Recently there was a really great sale on the Instant Pot on Amazon, and I personally had a part in talking somewhere around 7 people into buying one. A couple of us who use ours a lot teamed up to deliver an irrefutable list of talking points on why they are so indispensable to the modern home cook. I'm starting to feel like the big wigs at the Instant Pot company owe us some manner of commission or stock option, because let me tell you, we can take the most hesitant potential consumer, wow her with promises of quick meals and homemade stock, and have that girl guzzling the figurative pressure cooker Kool-Aid within several days of getting her pot out of the box. Welcome to the cult, bitches.
So, here's the thing: I'm lazy about a great many things, but almost never is one of those things cooking. Cooking is my greatest passion and joy. It's where I love to put my energy. My laziness comes across in other places like, say, my appearance. Putting on makeup? Styling my hair? That sounds like a lot of effort. But even I need quick meals that require a minimal amount of effort. I just still want them to taste homemade. Recently I had plans to make Mark Bittman's excellent Vegetables au Vin with Coq from his Food Matters Cookbook. I had yet to start paring up the green beans or anything when all of a sudden it was 4:45. I was home alone with 2 kids, one of which says, "mommy, watch this!" every time she even sticks her tongue out, and one of which is 1 year old and is the biggest shit disturber on the planet. I was NOT getting that meal made and I knew it. So now it's approaching 5:00 and I had no idea what I was going to make for dinner. So I took the chicken that I had thawed to be the coq in my coq au vin and just threw it in the pressure cooker with some broth, BBQ rub, and sauce. I got out my second Instant Pot and made pressure cooker macaroni and cheese (which is so amazingly good and easy it's *criminal,* you guys), added a veggie, and voila! Dinner was made. But the key is, it didn't taste like something prepackaged and full of mystery ingredients. It didn't taste like a frozen bag of something that was cooked in the microwave. It tasted like something I made. Because it was! Just because you need your meal to be ready fast doesn't mean it can't be great. And, sometimes I need to remind myself, just because you love to cook, doesn't mean you have to invest a ton of effort to end up with something tasty. We can all be lazy once in a while.
Lazy (Wo)Man's BBQ Pulled Chicken
Use a store bought BBQ rub if you want to be truly lazy. I used my 6 quart Instant Pot and have doubled this recipe with great success. If you want to double, keep the cooking time the same but double everything else. I've used combinations of dark and white meat and just used the same cooking time for all of them and they've come out great. I don't think there's any need to be too finicky with the cooking time because there's plenty of liquid to keep things from drying out. If you're using breasts and they're huge (heh heh, huge breasts...) cut them into 2 or 3 smaller pieces.
1/2 cup chicken broth
1 1/2 lbs. boneless, skinless chicken breasts, thighs, or tenderloins
1 Tbs. BBQ dry rub--my recipe follows, if you're not feeling *too* lazy
1/4 to 1/2 cup BBQ sauce
PAY ATTENTION CLASS, this is difficult. Pour the broth into the pressure cooker. Add the chicken and sprinkle on the BBQ rub. Pour in the BBQ sauce. Put the lid on and set to manual for 10 minutes, then allow a natural pressure release for 10 minutes. Remove the chicken and turn the pot to sauté to reduce the sauce a bit. Shred the chicken while the sauce is simmering and add it back once the sauce is at the consistency you like. Listen to your children complain that they don't like BBQ sauce. Try not to be too mean when you tell them you guess they're just going to be hungry, then eat their portion with gusto because it's so damn good. It's like I've got a flippin' crystal ball, right?
All Purpose BBQ Dry Rub
This recipe makes way more than you need for just the BBQ chicken, but it keeps almost forever and is good on any kind of meat, so I like to make a lot and just keep it in an airtight container. This is a great time to use good quality spices, when you're *really* going to taste them. I love Penzey's spices. Their Mexican oregano, smoked paprika, and chili powder are all dynamite. And if you happen to have smoked salt, YES.
2 Tbs. smoked paprika
2 Tbs. sweet paprika
2 Tbs. chili powder
2 Tbs. cumin
3 Tbs. dark brown sugar
2 Tbs. salt
1 Tbs. oregano
1 Tbs. freshly ground black pepper
1 tsp. cayenne pepper
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