Instant Pot Salsa Verde Chicken

Back to school. My thirty-eighth year at Oceanside High begins tomorrow, and I have spent this week doing what I always do in the last week of August: organizing my classroom, sharpening pencils that no one will use because it is 2016 and students type everything, and rereading the first chapters of every book on my syllabus so that the words are fresh in my mouth when I stand in front of a new group of juniors and say, "We are going to read books that will change you, and you are going to resist, and then you are going to stop resisting, and that is the education."

Marvin drove me to the school supply store. He sat in the car and read the newspaper while I spent forty-five minutes choosing the right red pens, because not all red pens are created equal — the ink must be bold enough to be seen but not so bold that it looks like the essay is bleeding. This is a professional consideration. Marvin considers it insanity. We compromise: he drives, I shop, we are both correct.

I cooked all weekend in preparation for the week ahead. When school starts, my cooking becomes strategic — batch cooking on Sunday, planned leftovers, the kind of meal planning that Sylvia would have recognized from the Grand Concourse apartment where she fed four people on a presser's salary with the budgetary precision of a woman who had grown up with nothing and intended to waste even less. I made a chicken stew — a big pot, enough for four dinners — with carrots and potatoes and the last of Marvin's tomatoes, and the kitchen smelled like September, which for me will always smell like chicken and anticipation.

Sophie is five months old. Jennifer sent photos from her first trip to the Bronx Zoo. Sophie looked at the elephants with an expression I recognize — the same expression Sylvia had when confronted with something surprising: not awe, exactly, but assessment. She is evaluating the elephants. She will let us know her conclusions when she is ready.

I wrote a blog post about back-to-school cooking — the meals that sustain a working mother through September, the batch cooking and strategic leftovers and the Friday night Shabbat dinner that remains non-negotiable no matter how tired you are. I wrote about the years when David and Rebecca were small and I was teaching full-time and cooking every night and the exhaustion was so deep it felt geological, and yet I would not have traded a single casserole or a single lesson plan because this is what women do — we feed, we teach, we feed again, and somehow the feeding and the teaching become the same thing.

That September exhaustion is still in my body somewhere, and when I think about the meals that carried us through those years, it is always something like this—one pot, minimal fuss, enough for tomorrow too. Salsa verde chicken became my back-to-school anchor because it asks almost nothing of you and gives back more than it should: flavor, warmth, something that smells like effort even when it isn’t. Here is how I make it now, in the Instant Pot Jennifer bought me last Hanukkah, which has quietly become one of my better relationships.

Prep Time: 10 minutes | Cook Time: 35 minutes | Total Time: 45 minutes | Servings: 6

Ingredients

2 lbs boneless, skinless chicken thighs
1 jar (16 oz) salsa verde (tomatillo salsa)
1 cup low-sodium chicken broth
3 medium carrots, peeled and cut into 1-inch pieces
2 medium Yukon Gold potatoes, cut into 1-inch cubes
1 can (14.5 oz) diced tomatoes, drained
1 medium yellow onion, diced
4 cloves garlic, minced
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1 teaspoon dried oregano
1/2 teaspoon smoked paprika
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt, plus more to taste
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
2 tablespoons olive oil
Fresh cilantro or flat-leaf parsley, for serving (optional)

Instructions

Sear the chicken. Set the Instant Pot to “Sauté” and add the olive oil. Season the chicken thighs with salt and pepper. Working in batches, sear the chicken 2–3 minutes per side until golden. Transfer to a plate and set aside.
Build the base. Add the onion to the pot and cook, stirring, for 3 minutes until softened. Add the garlic, cumin, oregano, and smoked paprika and stir for 30 seconds until fragrant.
Deglaze and layer. Pour in the chicken broth and scrape up any browned bits from the bottom of the pot. Add the diced tomatoes, carrots, and potatoes. Nestle the seared chicken thighs on top. Pour the salsa verde evenly over everything.
Pressure cook. Secure the lid and set the valve to “Sealing.” Cook on High Pressure for 18 minutes. When the cycle ends, allow a natural pressure release for 10 minutes, then carefully quick-release any remaining pressure.
Shred and finish. Remove the chicken thighs and use two forks to shred or pull them into large pieces. Return the chicken to the pot and stir to combine with the vegetables and sauce. Taste and adjust salt as needed.
Serve. Ladle into bowls over rice or with crusty bread. Garnish with fresh cilantro or parsley if desired. Refrigerates well for up to 4 days—the flavor deepens overnight.

Nutrition (per serving)

Instant Pot Salsa Verde Chicken — The Batch-Cooking Strategy That Gets a Teacher Through September