These homemade Instant Pot Chicken Enchiladas are so delicious and thanks to the Instant Pot, a snap to make. The chicken and homemade enchilada sauce are prepared in the Instant Pot, then the enchiladas are assembled and baked in the oven. One of the features I love on my Instant Pot is the sauté feature. It’s so convenient to sauté the garlic, onion and jalapeño right in the pot, then add the chicken broth, tomato sauce, spices and chicken to cook. Once the chicken is cooked, remove and shred and you have all the ingredients to assemble the best chicken enchiladas you have ever had. So easy, you will never go back to store bought enchilada sauce again. This enchilada sauce tastes so fresh and flavorful next to canned enchilada sauce, there is really no comparison! I’ve also included a note in the recipe to convert these to slow cooker chicken enchiladas if you prefer.
Start by sautéing the onions, garlic and jalapeño in the Instant Pot. Next, add the chicken broth, tomato sauce, spice, salt and pepper, and a small amount of sugar to brighten the flavor of the tomato sauce along with the chicken breast. Cook chicken breasts and sauce for 10 minutes on high pressure, then Quick Release the pressure.
Carefully remove lid and chicken breasts and set aside to cool. Once the chicken has cooled it will shred easily to assemble enchiladas.
Assemble the enchiladas with shredded chicken, cheese and sauce.
Then cover with remaining enchilada sauce.
Top with shredded cheese and bake covered for 20-30 minutes.
I like my cheese to be super melty and soft, so I don’t bake them uncovered. If you prefer the cheese to toast slightly, remove the foil for the last 5-10 minutes of baking.
Homemade chicken enchiladas, these are seriously so delicious!
- 1 tablespoon of vegetable oil plus additional for toasting tortillas
- 1 cup of finely diced onion
- 4 cloves of garlic minced
- 1 jalapeno seeds removed, minced
- 1 cup of low-sodium chicken broth
- 2 8 oz cans of good quality tomato sauce
- 2 tablespoons of chili powder
- 1 tablespoon of sugar
- 1 teaspoon of cumin
- 1 teaspoon of kosher salt and several turns of freshly ground pepper
- 1 1/2 pounds of boneless skinless chicken breasts about 3 medium sized breasts
- 2 tablespoons of chopped fresh cilantro plus more for garnish
- 12 corn tortillas
- 8 oz of sharp cheddar cheese shredded
- 8 oz of monterey jack cheese shredded
- sour cream for serving
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Set Instant Pot to Saute and add 1 tablespoon of oil.
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Saute onions, garlic and jalapeño until onions start to soften and turn translucent, 2-3 minutes.
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Add chicken broth, tomato sauce, chili powder, sugar, cumin, salt and pepper to Instant Pot and stir to combine.
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Add chicken breasts to Instant Pot, close lid and set pressure release valve to Sealing.
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Set Instant Pot to High Pressure via Manual Mode for 10 minutes.
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Instant Pot will take about 10 minutes to come to pressure, then will countdown from 10 minutes.
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While chicken breasts and sauce are cooking, shred cheese and combine and prepare tortillas.
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To prepare tortillas, preheat oven to 400 degrees.
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Brush tortillas lightly with vegetable oil, spread on a baking sheet and heat in oven for about 5 minutes, just until soft and pliable.
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Once Instant Pot has completed 10 minute countdown, it will beep and switch to Keep Warm function.
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Carefully turn preesure release valve to venting to Quick Release pressure.
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Remove chicken breasts and set aside to cool, then shred.
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Stir 2 tablespoons of chopped fresh cilantro into enchilada sauce.
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Spray a 9x13 baking dish with non stick cookings spray.
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Use 1/4 cup of enchilada sauce from the Instant Pot to spread on bottom of baking dish.
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To assemble enchiladas, evenly divide 1/2 of enchiladas sauce, 1/2 of shredded cheese and all of the shredded chicken among the 12 corn tortillas, roll and place seam side down in baking dish.
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Pour remaining enchilada sauce over rolled enchiladas and top with remaining cheese.
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Cover dish with foil and bake at 400 degrees for 20-30 minutes, or until heated through and hot and bubbly.
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Sprinkle with additional fresh cilantro and serve with sour cream.
To convert recipe to slow cooker, sauté onions, garlic and jalapeño on stove top, then transfer to slow cooker. Add chicken broth, tomato sauce and spices along with chicken breasts to slow cooker and cook on high 3-4 hours. Follow assembly instructions above.
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If you like this recipe, you may also like some of my recent favorites:
Instant Pot Chicken Noodle Soup
Instant Pot Macaroni and Cheese
Slow Cooker Chicken French Dip Sandwiches
5 Easy Dinner Ideas for Busy Weeknights
My five FAVORITE recipes for busy families!
- Quick to make
- Light on your budget
- Easy to clean-up
- and...most important...absolutely DELICIOUS
Do you think this would work for ground beef instead of chicken? How long would I need to cook it in the instant pot? Thanks!
Just found your recipe for Instant Pot Pressure Cooker Chicken Enchiladas. Looks great and I am planning to make it very soon. My question is this: Can I make JUST the enchilada sauce in my electric pressure cooker WITHOUT THE CHICKEN? I would like to make the sauce alone to use for several other recipes instead of using store-bought. If I can, do I still pressure-cook the sauce alone for the full allotted 10 minutes? Thanks for your help – and for all the great recipes that are helping me to use my pressure cooker on a regular basis and not just for my once-a-year St. Paddy’s Day corned beef dinner! I make steel-cut oats for breakfast regularly, pearl tapioca for my hubby, stone-ground grits, hummus, and lots of dried beans! I am finding that boiled eggs and mashed potatoes are a DREAM to make in the pressure cooker and my split pea soup was absolutely wonderful. My pressure cooker, with your help, is becoming my new best friend in the kitchen. ?
Made Chicken Enchiladas today for dinner. They were flat-out amazing. Better than any I’ve had in local Mexican restaurants to be perfectly honest. Even my youngest, who claims to “hate” Mexican dishes was praising this! Thanks!
Made these for dinner last night, so DELICIOUS!!
Thank you so much for this recipe! It was easy to make and absolutely delicious!
This recipe is easy and super delicious! Thank you ?
I am really looking forward to trying all your delicious recipes. Cindy
Hi Melissa,
This recipe was INSANE!! I cannot believe how delicious it was. It is definitely my favorite enchilada recipe that I’ve ever eaten before. What do you recommend serving with the enchiladas? I just had salad last night, but any vegetable side ideas you have would be welcome.
Thank you so much for sharing this! My tummy is super happy! 🙂
Is the chicken all cooked after the initial 10 minutes on manual mode?
Yes, you can use a meat thermometer to confirm chicken has reached 165.
This was great! I wasn’t sure not using enchilada sauce but my husband and I loved this. I used low carb flour tortillas and they came out perfect. Thank you!
This recipe has so far ruined my pressure cooker experience. This was the first recipe that I made and I have not had a better dish since. Chicken Enchiladas are my go-to whenever we dine out so I had to try this and I can tell you this was fantastic – better than any restaurant. Thank you for sharing!
Rarely do any recipes I try ever turn out as planned, but this was fantastic. I managed to pull it off while juggling a toddler with the flu and his big sister while their dad was working late. Thank you for such a wonderful and easy dish that even my 6-year-old devoured. It turned out perfect.
I tried this last night and it was gorgeous! I used frozen chicken and put it on the Chicken mode for 25 minutes – SO YUM! Thank you!
Very, very good. Took a while to make, tbh, and the tortillas are a little tough to roll when they’re slightly toasty (i didn’t want to go nuts with the oil), but my family quite enjoyed the results. This is about the third enchiladas recipe i’ve followed, and i think they all like this one the best.
(We skipped the cilantro, because that stuff is unmitigated trash 😉 )
cilantro dislike is apparently a genetic thing like those taster strips they gave us in middle school. Part of the population tastes wonderful citrus/mint the other part it tastes like a bar of irish spring soap ..lol
I do agree with you on the cilantro ?
We made this last night and it was AWESOME! The chicken breasts I had were huge so I added 5 minutes to the cook time and they were perfect. My husband asked if I could make more lol. Thanks for a great recipe!
I’m so glad! Thank you!
I love how this cooks my chicken and makes a delicious sauce. Saves a bit of time and money. You can’t get away from rolling the filling in the tortillas, but that effort is worth the final result. Thank you for the recipe!
I grew tired of rolling my enchiladas….and now I layer my sauce, tortillas, and filling like I would layer a lasagna. It’s my lazy version of enchiladas. Lol!
Awesome! Love this tip. Thank you!
Or you can tear the tortillas up in bite size pieces for an enchilada casserole.
Sounds great too!
Lollly- how many tortillas do you use? 12 like recipe or more?
This was fantastic. Excellent flavor and I am hard to please! Nicely done!
Can you make these beef instead? I love these chicken enchiladas though, serious comfort food craving satisfied.
Beef sounds great! You would just need to adjust the cooking time depending on what kind of cut you are using.
Probably a crazy question but I would love to make the Chicken Enchiladas and I’m unable to have spicy foods..I don’t want to mess the recipe up for my family ..But could I use half the jalapeno and half the chili powder..Or do you have any suggestions as to a substitute that would still make the recipe work?
THANK YOU!!
Hi Libby!
I think you could skip the jalapeños or just use half and cut the chili powder in half and still have good flavor. I hope that helps!
So good! I think we will use habaneros next time as we like it extra spicy but even right out of the oven without hot sauce or sour cream it was delicious.
Excited to try this! Do you think it would be OK to prepare and refergierate it to be baked later? I wanted to pre-prep a few meals.
Yes! That would be fine!
This is by far the best recipe for Enchilada’s! So happy I don’t have to buy the canned sauce anymore! I follow your recipe exactly, except that my son like dark meat chicken & I used a few slices of the jarred jalapeno’s. I just made it tonight for the second time!! Will have to try some of your other recipes also.
This was SO good for how easy it was. My other enchilada recipe takes way longer and more ingredients, but this was actually tastier and super easy! Only changes I made were doubled seeded jalepeno for spice and used flour tortillas (skip tortilla steps). Thanks!
Can you keep the extra leftover sauce. I made extra!
Can this be made as a freezer meal??
Omg this was SO a good!!! We had these tonight for dinner and they are the best homemade enchiladas EVER! And SO EASY too! Thank you so much for sharing this!
These are THE BEST enchiladas. The sauce is so amazing, I could practically drink it. Better enchiladas than I have gotten in any restaurants too.
Thinking of doubling recipe for a group of family coming for a visit. Would I just double all ingredients and keep same timing?
Love your recipes. Lots of flavor and quite easy. Thank you!
Can you use flour tortillas for this instead of corn? Thanks
Thank you for that recipe, it was a huge success ! We had some chicken leftover for lungh the day after and I skipped the process of preheating the tortillas. It was as good as the night before. Next time, because there will be a next time :-), I think we will skirt some fresh lime juice just before servng, along with the fresh cilantro. Thanks again !!
I want to double this recipe and make 2 batches one for me and one for a firiend. About how much sauce would you say goes into each individual enchilada? I want to double but don’t want to mess up how much for each since it’ll be a big batch.
Thanks!
About how much sauce and chicken do you put in each tortilla? I’m going to double ingredients and make 2 trays and don’t want to run out or put too little in since it’ll be hard to eye half of half.
Thanks!
I’m looking for some recipes for the instant pot that don’t require salt or spices or sugar. I am diabetic and my husband has high blood pressure. Any help would be greatly appreciated.
These were to die for! Seriously such good flavor in the sauce and everything meshed so well together! Thank you for such a good recipe! I’ll definitely be making it again!
I just got my instant pot the other day, and was intimidated by the settings and directions. This was my first recipe to attempt, and it was delicious! This will be going in our regular dinner rotation for sure.
This looks delicious and it’s on the menu tonight for my first Instant Pot dinner! But I completely forgot to defrost my chicken…is there a way to use frozen chicken? I’m new to the Instant Pot thing…
I’m confused – the tortillas in your photos do not look at all like the corn tortillas I buy from the store. Are they flour tortillas? Or did you make them yourself? or what brand are they? Thanks.
Quick, easy and delicious! But how do you keep the tortillas from turning to mush after baking?
I’m a picky eater, and these are fantastic. Full of flavor. I halved the recipe for my 3 quart instant pot and wish I had made more sauce. Overall a keeper!!
I also used flour tortikllas instead of corn and they still turned out great.
My first recipe using the insta pot i got today. My picky eater loved it! I didn’t have jalapenos and it was great without. I’m bookmarking the recipe. Highly recommended! Thanks so much!
What size tortillas do you use?
This recipe is great! Made twice already. Thanks!
Hi! Can this be prepared 3 weeks in advance and freeze for later consumption? My MIL is undergoing surgery so I want to prep meals in advance for her.
If yes, what would be the instructions for freezing and reheating?
Thank you. Looking forward to making this!
This recipe looks amazing! I have a 2 year old and a 5 year old. Would this be too spicy for them, or is it pretty mild. They do like some spice.
These chicken enchiladas were SO GOOD! Thank you for this great recipe. I used a pastry brush to “paint” the corn tortillas with sauce then placed them in the over to warm – that worked for me!
This recipe was amazing! I had mostly defrosted chicken breasts but added a few more minutes to the cook time. Kids loved it! Will replace the usual chicken enchilada recipe in the rotation! Thanks!
They are delicious but too much for 2 people. Has anyone ever put them in 2 pans, one to bake now & one to put in the freezer for another meal?
These were FANTASTIC!! Better than any we’ve had in a restaurant. I did use whole wheat flour tortillas but I’m sure they would be equally delicious with the corn.
I made these enchiladas last night for dinner and we both loved them. I already had flour tortillas on hand that needed to be used, but other than that, I followed the recipe exactly. I will definitely make these again.
Omg! My husband says he’s never had a better enchilada. I doubled the amount of chicken and increased the time to 15 minutes. We used canned sauce but still added the spices. Great taste. The corn tortillas were a little mushy. Any suggestions so they don’t get like that?
Just had to stop by and tell you how fabulous this recipe is!! We loved it! It will definitely be put in my favorite recipe folder. We used flour tortillas because we don’t care for corn and they were absolutely delicious! Thanks for such a great recipe!
My chicken breasts were partially frozen and they weren’t cooked after 10 mins but I shredded the cooked parts and removed any super raw parts. I continued with the recipe and they were frankly awesome. This recipe is now added to my permanent file.
This. Was. Amazing! Super easy and allowed me to enjoy the evening. My boyfriend gave it a resounding 5 stars and a “keep this one for sure.”
Great recipe! Thank you!!
I’d like to try this, but I’m not sure what you mean by “tomato sauce” as I’m in the UK and that’s what we call ketchup. I’m guessing you don’t mean that! Is it some sort of ready made fajita sauce, or passata, or something like that? Would be grateful for a translation!
Hi Angela! I tried to do some research for you, but I couldn’t find a clear answer on a good UK sub. Some info said passata is a good sub, but from what I can see passata is made with uncooked tomatoes. American canned tomato sauce is a cooked tomato puree usually lightly flavored with red peppers and spices.
This has become one of my favorite recipes to make! My kids and husband greatly enjoy them. I normally do not like spice so I cut the chili powdered down a bit but other than that I Love your recipe as is
On the chicken enchalada recipe, can you use canned sauce instead of homemade
Up until this recipe, I’d never attempted making chicken enchiladas. I’ve made this twice now, and am about to make it for a third time. Last time, I doubled the recipe. It freezes well. I also add chopped green onions to the chicken mixture. I reheat the tortillas in a nonstick pan with no oil and hold them in a tortilla warmer until I’m ready to roll them. Thank you for such an easy, winning recipe. This is definitely a keeper!
Hi! making these right now and sauce tastes delicious but I noticed after cooking the chicken it is noticeably thinner. Is that suppose to happen? I assumed it would from chicken juices and steam, but I guess did so more than I expected ?
Hi Jessica! If your chicken had a lot of moisture, it may have made the sauce thinner. I would recommend turning the saute function back on to high with just the sauce in the pan and letting the sauce reduce, stirring occasionally until it has thickened. I hope that helps!
I have made this dish like 20 times and it is great. The only thing I change is after I shred my chicken I put it in a bowl add some cilantro and sauce, it is fast with less mess.