I have been wanting to take my Instant Pot Pressure Cooker to a higher level so I took on drumsticks as a challenge. There are two reasons I do not usually cook them: 1) Reg hates eating meat off the bone and 2) I am scared of accidentally poisoning us because they are tricky to cook.
At least with a pressure cooker I can feel more confident about eating them and I LOVE my easy Buffalo sauce.
The Chicken
It amazes me that we can get all this chicken for just $5 at our local market. That was another reason why I wanted to try this approach. Save some cash!
I prefer to carefully rinse chicken in my sink and then dry with a paper towel. Just make sure not to splatter the water around and hey, I always clean EVERYTHING while I work with raw chicken. Safety first!
To try and keep these on the more “skinny” side of things I removed the skin which I admit, was a big pain in the butt.
The Coating
As a result, I wanted a flavoured flour coating. In a large bag I added: 1 cup flour, 1 tsp smoked paprika, 1/2 tsp dry mustard, 1/4 tsp turmeric, 1/4 tsp kosher salt and lots of freshly ground pepper.
I took my time coating each piece of chicken and shook off excess flour and spices.
The Pressure Cooker
I wanted to try browning the chicken first in the Instant Pot so I pre-heated it on the sauté setting.
Once it said it was hot I heated up the oil and then added some of the chicken. Be careful not to crowd the meat!
It got brown but I would have preferred it to get a little darker. Also, because the pot is not very wide, I had to do this part in batches. Remove chicken.
Add 1 cup water, put in steamer and return chicken. I put the lid on. BTW, this is the way the nozzle is supposed to point! Down, LOL.
I put the Instant Pot on the poultry setting and let it pressure cook for 25 minutes.
The Sauce
My formula is very simple for making Buffalo sauce: half ketchup, half Buffalo wing sauce and a tbsp or two of melted butter. I also like to have it a little heated ahead of time.
There were so many drumsticks I had to stack them. Good news is, they were fully cooked!
I put some in a bowl and slathered on the sauce.
I tossed them to coat and then…
Added more sauce, LOL. Yes, I am a saucy woman!
We normally eat Buffalo chicken strips and as I said before, I have never made drumsticks before so this was a bit of a stretch for Reg. He politely ate it with a knife and fork and did not say much.
I wanted to test my crockpot and once again, it impressed me. I think next time I will brown my meat on the stove and then transfer it to the Instant Pot. It will not save on clean up but it will save me frustration when I want to control the heat of the surface.
Feel free to play with the recipe! I am just so excited I got to cook a new kind of meat and that Reg was a gentleman about it. Next time? Back to chicken strips my dear. I promise.
Glad you found a way to be more comfortable. Believe me though, once you cook meat on the bone more and more, the uneasy goes away. Plus, you can always use a thermometer in the actual chicken, should you brave the stove.
Happy Cooking.
I wish Reg would eat it though but he is very unhappy with eating anything off the bone. Strictly a boneless, skinless chicken breast person. Which is a shame because they are so expensive!
Ugh. White meat here is high too. Though we do get good sales. But what I do during off sale time is, buy whole birds and break them down.
Do you guys ever have good sales on whole birds? Our prices range from 60p to a buck per pound.
I end up buying a huge bag (2 kg) of frozen chicken breasts to save money but they are just not very high quality and they loose all their moisture but he seems to be OK with it, especially now that I have a pressure cooker.
I always miss a bone when I remove the chicken breasts and he freaks out so I haven’t been doing that as much.
Sounds like you might be cutting down too deep. There’s a way to remove the top breast and under will be the tenderloin. Once you nail that, I promise, no bones.
So does that mean that Reg doesn’t like ribs or t-bone steak either? Or even a ham with a bone in?
I wondered that too. The meat closest to the bone is killer tender and delish.
That’s right! Nothing that touches bone or has skin. He’s such a picky eater and last night he said he is seriously considering becoming a vegetarian. I told him, good luck with that.
Wanna hear something gross? I have a friend, who had a friend who would snap the bare chicken leg in half and suck the insides, out.
LOL, I had a friend like that too. When he would get chicken wings there would be empty little broken sticks left! It would take him hours too.
Susie…now back to the “wings”. I use drumsticks – they are CHEAP CHEAP CHEAP. I feed a crew who only eat “meat on the bone”, so these work great. RECOMMENDATION: Here is an easier way that brings raves. I wash the chicken pieces and pat dry skin and all. Leaving the skin on, I use a wing “rub” and coat the chicken pressing the rub onto the skin. Layer the drumsticks into the pot evenly. (skip the browning). Pressure cook for 20 minutes. Use quick release method to lower pressure until able to remove lid. Preheat oven to 450 degrees, raising top rack within 6 inches of the top. Line a baking sheet with parchment or foil and spray with cooking spray or brush with oil. Line the drumsticks on the baking sheet, coat with favorite Wing sauce, and place in hot oven. Raise temp to broil for 3 to 5 minutes,until sauce glazes chicken, turning to distribute evenly and broiling until crisp. Serve with more sauce, dip and accompaniments. Total time 30 minutes for lip-smacking goodness!
It’s true, they are cheap IM! Interesting, you skip the browning eh? I like the idea of finishing them off in the oven under the broiler, that’s a great idea to crisp them up. Fantastic, thank you!
You know what? I am going to rinse 2lbs of chicken drumsticks (I worked in a grocery store – rinse your meat and everything else you think might have touched a dirty floor – wash your cans too), toss them in the pot, 2 cups of water, put on the lid and hit the “poultry” setting, closed valve. When the timer goes off, smother them in some wing sauce and call it a day.
I always rinse my meat! 🙂 And that sounds a heck of a lot easier, LOL. Thank you!
How did you get the pot to pressure with no liquid?
Hey Gina! Sorry for the delayed response, I was out of town. To be honest, I thought you could just do so on the chicken setting without a lot of liquid. There were some juices from the chicken mixed in with the oil of course.