Life Changing Pressure Cooker Chicken + Bone Broth

Life hacking at it’s most delicious.

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Season: Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter
Dosha: Kapha, Pitta, Vata

I love a shortcut when there are literally zero strings attached. And this Life Changing Chicken is one of those shortcuts.

This 1-hour pressure cooker chicken hack that I learned from our dear friends at WildChild Farm here in Boulder has become one of those life hacks that has saved me so many times that it deserves to be shared with the world in this space. And the pulled chicken that comes of the process, as well as the glorious golden bone broth, are two ingredients that your weekly meal planning deserve to be upgraded with.

What if I don’t have a pressure cooker?

Then what ARE you doing? Seriously. This is the one that I own. It’s fantastic – highly recommend. You’ll easily spend as much ordering take out in a single night if you live on either coast, or here in Boulder. And having this device in your kitchen will save you thousands of dollars, and hours, of making beautiful meals with beautiful ingredients.

Why pressure cook a chicken?

I’ve outsourced the grocery shopping. The dry cleaning. The graphic design, the scheduling, the house cleaning. But cooking is not something I’m willing to outsource. You’ve heard me say before that – of all the things that might fall by the wayside – cooking meals from scratch, with well-sourced, local ingredients is not one of those things that I will let go of. And so, sometimes I have to hack it.

Cooking chickens in this way is the fastest, most hands off way I know how to do it. The meat that results is tender and juicy, the broth golden. I love that we can use the chicken for so many purposes, and that no parts go to waste. But most of all, I love that this is a nourishing way for me to feed our little family, even when I don’t have much time to think about it ahead. Literally pulling a chicken from the freezer, popping it in the pot, and peeking in the pantry to see what we have to fill in the rest. This hack makes me feel like I actually CAN do all the things. It’s a gold star I give myself.

It’s a gold star you can give yourself too.

 

The beauty that is bone broth on hand

Even though I know the value of having beautiful proteins on hand, I still find that they’re the last thing I’m thinking of making. Which is what makes this hack/recipe so excellent. Not having to think that hard about the cooking time for a chicken is excellent – it will take over an hour to roast a chicken IF you’ve had the forethought to cook it.

But having the forethought to make your own bone broth is a whole different beast.

It’s not that making bone broth is hard; it’s not. The process is much the same as you would use here, only you’d need to source the bones, monitor the stove etc.

Without lifting many fingers, this hack gives you a healthy supply of bone broth at the ready. AND, it’s a beautiful way to bolster your protein intake. No need to drink weird collagen supplements if you’re drinking bone broth on the regular, my friends.

I love to add this broth to soups, stews, congee, and even just sip on it as a warmer or a snack on a cold winter day.

Your future self will thank you for this one.

How to hack it

This is really more of a “hack” than a recipe, but it’s one worth adopting ASAP. And the process is E A S Y. No special ingredients, no complicated processes.

Once your chicken is cooked, you’re going to pull the meat off the bones, return the bones to the pressure cooker and add water to make a luxurious bone broth. To be honest, you could do all of this without any vegetable ingredients, without zhooshing the broth in any way; you’d have a beautiful stock on which to build so many nourishing fall and winter meals. But, because I like to be a bit extra (especially when the foolproof-ness provides some opportunity to play) I add vegetables and spices to the water to make a more dynamic broth.

As for the chicken, the sky is the limit. We make about Life Changing Chicken in this way every week, and we use the meat for tacos, in pasta, shredded on salads. Sometimes we just pop it in a glass jar and store it in the fridge for quick meals. Tonight, we made a Life Changing Chicken Noodle Soup with a few of the veggies from our CSA. This, this and this would also be great options! And THIS is the perfect place to use your bone broth!

I’m not sure this recipe needs more introduction, or that you need more persuasion to give it a try. Off you go!

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