my easy and quick instant-pot version of the best Greek comfort food dish "chicken pastitsada " with a tangy luscious tomato sauce . one of my favorite dishes for my weekly lunch meal-prep .
Equipment
pressure cooker or instant pot
Ingredients
For chicken marinade:
1kgchicken breastboneless but skin-on
300mlcooking dry wine
Spices: ½ tsp sweet pepper, ½ tsp 7 spices, ½ tsp grounded cloves, 1 tsp cinnamon powder.
2leafdry bay
For the tomato sauce:
1tbspgrapeseed oilor any neutral vegetable oil
1bigonion finely diced
2glovesgarlic minced
1big ripe tomato finely chopped
2tbsptomato paste
1tspchili pasteoptional
500mlchicken broth
Salt and pepper to taste
500gspaghetti cooked according to package
Instructions
Step 1: For the chicken marinade: mix all the marinade ingredients and marinate the chicken for 2 hours minimum up to overnight.
Step 2: remove the chicken from marinade and set the marinade aside, don’t throw. Set the pressure cooker to sauté program and heat oil. add the chicken and brown on all sides. You don’t have to fully cook the chicken; it will cook later on with the sauce. Set the browned chicken aside.
Step 3: in the same pot, add the onion and scrape the bottom of the pot to collect all the chicken flavors, cook until onion start to turn transparent add the garlic and mix for 30 sec until you can smell the garlic. Add fresh tomato, tomato paste and the chili paste if u added any. Cook it all through for 3 minutes until tomato start to release their juices. Add the chicken broth and chicken marinade we kept aside and mix everything together.
Step 4: add back the chicken pieces, some salt and pepper and bring the mixture to boil. Close the pot lid; set the vent position to sealing; cancel the sauté program; set the cooker on high pressure for 15 minutes; let the recipe cook; after the 15 minutes have passed let the cooker naturally release the pressure for 10 minutes.
Step 5: quick release the remaining pressure and open the lid, taste for seasoning and adjust to taste.
Cook the pasta according to package and serve the chicken with the sauce on top of the pasta enjoy!
Notes
You can use any part of the chicken you like I tried this recipe with chicken thighs and chicken breast and both where delicious and tender because of the pressure cooking. But always use the pieces skin-on for the best result and you can also use pieces with bones more and more nutritious but for meal-prep I usually use boneless pieces easier to cut and serve in work lunch.
If you use pieces with bones you can replace the chicken broth with normal water. For the wine, I always use whatever wine a have left form an open bottle, you can use any of your favorite wine and for an alcohol-free version just replace the wine with grape vinegar, to maintain that tanginess in the sauce and marinate the chicken.
For packing this meal for the week: pack the pasta separate from the chicken and tomato sauce, and mix before reheating. This recipe will stay fresh in the fridge in glass air tight containers up to 5 days.