Instant Pot Honey Garlic Chicken Meal Prep Bowls

These Instant Pot Honey Garlic Chicken Meal Prep Bowls are made with common ingredients and utilize the “pot-in-pot” cooking method! An entire meal prep recipe made in the Instant Pot: rice, chicken, veggies, and sauce!

Watch how to make Honey Garlic Chicken Meal Prep bowls (1 min 54 sec):

There are tons of reasons to do this, and it’s certainly not only for cooking rice at the same time as your main dish. For example, another reason would be to cook a dish that you want to keep separate from the 1 cup of water required for pressure cooking (cheesecake, lasagna, etc.).

For a more complete article on pot-in-pot cooking and all the ways it can be done, please check out this super helpful article: The Secrets to Instant Pot Pot in Pot Cooking from Paint the Kitchen Red.

The best part? You don’t have to cook the rice on the stove or in a rice cooker while your Instant Pot is busy with the chicken. They can both go at the same time. This means quicker, and easier cleanup for you. Woohoo!

Related: Love Instant Pot cooking? Browse all of our Instant Pot recipes now!

Equipment I’m using (an example for you):

For this recipe, I’m using a tall stainless steel trivet (affiliate link!), and this 7 inch silicone loaf pan (affiliate link!). If you want to see more of the items I cook with daily, check out my Amazon storefront for all of my recommendations.

• Tall trivet (affiliate link): You could use the trivet that came with the IP, but I prefer to have the pot in the pot raised up higher to it’s easier to remove later.
• Silicone pan (affiliate link): You can use any oven safe pan that fits into your Instant Pot for your pot-in-pot cooking. But I use this silicone loaf pan. Here’s why: I had a really hard time finding the right pot-in-pot pan to work for me and my Instant Pot. I tried:
  • A Pyrex dish: I know it’s safe, but it freaked me out (glass shards = scary) and I’m positive it changed the cooking time of the food in the top (glass isn’t a good heat conductor).
  • My metal bowls: Not the right shape and leave zero inches between the bowl and side of the pot, which makes it difficult to pick the bowl up later. I just don’t have time to fashion a sling, sorry.
  • I use this food safe silicone loaf pan (which can totally be used for baking, too). The pan fits up to 1 1/2 cups uncooked rice (after cooking).
• Instant Pot (affiliate link): Of course there are lots of models, but I own the Instant Pot Duo Plus 6 quart size. Please be aware that the items recommended here have only been tested with this model and they may not fit into smaller Instant Pot varieties.

Show me how pot-in-pot works:

This method is quite literally, putting another put into your Instant pot. And now is the time. Following the recipe below, first you’re going to add your chicken thighs to the pot, followed by the prepared honey garlic sauce.

After that, carefully nestle in your trivet so all the legs are touching the bottom of the pot, and not poking the chicken. Place the pot-in-pot bowl on the trivet, then add your white rice and broth or water.

This recipe calls for 1 1/2 cups of dry white rice, but anywhere from 1 cup to 1 1/2 cups of uncooked white rice will work with this method, depending on how much cooked rice you want to end up with.

Be sure to use a 1:1 ratio of rice to liquid in the Instant Pot, no matter how much you use. Do not use brown rice, as the cooking time is significantly longer than white rice.

Continuing to follow the recipe, set the Instant Pot to High Pressure for 5 minutes. Let it cook and do it’s thang, then let it do a natural pressure release for 10 minutes.

This means you should simply leave the pot alone after the cooking timer goes off. The timer on the pot will begin to count UP, showing the amount of time that has elapsed since the pot completed pressure cooking.

Of course, there will still be a large amount of pressure built up in the pot, so the food will continue to cook while the pressure slowly decreases.

Release pressure after 10 minutes. Once it’s safe to remove the lid, do so. Remove the rice and trivet as soon as you can in a safe manner. Immediately turn Instant Pot off, then hit the Sauté button.

Toss in your snow peas to cook them for a quick minute. Optionally, add a cornstarch slurry to help thicken the sauce. And it’s done!

Next time you’re trying out a random Instant Pot chicken recipe, try sticking some rice in the top to cook. And look! You’ve just cooked a complete dinner in your Instant Pot 🙂

How to meal prep the Honey Garlic Chicken:

Use 4 airtight, glass meal prep containers and portion out your rice, then your honey garlic chicken into the containers. Store in the refrigerator and enjoy within 4 days for lunch or dinner! Reheat in the microwave, covered, for 90 seconds to 2 minutes, checking at 90 seconds.

For this recipe, I used these 2 Compartment Glass Meal Prep Containers (affiliate link!) from Prep Naturals. They’re also available in 1- and 3- compartment varieties! See all of my meal prep container recommendations in my Amazon storefront.

Related: Want more meal prep in your Instant Pot? Try my IP Shredded Chicken recipe.

How to store prepared Honey Garlic Chicken Meal Prep Bowls:

Store meal prep meals in airtight containers in the fridge and enjoy within 4 days. I used my 2 Compartment Glass Meal Prep Containers (affiliate link!) to store this recipe.

How to freeze prepared Honey Garlic Chicken Meal Prep Bowls:

Store meal prep meals in airtight containers (or frozen into single serve portion cubes) in the freezer for up to 3 months for best quality.

How to reheat prepared Honey Garlic Chicken Meal Prep Bowls:

Reheat in the microwave, covered, for 90 seconds to 2 minutes, checking at 90 seconds. This type of meal would also reheat really well in a HotLogic portable mini oven – read my review here.