changes. Added sautéed chopped onion & garlic after browning chicken & increased wine to one cup (3/4 C to deglaze & 1/4 C when adding last 2 T butter ). Great recipe, easy & husband over ate & requested repete meals. Thanks for super recipe, plan to try orange beef next.
Thanks Donna – so glad you and your husband enjoyed the recipe. I debated whether or not to add onions. Thanks for sharing your additions. Enjoy the orange beef 🙂
Looks amazing! I will give this a try for certain!!
This looks delicious. I know this is a famous dish but I don’t think I’ve ever had it.
Chicken Marsala is such a great dish — I really need to explore pressure cooking!
This looks so delicious! I have chicken and mushrooms…I will pick up the Marsala this weekend and try this. I am loving my pressure cooker!
We love Chicken Marsala here. I’ve never made it with bacon-that sounds delicious. Can’t wait to try this one.
Thank you Barbara and Megan. 🙂