With the astounding inflation that we are experiencing, one pot meals offer both convenience and value. When I was at the market yesterday, I spied a two-for-one sale on chicken breasts. Perfect! I thought. I had just watched a video where the presenter made a complete pasta and chicken dish in their Instant Pot. Simple, filling, and delicious. I already had most of the ingredients, and I could fudge the ones I was lacking. Dinner was about to be served!

When I use the term “Instant Pot” I’m actually referring to any electric pressure cooker. They all work very similarly.

Here are the ingredients as well as the name of the YouTube channel that originally published the recipe:

The ingredient list may look long, but the recipe is really very simple. Putting the dinner together took me about 10 minutes.

Here we are, ready to go. Cooking is easier if you gather all of your ingredients beforehand. I had everything needed except the chicken, which I picked up on a 2 for 1 sale.

The only real work for this dinner was cutting up the chicken and chopping up an onion. Let’s face it, that isn’t too much to do.

I had a two-pound box of macaroni, and the recipe called for 1 pound. I could have eyeballed it, but I have a kitchen scale, which is useful for so many things. Kitchen scales are very inexpensive. I think this one was around $10 (I have had it for a long time and don’t remember the exact cost).

Place the Instant Pot (or any electric pressure cooker) on sauté and soften the onion for a few minutes in some olive oil. You can use any cooking oil that you have on hand, but olive oil is nice.

Add the spices and cook them for about 30 seconds. This will bring out their flavor, but don’t let them burn.

Add the garlic. Fresh garlic is nice, but I’m using “jarlic” (garlic in a jar). In a pinch, you could use granulated garlic. Cook this mixture for around a minute. If using granulated garlic, just mix it in and move on to the next step.

Add the chicken and sauté it for a few minutes. Naturally, stir it around.

Add the spaghetti sauce and the water/broth and mix. In this situation, my sauce was a smaller bottle than what the recipe called for, so I added some tomato sauce to bring the total up to 40 oz. I added the 2 cups of hot water with the amount of chicken bouillon enough for one cup. I wanted the richness of a broth but I didn’t want the pasta to be too salty. Remember, you can always add salt when the dish is complete. I also added about one teaspoon of oregano to the tomato sauce to simulate a pasta sauce. I think I could have used the spaghetti sauce that I had and just added water to make up the 40 ounces too. The dish would have had a little less tomato flavor, but it would still be delicious. Remember, this is family cooking. It just has to taste good.

Add the dry pasta. Don’t mix it in, instead gently submerge it in the sauce. I used macaroni, but any small pasta would do. If you mix the pasta in some of the pasta could burn to the bottom of the pot.

The original recipe advised cooking under pressure for 5 minutes and then releasing the pressure. I like less al dente pasta, so I cooked it for 6 minutes. However, I felt it was still too hard. No problem, I just turned on the sauté function for a few minutes (with the lid off) until the pasta was the perfect texture. Many times it is possible to save a recipe with just a little problem-solving. After the pasta was completely cooked, I canceled the sauté function. Different shapes of pasta cook at different times, so you may need to adjust your pressure cook time a minute or two one way or the other once you have the recipe down. Additionally, you can always go with 5 minutes and use sauté to complete the process if necessary. Remember, you can always add time, but you can’t subtract it.

Here I’m using my scale again, this time to measure out 8 ounces of Mozzarella Cheese. I wouldn’t add more than this. If you don’t have 8 ounces, a few ounces less would also work.

I added both the Mozzarella and Parmesan cheeses to the pot and covered it for a few minutes to let the residual heat melt them. Once melted, stir the mixture. It will thicken as you stir it.

Here you can see the finished pasta. Very rich and creamy.

Earlier in the day, I threw together the ingredients for my flax seed bread in a bread maker. Measuring the ingredients took around 5 minutes. I then pressed a button and walked away. Three and a half hours later, I had a fresh loaf of homemade bread. It was still warm by dinner time.

Here is the cheesy chicken pasta, plated with some of my homemade bread. It was delicious, but the recipe made an absolutely massive amount of food. My wife and I both had it for dinner, but we barely put a dent in it. We will eat some of the leftovers over the next two days, but we can only eat so much. I hate to waste food, and I’m unsure how well this dish would freeze. Next time I will half the recipe.

Happy eating!

Mike