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This Instant Pot Coq au Vin recipe concentrates flavors with less effort and time than the traditional method! You’ll love this take on the beloved chicken recipe.
You may also enjoy this Sunday Pot Roast or Crockpot Red Wine Braised Short Ribs.
Why you’ll love it
This Coq au Vin recipe, while staying fairly true to the classic, really benefits from being cooked in the Instant Pot. This electric pressure cooker Coq au Vin is fast enough to make on a weeknight, but it’s also great for company. The leftovers are fantastic, so it’s something that you can enjoy more than once! It also freezes well.
What is Coq au Vin?
- Coq au Vin (chicken in red wine) is a classic French dish of braised chicken that’s then stewed. It’s normally a labor of love, but the Instant Pot makes this process quicker. The flavors get really concentrated without having to stew it for hours. Traditionally, bone-in, skin-on chicken is used.
What you’ll need
- Bacon – I love making it with thick cut, but regular bacon is good too
- Chicken – boneless, skinless chicken thighs are the way to go for this one
- Garlic and pearl onions – our tasty aromatics. Pearl onions taste much sweeter and milder than other varieties.
- Carrots and mushrooms – classic veggie component of this stew
- Red wine and chicken broth – the base of the sauce. Cabernet sauvignon, Zinfandel, and Burgundy wines (e.g. Pinot Noir) work well in Coq au Vin.
- Tomato paste – it adds rich, savory tomato flavor
- Thyme – this fragrant, woodsy herb is amazing with poultry
- Cornstarch – to thicken the sauce
Important notes
- When I first tested this recipe, I did use bone-in skin-on chicken thighs, and that’s fine, but I like it better with boneless, skinless thighs. Why? It’s less effort, the sauce is less fatty, and I find the skin isn’t exactly edible anyway after pressure cooking it. If you go that route, brown the chicken in the Instant Pot for 7-5 minutes with the skin-side down and then drain the fat.
- I do not recommend using chicken breasts in this recipe. They will end up a lot drier. Chicken thighs are more flavorful and more forgiving when it comes to recipes like this one.
Tools for this recipe
Check out Natasha’s favorite kitchen essentials, gadgets, and cookware!
- I’ve got an older model, but you can pick up the newest Instant Pot if you don’t already own one.
- Mincing the garlic is a cinch with this garlic press.
- A pair of kitchen shears makes cutting up the bacon effortless.
- Save your leftover bacon grease in this bacon bin.
How to make Instant Pot Coq au Vin
This is an overview with step-by-step photos. Full ingredients & instructions are in the recipe card below.
Prep the ingredients, and sauté the bacon in your Instant Pot until crispy. Discard most of the fat. Add in the garlic, red wine, chicken broth, and tomato paste. Stir, and scrape up the browned bits to avoid a burn warning.
Add in the chicken, onions, carrots, mushrooms, and thyme. Give it a stir, then pressure cook for 10 minutes. After the countdown and release, add in a cornstarch slurry to give the sauce more body. Season with salt & pepper.
What to serve with Coq au Vin
- It’s fabulous served over Mashed Potatoes or a Simple Baked Potato. Pasta (like egg noodles) or rice are also great starchy options to go with the sauce, or simply go with a slice of crusty bread.
- Steamed vegetables, Simple Sautéed Leeks, or learn How to Cook Asparagus for easy veggie side dish pairings.
- Craving a salad? Dress it up with my Creamy Balsamic Dressing (Easy, No Blender!).
Leftovers and storage
- Keep leftover Coq au Vin in the fridge in a covered container for 3-4 days.
- When reheating this dish, you may want to skim some of the fat off the top. That’s a totally normal thing to do! Warm it up over a low heat in a saucepan for best results.
- You can definitely freeze leftovers of this one.
If you made my Instant Pot Coq au Vin recipe, please leave a star rating and review below! Let me know if the post didn’t answer your questions. I’m also on Instagram.
Instant Pot Coq au Vin
Ingredients
- 6 strips bacon chopped into small pieces
- 6 boneless, skinless chicken thighs
- 2 large carrots chopped
- 10 ounces pearl onions peeled
- 7 ounces button mushrooms (leave them whole)
- 4 cloves garlic minced
- 2 cups red wine
- 1/2 cup chicken broth
- 2 heaping tablespoons tomato paste
- 4 sprigs fresh thyme
- 1 tablespoon cornstarch + 2 tablespoons cold water
- Salt & pepper to taste
Instructions
- Prep your ingredients. I use kitchen shears to make cutting up the bacon easier. You can always finish prepping the remaining ingredients while the bacon is cooking to save time.
- Add the bacon to your Instant Pot. Press the sauté button and fry the bacon until crispy (about 10-12 mins).
- Once the bacon is crispy, move the bacon to one side of the Instant Pot and scoop most of the grease out with a spoon. Discard the fat (or store it and save it for other recipes).
- Add the garlic, red wine, chicken broth, and tomato paste to the Instant Pot. Let it start to bubble, and scrape the browned bits off the bottom so you don't get a burn warning.
- Add the chicken, carrots, onions, mushrooms, and thyme to your Instant Pot. Stir it as best as you can. Close the lid and set the valve to "sealing". Set the timer to cook on high pressure for 10 minutes.
- Once the countdown has finished, let the pressure release naturally for 15 minutes, and then do a quick release of the remaining pressure.
- Add the cornstarch slurry (mix the cornstarch and cold water together) to the Instant Pot. Press the sauté button and this will help the sauce sauce thicken a little bit (the sauce isn’t meant to be too thick) if you let it cook for a few more minutes. Season with salt & pepper if needed.
Notes
- I used about a pound of chicken thighs in this recipe. Anything around that mark (or even up to 1.5 lbs. or so) would work.
- Serves 4-6 depending on portion size.
- Inactive time = the time it takes your Instant Pot to get up to pressure.
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
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This recipe was originally published on March 22, 2019. It’s been updated with new photos and better instructions but is the same great recipe!
If you want white meat as well take a whole large chicken and joint it by taking off the legs and thighs together, the wings and leaving both breasts on the bone in one big hunk. I then went by eye using the same ideas but browning the chicken pieces, using 2/3 of a bottle wine, adding some fennel, bit of vegemite and a can of italian pulped tomatoes not paste. 18 mins instant release. The breasts were super juicy and the leg meat falling off the bones. Thickened with a small spoon of cornflour and water paste after removing the chicken bits but could have smashed a few veggies to thicken as well – just don’t get glossy sauce. Skin was then removed – the dog liked that. I took the meat easily from the bones in a few mins and added it at the end in largish pieces. Needs parsley garnish. I have made similar with thighs alone but still think on bone gives a better flavour. Not much in it between this in 30 mins total and the real thing in hours as long as you use a free range chicken – the traditional version you can use an old toughie.
Made this last night and it was delicious! I’ve made Julia Child’s version many times and this was just as good – only much easier and quicker. My co-op didn’t have pearl onions so I used shallots as someone else suggested. I didn’t have fresh thyme either, so I used 1/2 teaspoon of dried. Otherwise, I followed the recipe completely. Thanks for the great Coq a Vin recipe!!
Oh wow, thanks for the wonderful compliment! I am so happy you enjoyed it! 🙂
Made this tonight. It was so easy! Only thing I had to chop was the bacon and carrots… easy prep 🙂 I used up a petite syrah I had leftover. It was great, thanks.
You are very welcome! So glad you liked the recipe, Jamie!
You mention thyme but there are no instructions on when to use it. 🙂
So sorry! Step 5 🙂 Just updated the recipe.
You add the slurry while everything is still in the instant pot instead of removing the chicken and vegetables first?
Hi! Yes, that’s how I do it and I haven’t had any issues with it. Hope you like the recipe. 😊
This looks fabulous! I’d be more inclined to make it in a Dutch Oven than the instant pot, but that’s just my personal preference. I bet it would be good on a bed of polenta too.
Thank you! I agree on the polenta. Yeah, Dutch ovens are great (love mine), but I wanted to see if I could simplify the traditional method by using an Instant Pot. 🙂
Another great instant pot recipe! I had just enough great wine left over from a party and I decided to splurge on coq au vin for a Monday dinner. I picked your version, honestly, because it was the easiest and quickest one that I googled. It came out perfectly cooked – so glad you eliminated the many many steps that go into this classic French dish. I worried about not sauteing the mushrooms etc.. but they had great flavor. And because I am lazy, I made it even simpler. Instead of pearl onions, I used peeled shallots. I wanted my wine to shine, so I dropped the broth,tomato paste and the cornstarch. I only had whole thighs, so I did have to saute the skin side for 5 minutes – next time will get skinless. But it came in quicker than your estimate due to less prep. I have made classic coq au vin for company – it is double the effort (triple?) and about 30% better.
One question – not everyone in my family loves dark meat. I know you said chicken breasts get dried out. Is there any way to get more variety of pieces in the instant pot pressure recipes?
I’m so pleased it worked out well, Deborah! You could try chicken breasts and see how your family likes it. I do sometimes make chicken breasts in the Instant Pot. You could just give the recipe a try as written and see how it turns out… you may be pleasantly surprised. You could probably do the natural release for less time, though… I’d try 5 minutes and see how it goes.
How do I make this without an instant pot?
Hi Vicki! I made this recipe especially for the Instant Pot. I suggest searching for Julia Child’s coq au vin recipe – it’s been perfected and well tested. I don’t want to speculate and give you the wrong advice.
this looks great!
can you recommend an alternative to cornstarch? I don’t eat grains, so I’m thinking arrowroot or tapioca flour, but what do you recommend? thanks.
Hi Beth! You could definitely try the arrowroot powder, but start with 1/2 the amount and build up from there. Let me know how it goes 🙂
Beth, I use arrowroot in place of cornstarch. Natasha is right; start out with only 1/2 the amount.
Hello,
Could I do this Recipe in a crockpot?
Hi! You could definitely try. You’d have to cook the bacon on the stove beforehand. I’d try 6-8 hours on low. Let me know how it goes!