Instant Pot Chicken Tacos (Freezer Meal)
Freezer meals make getting dinner on the table on a weeknight easy. These Instant Pot chicken tacos are a dump-and-go meal that is perfect for Taco Tuesday!
Click here to save this recipe on Pinterest!
Oh, hey, hi. I guess I have been a little absent lately. Sorry about that. August and September tend to be pretty crazy months for us educator types!
And there is no better reason than that beginning of school craziness for freezer meals. Freezer meals are the answer to school night chaos for parents and teachers alike. I have to tell you, I am slightly obsessed.
And of all the freezer meals? Instant Pot freezer meals are my favorite. My Instant Pot vegetable beef soup is a great example of an easy dump and go freezer meal, but if you are looking for a great dinner for Taco Tuesday…these Instant Pot chicken tacos fit the bill.
All you need for these chicken tacos is:
- Chicken thighs (though you could use chicken breasts instead)
- Taco seasoning (I make my own, recipe included)
- Water
- Taco fixings (tortillas or taco shells, cheese, lettuce, tomatoes, sour cream, etc.)
This is the easiest endeavor. All you have to do to is throw the ingredients into a plastic container and freeze it until you are ready to use it. Dump the whole frozen chunk of taco chicken into the Instant Pot, sauté it for a few minutes to get it started, add a little water, cook at high pressure for 20 minutes, quick release, and shred. Voila! Instant Pot chicken tacos straight from the freezer.
My favorite containers for these Instant Pot freezer meals are Rubbermaid Takealongs 50-ounce containers. They are round and the perfect size to fit into the Instant Pot. For dishes with a lot of liquid, like the soup I mentioned earlier, their 15.7 ounce containers are perfect.
I am seriously in love with the concept of Instant Pot freezer meals. Do you guys like freezer meals? Leave a comment below to let me know what kind of freezer meals you prefer (Instant Pot, slow cooker, casseroles, etc.)!
Shared on Meal Plan Monday on Southern Bite!
Click here to save this recipe to your Pinterest Chicken and Instant Pot boards!
Mary
Yield: 8 servings
Instant Pot Chicken Tacos (Freezer Meal)
10 minPrep Time:
30 minCook Time:
40 minTotal Time:
Save Recipe
Ingredients
- 1 1/2 - 2 pounds chicken thighs (I trim mine but this step is not absolutely necessary)
- 1 packet of taco seasoning or 1 recipe homemade taco seasoning (included)
- 1 1/2 cups water
- Taco ingredients: flour or corn tortillas or taco shells, lettuce, tomatoes, cheese, sour cream, avocado, salsa
- 2 tablespoons chili powder
- 2 teaspoons cornstarch
- 1 teaspoon garlic powder
- 1 teaspoon onion powder
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1/4 teaspoon cumin
For the taco seasoning
Instructions
- If using homemade taco seasoning, combine all ingredients in a small bowl.
- Place chicken thighs, taco seasoning, and 3/4 cup water in a 50-ounce round freezer safe container. Stir to combine. Freeze for up to 3 months.
- To prepare: run warm water around the edges of the container. Dump the chicken into the Instant Pot. Turn on the sauté function and cover with a lid (I use my Instant Pot slow cooker lid, but you can cover it with any 10-inch pot lid). Cook for 10 minutes.
- Turn the Instant Pot off. Add the remaining 3/4 cup of water. Place the lid on the Instant Pot and set the vent to sealing. Cook the chicken on high pressure for 20 minutes. When the time is up, turn the Instant Pot off and quick release the pressure.
- Use 2 forks to shred the taco meat. Serve with taco ingredients.
Notes
If you prefer not to freeze this meal, just place all ingredients into the Instant Pot, cook on high pressure for 20 minutes, then quick release the pressure and shred the chicken.
7.8.1.2
565
https://chattavore.com/instant-pot-chicken-tacos-freezer-meal/This post contains Amazon affiliate links. This means that if you click on a link and make a purchase, I will receive a small commission. This does not affect the cost to you. For more information, see my disclosures. Thank you for supporting my blog!
Instant Pot Vegetable Beef Soup (Freezer Meal Version)
This Instant Pot vegetable beef soup is easy fall comfort food! Directions to make it a dump-and-go Instant Pot freezer meal and it’s great for a weeknight!
Click here to save this recipe on Pinterest!
Almost Fall!
You guys, fall is coming! I mean, I’ll be 100% honest – it probably won’t actually feel like full-blown fall here until December because that’s how Tennessee rolls – but in just a few weeks the calendar will say that it is fall.
Fall is officially my favorite. I mean, I love spring, because spring signals that summer is just around the corner. Fall, though, really does something to me. The cool breezes, the leaves changing colors and falling off the trees, the feeling that the only thing to do on a Saturday evening is eat popcorn in front of a horror movie. For many, it’s also the Friday night lights and the roar of the crowd at a college football game.
Fall Food
And then there’s the food. Apples and pears, caramel, tailgating snacks, warm casseroles…and soup.
I eat soup year-round, how about you? I just love soup so much that I really don’t care if it’s 95˚ outside. I get it, though…some people don’t want their dinner to make them sweat even more in the summer (kudos to my AC and ceiling fans!).
Vegetable Beef Soup
Vegetable beef soup will forever and ever make me think of two things: my grandmother and my elementary school cafeteria. It was one of the few foods that I ate at school, and something that I always savored when my grandmother made it.
Her vegetable beef soup was always made with ground beef, not with chunks of beef. It always had potatoes, carrots, corn, peas, green beans, tomatoes…and pasta. Yep, pasta. She would throw in a handful of tiny alphabet pasta shapes, which I always thought made the soup so much fun. Alas, I could not find tiny alphabet pasta shapes, so I skipped the pasta altogether. And, of course, I made it in my Instant Pot.
Instant Pot Freezer Meal!
My Instant Pot vegetable beef soup is also a freezer meal! Lately I have loved have a few dump and go Instant Pot freezer meals in my freezer. You literally unmold the food from the container, sauté it in the Instant Pot to start the thawing process, and pressure cook it as normal.
The assembly process is just as simple. You throw a few ingredients into a round freezable container, lid up, and freeze. No excuse not to make dinner on a weeknight now!
My Instant Pot vegetable beef soup has the following ingredients, and you can even use as many frozen vegetables as you can get your hands on (I used frozen green beans and peas, and would have added frozen corn if I’d had it):
- ground beef
- canned diced tomatoes
- carrots
- green beans
- celery
- onion
- green peas
- potatoes (I add these just before pressure cooking)
- water
- Better Than Bouillon (which I keep in the fridge because I so rarely use up a container of beef broth)
- Bay leaf
This freezer meal soup took minimal effort to put together on a weeknight. Serve it with cornbread or a grilled cheese sandwich for comfort food at its finest!
Shared on The Weekend Potluck on Served Up With Love and Meal Plan Monday on Southern Bite!
Click here to save this recipe on your Instant Pot, Soup, and Freezer Meal Pinterest boards!
Mary
Yield: 6 servings
Instant Pot Vegetable Beef Soup (Freezer Meal Version)This super comforting vegetable beef soup can be made fresh in your Instant Pot, or you can make a dump-and-go freezer meal out of it! Either way it's easy and delicious.
20 minPrep Time:
30 minCook Time:
50 minTotal Time:
Save Recipe
Ingredients
- 1 pound lean ground beef
- 1 tablespoon Better Than Bouillon (if you prefer not to use this, you can use low sodium beef broth)
- 14.5 ounce can diced tomatoes
- 2 carrots, scrubbed and diced
- 1 medium onion, diced
- 1 stalk celery, scrubbed and diced
- 1 cup green beans, cut (I used frozen)
- 1 cup frozen green peas
- 1 cup frozen corn (not pictured because I forgot to buy it!)
- 1 bay leaf
- water
- 1 cup diced potatoes (I used tiny Yukon gold potatoes that I quartered)
Instructions
- Brown the ground beef in the Instant Pot or a pan. If using the Better Than Bouillon, you can add it after the ground beef is cooked and stir to combine well.
- Dump the ground beef into a 64-ounce round freezer safe container (the one that I used was a little smaller than this and it worked but the lid was about to pop off! The store did not have bigger ones the day I bought them).
- Add the canned tomatoes (do not drain), carrots, onion, celery, green beans, peas, corn, and bay leaf. Add 2 cups of water (or beef broth, if not using Better Than Bouillon). Cover with the lid, add a label, and place into the freezer.
- To cook the soup: run warm water around the outside of the bowl to loosen the frozen soup from the container. Place the soup in the Instant Pot.
- Turn the sauté setting on and add a lid (I have an Instant Pot glass slow cooker lid but you could just use a regular pot lid as well). Heat the soup on sauté for 10-15 minutes, stirring occasionally, until most of the liquid has thawed. Add two more cups of water (or beef broth, if not using Better Than Bouillon) and the potatoes. Press the cancel/off button to turn off the sauté function.
- Cover with the Instant Pot lid and set the vent to sealing. Select the manual or pressure button. Make sure the pressure is set to high and set the time to ten minutes. Once the cook time is complete, allow the Instant Pot to depressurize naturally for ten minutes. Manually release any remaining pressure. Add salt and pepper to taste and serve immediately.
- To bypass the freezer step, simply add all of the ingredients to the cooked ground beef in the Instant Pot and follow the directions in step six.
Notes
The cooked soup will also freeze well, but potatoes get a little mushy in the freezer. If this bothers you but you would like to freeze your leftovers, you can leave them out.
7.8.1.2564https://chattavore.com/instant-pot-vegetable-beef-soup-freezer-meal-version/
Mary
Yield: 6 servings
Instant Pot Vegetable Beef Soup (Freezer Meal Version)
This super comforting vegetable beef soup can be made fresh in your Instant Pot, or you can make a dump-and-go freezer meal out of it! Either way it's easy and delicious.
20 minPrep Time:
30 minCook Time:
50 minTotal Time:
Save Recipe
Ingredients
- 1 pound lean ground beef
- 1 tablespoon Better Than Bouillon (if you prefer not to use this, you can use low sodium beef broth)
- 14.5 ounce can diced tomatoes
- 2 carrots, scrubbed and diced
- 1 medium onion, diced
- 1 stalk celery, scrubbed and diced
- 1 cup green beans, cut (I used frozen)
- 1 cup frozen green peas
- 1 cup frozen corn (not pictured because I forgot to buy it!)
- 1 bay leaf
- water
- 1 cup diced potatoes (I used tiny Yukon gold potatoes that I quartered)
Instructions
- Brown the ground beef in the Instant Pot or a pan. If using the Better Than Bouillon, you can add it after the ground beef is cooked and stir to combine well.
- Dump the ground beef into a 64-ounce round freezer safe container (the one that I used was a little smaller than this and it worked but the lid was about to pop off! The store did not have bigger ones the day I bought them).
- Add the canned tomatoes (do not drain), carrots, onion, celery, green beans, peas, corn, and bay leaf. Add 2 cups of water (or beef broth, if not using Better Than Bouillon). Cover with the lid, add a label, and place into the freezer.
- To cook the soup: run warm water around the outside of the bowl to loosen the frozen soup from the container. Place the soup in the Instant Pot.
- Turn the sauté setting on and add a lid (I have an Instant Pot glass slow cooker lid but you could just use a regular pot lid as well). Heat the soup on sauté for 10-15 minutes, stirring occasionally, until most of the liquid has thawed. Add two more cups of water (or beef broth, if not using Better Than Bouillon) and the potatoes. Press the cancel/off button to turn off the sauté function.
- Cover with the Instant Pot lid and set the vent to sealing. Select the manual or pressure button. Make sure the pressure is set to high and set the time to ten minutes. Once the cook time is complete, allow the Instant Pot to depressurize naturally for ten minutes. Manually release any remaining pressure. Add salt and pepper to taste and serve immediately.
- To bypass the freezer step, simply add all of the ingredients to the cooked ground beef in the Instant Pot and follow the directions in step six.
Notes
The cooked soup will also freeze well, but potatoes get a little mushy in the freezer. If this bothers you but you would like to freeze your leftovers, you can leave them out.
7.8.1.2
564
https://chattavore.com/instant-pot-vegetable-beef-soup-freezer-meal-version/
