BBQ pulled chicken. I bet you probably didn’t think you’d see those words next to AIP any time soon, right?
So if I told you that, yes, you can make a delicious elimination phase friendly BBQ pulled chicken recipe and that — even better! — you can do so in your timesaving Instant Pot, wouldn’t you be super freaking excited? Well, you can! Thanks to this wonderful recipe that’s exclusive to a little project I’ve been working on with a bunch of other super-talented bloggers: The Paleo AIP Instant Pot Cookbook!
Working together, we’ve come up with what are bound to be some of your go-to AIP recipes from here on out, because they’re all easy, flavor filled and super speedy, thanks to the wonder of the Instant Pot‘s time saving features. Need dinner in a hurry? We have got you covered!
Because with over 140 recipes including broths, sauces, condiments, vegetables, poultry, meat, seafood, offal, desserts, and more, you’ll be able to find something to suit your tastebuds AND your dietary needs, since more than half of the recipes can easily be modified for Low-FODMAP, GAPS/SCD, and Coconut-Free diets.
Today I’m lucky enough to be able to share this wonderful recipe for AIP BBQ Pulled Chicken straight from the pages of The Paleo AIP Instant Pot Cookbook and you are going to just love it. It’s got that tangy sweetness of traditional BBQ sauce with none of the non-AIP ingredients, plus it gets bonus points for making great leftovers and being a great weapon in your batch cooking habit if that’s your thing.
Pile it on top of a baked sweet potato, spoon it onto a salad, serve it with traditional BBQ fixins like coleslaw or greens and make yourself a tummy friendly BBQ pulled chicken right this second. Or if you have a little more self control than I do, I guess you could wait until dinner time. Maybe.
PrintBBQ Pulled Chicken
- Yield: 8 servings 1x
Ingredients
- 3 pounds boneless, skinless chicken thighs
- ½ teaspoon sea salt
- ½ teaspoon granulated garlic
- ½ cup water
- ½ cup apple butter, with no sweetener added
- ½ cup balsamic vinegar
- 2 tablespoons blackstrap molasses
- 2 teaspoons granulated garlic
- 2 teaspoons ground ginger
- 2 teaspoons sea salt
Instructions
- Add the chicken, salt, granulated garlic, and water in the Instant Pot®.
- Close and lock the lid. Press MANUAL for high pressure. Set cooking time to 25 minutes. Once the time is up, quick release the pressure (using the instructions on page 7).
- Pour out as much water/broth as you can. Reserve the broth for future soup making, if desired.
- Whisk the apple butter, balsamic, molasses, garlic, ginger, and salt together. Pour over cooked chicken with remaining juice.
- Press the SAUTÉ button on the Instant Pot®. Let the chicken and sauce simmer to evaporate some of the juices. Once some of the liquid has evaporated, CANCEL the sauté function. Shred the chicken, if desired, before serving.
Notes
• Delicious served on a baked sweet potato!
• Reheats well AND is good served cold.
Want to know more about The Paleo AIP Instant Pot Cookbook?
- It’s available as an ebook that you can download immediately — no waiting around for anything to ship to you!
- Over half of the 140+ recipes are exclusive to The Paleo AIP Instant Pot Cookbook, which means you won’t find them anywhere else.
- Every recipe is AIP elimination phase friendly, so these recipes are both flavor packed and compliant — no reintros necessary!
- Each recipe has been designed with the Instant Pot in mind, so they’re quicker than usual and just as delicious!
- It’s another stellar community cookbook put together by Eileen Laird of Phoenix Helix
GRAB YOUR COPY RIGHT HERE!
Want a little preview of the deliciousness within?
Here are just a few of the recipes that we’ve made AIP and Instant Pot friendly – not to mention, practically effortless!
- Marinara Sauce
- Bacon Orange Cherry Jam
- Gravy (yes, really!)
- Artichokes with Lemon Tarragon Dipping Sauce
- Cauliflower Rice
- Honey Herbed Carrots & Parsnips
- Creamy Root Veggie Curry Soup
- Sweet & Sour Chicken
- Italian Wedding Soup
- Speedy Chili
- Swedish Meatballs with Mushroom Gravy
- Sticky Pork Shortribs
- Thai Seafood Curry
- Jambalaya
- Salmon & Sweet Potato Chowder
- Chicken Liver Pâté (that one’s mine!)
- “Chocolate” Cake
- Mini Banana Cream Pies
- Peach Cobbler
- ….and more!
And if those sample recipes haven’t convinced you (are you suuuuure?!), then you can find a full recipe list here.
We’ve all worked super hard to create, refine and test these recipes, so you can be sure that they’re not just the best AIP recipes out there, but they work perfectly with your Instant Pot: every time. I’m super proud to be a part of this amazing collaboration and I just know you’re going to fall in love with it, too.
Made this with a chuck roast instead of chicken in my regular pressure cooker. It was wonderful! My son thought he was eating a Korean dish. It is hard these days to make things that everybody like with my limited list of foods to choose from. But this is a winner! Thanks!
Oh, what a great little twist! That sounds delicious 🙂
Darn. This sounded perfect, but I’m allergic to apples. What does the applesauce do in the recipe? Maybe I can try with pear butter — and reduce the molasses because pears are sweeter than apples.
It will be there as a way of adding sweetness without using too much added sweeteners like the molasses. Pear butter could work well! You just may want to adjust the molasses / balsamic vinegar a little to suit your tastes if the pear makes it tilt a little sweeter than you like. Hope that helps!
I know you made this for an instant pot in mind, but I have to ask since I don’t have an instant pot. For a slow cooker, would I need to combine and throw all the ingredients in at the beginning? Would the broth from the chicken make it too watery?
Since you need to remove the excess broth in the original recipe, I’d follow the steps as they’re set out — mixing everything together at the beginning will just make a watery sauce. Cook the chicken in the slow cooker, drain off the broth when it’s done, then add the remaining ingredients and simmer them together until the sauce thickens. Since the IP Saute function allows steam to evaporate, you’ll want to emulate that by simmering the chicken in your slow cooker, uncovered so that it will thicken. Alternatively, you could simmer the chicken and sauce together on the stovetop after cooking the chicken in the slow cooker and draining it.
Thank you so much! I’ll try that and let you know how it goes.
I gave your recipe a whirl and it turned out great in the slow cooker! I can’t believe how much it tastes like real bbq sauce.
Yay, I’m so happy to hear that it converted nicely for the slow cooker 🙂
About how many servings does this recipe make?
According to the recipe creator, it yields 8 servings — I’ve added that to the recipe card 🙂
This was delicious! Made as directed and the added a bit of brown sugar which made it even better!
This is the absolute best AIP meal I have had!!!! Thank you so much!!!
So glad you enjoyed it, Ariel!
This was a great meal. All 6 of my kids approved!
I’m obsessed with this recipe! I find myself craving it, and it is in regular rotation at my house! Thanks so much!
Yay, I’m so happy you enjoy it so much! 🙂
I messed up right from the get-go by adding all the ingredients at the beginning. (I realized it when I was seeing Garlic again.) It still turned out delicious and I plan to “make that mistake” again next time. Afterward, I just reduced the sauce in a saucepan. We ate this on your Cassava Tortillas. My whole family resoundingly gave this a “10”! I made it according to the directions, fed four people and have at least two more meals from it. Tomorrow we will put it on white Sweet Potatoes. Excellent for anyone and especially tasty for AIP.
Hi, this sounds great! I have “regular ” molasses, not blackstrap. Will that work?
Hi Allie, apologies for the slow, holiday-delayed reply! The answer, annoyingly, is… maybe. Blackstrap molasses is the least sweet variety, so I’d go ahead and substitute it with regular only if you’re ok with the sweeter end of bbq flavors. If not, you may find the regular molasses completely overwhelms. I’d suggest using about half the amount to start and perhaps adjusting the vinegar levels to balance out if needed for your taste. Hope that helps!
I’ve made this twice now, my whole family loves it. Both times I used apple sauce instead of apple butter, it turns out just fine. The first time I didn’t have balsamic so used a white vinegar, also fine. Thank you for sharing!
That’s interesting about the applesauce, since it’s probably a lot less sweet than the apple butter. Swapping vinegar is fine, but if you’re following AIP you’ll want to avoid standard white vinegar because it’s usually made from corn. You could use a white wine vinegar instead if that’s the case 🙂
Been doing GF DF for 10 years and AIP for 4. This is the best recipe for traditional BBQ and kids love it. Thank you for an Alternative to the nomato based BBQ, which is okay, but this is way better.
Recommend it all!