Today I am going to share with you all one of my favorite go-to recipes that you can serve for an easy weeknight meal or even for a fancy dinner party! Up until now I always cooked this in the slow cooker (which is still an option), but since discovering and becoming obsessed with my Instant Pot I knew I had to tweak my recipe a bit to be able to make it IP friendly! Speaking of friendly… this meal is all sorts of diet friendly while still adding in a ton of flavor. This meets requirements for Paleo, Gluten Free, and Low-Carb + clean eating diets. The prep time is extremely minimal yet the exotic flavors will fool some into thinking you have been cooking in the kitchen all day!

Ever since I met Arshia (my husband), I was introduced to the amazingness of saffron and I have to tell you guys, it seriously takes any meal up a few notches in the fanciness department. This recipe calls for saffron to give it a nice aromatic flavor while also combining in the citrus of oranges to leave a little zing on the tastebuds. Not an Instant Pot expert? Fear not, this recipe is super simple to follow and can also be cooked in the trusty ol’ crockpot! Now, go ahead and put it on the menu for this week and then try and tell me it’s not good!

Ingredients And Supplies Needed

5-7 lb Whole Chicken (patted dry)  

4 Cups Chicken Broth

1/4 Cup Olive Oil

1/4 Cup Water (to rinse saffron bowl and pour into pot) 

2 Oranges (zest one orange, juice from zested orange and quarter the other) 

1 Onion (Quartered, I use white)

1 Tbsp Honey

1/4 Tsp Salt

1/4 Tsp Saffron

1/8 Tsp Pepper

Optional: 2 Tsp of Crushed Red Pepper (for a spicy version)

Instant Pot or Slow Cooker (this is the one I have and it does both!)

Orange Saffron Chicken Instant Pot Recipe

Begin by creating your marinade. Zest one orange and add the zest + olive oil to a bowl and mix together. Now add in the saffron, salt, and pepper (and crushed red pepper if you choose) and mix together well. Now juice the orange that you zested and add this juice + the honey to the bowl and mix again. Set the marinade aside while you now prepare the chicken.

Place your chicken into the Instant Pot and pat it dry with a paper towel. Now you will want to cut open into the skin in several areas to reveal the meat, creating somewhat of a pocket. Pat these areas dry as well and then pour in the marinade into these pocket areas so that the marinade comes into as much contact with the meat inside the skin as possible. Now add your water into the bowl, swirl it around to use up every bit of saffron in the bowl as you can (using a spatula if necessary) and then pour this into the pot.

Finish the prep by quartering 1 orange and 1 onion and adding this to the pot. Now pour in your chicken stock, if your chicken is a little bigger you may want to add more than 4 cups of stock. Your chicken should be mostly covered by liquid at this point.

Now close the steam valve and cook your chicken on high pressure for 20 minutes. Following the high pressure cooking, release the steam and keep the chicken on warm until it is ready to serve! Yep- that’s it!! Easy, I told you! I typically pair the chicken with asparagus and cauliflower rice but you can add in any sides you would typically have with chicken! Mashed potatoes (or mashed cauliflower would be awesome I think)!!

** Alternatively, you can cook this in a slow cooker using the prepping outlined above and then cook on low for 7-8 hours.

If you enjoyed this recipe, please share! Be sure to check out more of my recipes on the blog as well!