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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.
© Salt & Lavender Inc. Content and photographs are copyrighted. Sharing this blog post is much appreciated, but copying and pasting full recipes without authorization to social media is strictly prohibited.
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!
FORGOT TO STAR
DELICIOUS RECIPE. I FOLLOWED EXACTLY. CLEAR INSTRUCTIONS. SO MUCH EASIER THAN THE LONG PROCESS WITHOUT AN INSTAPOT.
!st recipe I’ve followed in about 40 years. Many thanks for posting.
You’re welcome!
Absolutely delicious! I use smoky paprika in place of bacon for the smokiness. I simply don’t understand the 10 minute prep time. Perhaps with 10 helpers. 🙂
I’m glad you enjoyed it! I count some of the prep as cook time – that’s why (like while the bacon is cooking etc.). But I totally understand we all go at different paces.
I forgot to add my stars. I’ve made this several times and love it!
I appreciate it! Thank you!
This heavenly dish is incredibly delicious! As a bonus, it is easy to make. I served it on top of garlic mashed potatoes.
I’m thrilled you enjoyed it, Stacey! Thanks for your 5-star review! 😀
Did you mean to skip browning the chicken? You talk about scraping up brown bits
Where would they have come from?
Hi! I’m referring to the browned bits that remain at the bottom of the Instant Pot after sautéing the bacon. Whenever I fry bacon in the IP it generally leads to some stuck-on bits. Some Instant Pots can be very finicky with burn warnings if anything is stuck on the bottom, so that is why I mention it. That is correct that I don’t brown the chicken in this recipe – it’s added in at step 5. Hope you enjoy the recipe, Maryanne! 🙂
How do 6 slices of bacon translate to bacon in grams? Our Aussie slices come in such a wide variety of sizes I’m not sure what to aim for!
Thanks.
Hi Chantal! For this recipe it really doesn’t matter too much… it’s pretty flexible. I sometimes use thick cut bacon and sometimes the thinner regular stuff. I live in Canada and bacon typically comes in 375g packages… I just take out 6 pieces. I think the amount of slices vary per package, so I just looked on a Canadian grocery store’s website for a random pack of bacon, and the nutrition info states 2 slices uncooked are 54g… so 3 x 54g = 162g. That would be a ballpark to aim for I think? By the way, this is “streaky” bacon… not back bacon.
Awesome- thanks for your quick response!
Enjoy! 🙂
I’m pretty new to the instant pot. I’ve made Julia’s coq au vin several times and did not think this compared to her recipe. I will try this recipe again, maybe browning the thighs and using cognac next time.
Went out on a ledge to make this for my family (I’m the new addition last year) and they LOVED it! A 10 and 13 year old that grew up on ramen and pre-packaged foods loved it! Even my son (10) who hates gravy, asked to try a little bit of the sauce and exclaimed, “I didn’t know gravy could taste so good!”
We did 1.5x the recipe and added potatoes as the kiddos can eat as much as daddy.
That’s amazing!! 😀 Thanks for letting me know!
I’m sorry. I just had to laugh at this. Most people go out on a limb, but if you want to go out on a ledge, I guess that’s fine, too. 🙂
This recipe was awesome, and running out and getting a pair of kitchen sheers was totally worth it. I made it for a few friends at his house – I came in tow with a shoulder cooler, ladle, kitchen sheers, and tongs, and my instant pot. I used pinot noir. Then the saliva glands got going from the bacon – very thick cuts. After I started the pressure cooker, I mentioned that I had forgot a side. I’d already put extra garlic in my concoction, and I mentioned mashed potatoes. So Clay made his fresh mashed potatoes with lots of garlic. When the two met, they were going to be the only things kissing that night. It was incredible. I did finish off the slurry with a very generous dash/splash/double of cognac. We were raiding the bottle while cooking, so who knows, but everyone went back for seconds and were bummed the mashed potatoes were gone. The coq au vin was incredible, but the combination of the two were like the most delectable upside down chicken based “shepherds” pie I’d ever had. They’re all potheads now – Instant Pot(heads).
I’m so happy you enjoyed it, Dustin!! 🙂
Done! Amazing! Very very rich gravy. Flavors out the wazzu !!!!! I served it with cous cous. Man, does that absorb the gravy!! Only thing I did different was to de- glaze the pot with the bacon with a splash of port!!
Wonderful!! 🙂 So happy you liked it, Eric! Love the port idea.