Instant Pot Buffalo Chicken Pasta
Instant Pot Buffalo Chicken Pasta dish is so so so good, and it is so quick to whip up. Cook it all in your Instant Pot for a quick dinner, and the leftovers taste even better the next day! The flavors really infuse well together. I love pretty much all that has hot sauce, it is a natural choice to use it in this dish. The hot sauce mixed with the ranch and bacon, really adds so much flavor and dimension to the dish. Change things up and add a new recipe to the mix, this is a family favorite I have been making for years!
Adult Mac And Cheese Recipe
This recipe is similar to what you would call an adult version of mac n cheese that got a major upgrade. You have Instant Pot buffalo chicken pasta shredded chicken, bacon, pasta, lots of cheesy goodness, some heat from the hot sauce, and ranch for a mix of flavors.
Craving more buffalo recipes
Also if you like a little spice you also need to try my Instant Pot Buffalo Ranch Chicken Dip Or Even Buffalo Cauliflower It is perfect for game nights, potlucks, and a special treat to break up the week.
Can I Use Pre Shredded Chicken in Buffalo Chicken Pasta
Yes, you can! You would just skip the first steps of cooking the chicken. At times if I have pre-shredded chicken I use that. Otherwise, I cook the chicken frozen, it is a game-changer! No need to thaw your chicken, toss it in frozen.
What Type of Pasta To Use For Buffalo Chicken Pasta
You are welcome to use any medium-sized pasta. Penne, shells, elbow, bow tie, and the list goes on.
We personally like the penne bit feel free to use whatever you have on hand. Just make sure it is dry pasta, not homemade.
What If I Don’t Have Instant Pot Duo For the Last Step
The last step is to melt the cheese you sprinkle on top with the air frying lid. If you don’t have the Instant Pot Duo with an air fryer, simply skip this step. Or place in a dish and broil in the oven for a minute or two.
It will taste just as good. I love being able to swap my lid and go from pressure cooking to air fryer in a minute.
What To Serve With Instant Pot Buffalo Chicken
- Corn, broccoli, green beans, etc
- Crisp green salad
- Bread or dinner rolls
We tend to eat this alone or pair with a salad. Feel free to reach for any of your favorite sides to pair it with.
How To Store Leftover Chicken Buffalo Pasta
Store leftover buffalo pasta in the refrigerator for up to three days. Anything after you will want to toss out. Due to the ingredients, this recipe does not thaw well if frozen. It will separate and the pasta can become soggy.
So if you like easy meals, that are hearty and wholesome, and full of delicious goodness, then this is a must try the recipe. Dust off your Instant Pot and get to cooking. Or if you are like me, you don’t allow your Instant Pot to have time to collect dust cause you are always using it!
Instant Pot Buffalo Chicken Pasta
Instant Pot Buffalo Chicken Pasta dish is so so so good, and it is so quick to whip up. Cook it all in your Instant Pot for a quick dinner, and the leftovers taste even better the next day! The flavors really infuse well together
Ingredients
- 1 Pound chicken breast
- 1 cup ranch dressing
- 16 oz pasta (I used Ziti)
- 1 cup hot sauce
- 4 tbs butter
- 8 oz cream cheese
- 4 oz cheddar cheese
- 3 cups water
- 3 pieces of bacon crumbled
Instructions
- Place Butter, Hot Sauce, 1 cup water, and chicken in the instant pot.
- Cook on manual high pressure for 14 minutes.
- Do a quick release.
- Remove chicken only and shred.
- Add dry pasta.
- Add cream cheese and ranch dressing.
- Pour in 2 cups water do not stir.
- Place on manual high pressure for 4 minutes.
- Do a quick release.
- Stir in half the cheese.
- Remove from instant pot and place in a baking pan.
- Top with remaining cheese and bacon slices.
- Broil for 1-2 minutes just to melt the cheese.
- Or use your crisper lid
- Place on air crips at 400 degrees for 1-2 minutes until cheese melts
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Nutrition Information:
Yield: 10 Serving Size: 1Amount Per Serving: Calories: 487Total Fat: 36gSaturated Fat: 16gTrans Fat: 0gUnsaturated Fat: 17gCholesterol: 100mgSodium: 1141mgCarbohydrates: 18gFiber: 1gSugar: 3gProtein: 22g
We don’t eat pasta. I wonder if diced potato or something else can be used in place of pasta? This looks yummy!
potatoes or cauliflower
Is that 40 ounces of cheese?
Just my opinion, but I see it as; 4 OZ OF 3 CHEESE BLEND… 40 OZ would be 2 & 1/2 pounds…. going to try it tonight..yum
OMG does that sound amazing! Cannot wait to try it!
This will only be my second insta pot recipe, but I have heard that for some recipes you put the chicken in frozen. Do you used thawed chicken or frozen chicken for this Recipe?
@Christina, I have used frozen chicken and partially thawed and it still works great !
Looks yummy can’t wait to try!
Looks yummy can’t wait to try my kids will love!
Sounds yummy, I’m not a huge fan of ranch, do you have a ranch replacement recommendation?
I’m going to try blue cheese dressing instead of ranch.
@Faith,
I use ranch and blue cheese,half cup of each
This was so good. We don’t are much for hot sauce so I used a bottled wing sauce frim our local wing restaurant.
How much is a serving? a cup ect??
Gluten Free: so I tried it with a corn pasta tonight. I substituted 16oz of corn pasta with 3 cups of water. Then piled everything else on top. We use pre cooked chicken to speed things up.
Made this today for lunch! It was amazing!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Thank you.
I’ve made this 3 times and I have yet to complete it in 22 minutes. It’s more like 45 to 50 minutes by the time it takes to shred the chicken. This is soooo delicious, and yes sometimes i yse blue cheese dresding and also tried it with bottled avocado ranch dressing.
Use a hand mixer to shred 🙂
Hand mixer or kitchen aid work amazing at shredding chicken!
I’m not a ranch fan but I 💘 blue cheese. Also used mozz in place of mex mix. Yummmmmmm
Kitchen aid works amazingly fast with the paddle. Just be sure not to mix too much or it’ll have tuna consistency (made that mistake once!)
I have a cuisinart pressure cooker but I was on the hunt for new recipes to try and found this one.
I was unsure about the water ratio, it seemed like it would water this down…but I held to the original recipe on this one. This dish was AMAZING. No lie, it’s 8:30 am and I’m having leftover pasta for breakfast!!
The ONLY thing I changed is this: After I shredded the chicken, I put my pot on the saute setting. I added the cream cheese, ranch and hot sauce and basically melded it all in the same cook pot. No point in having to wash a second pot IMO. I added the water and pasta…switched back to pressure and it was done in like 7 mins.
OMG does that sound amazing! Cannot wait to try it!
OMG does that sound amazing! This was so good. We don’t are much for hot sauce so i used a bottled wing sauce frim our local wing restaurant.Can i try it that recepi!
This was truly amazing! I used dry ranch mix with a little milk instead of dressing. I also saw it as 40 ozs of cheese. Even this Wisconsin girl said what?
Thankfully someone pointed out the missing space as I asked for opinions on using the dry mix. It was even weight loss eating friendly. Well, it’s so tasty it was really hard to stop, but I did. Can’t wait for leftover time!
How much milk did you add to the dry ranch mix? Thanks
This was absolutely delicious!
I made this as my first dish in my IP! I used Laughing Cow white cheddar cheese instead of cream cheese and it was delicious-thank you!
Do I precook the noodles?
no
IP newbie here…Just took it out of the box tonight! Do you put the pasta in uncooked?
yes, uncooked. the IP is amazing for making pasta dishes quickly
I made this tonight with some modifications, and it was so good! I wanted to speed up the process, so I put the pasta and water (I used chicken broth) in the instant pot then placed the trivet on top of the pasta. I put a small pan on top of the trivet and put the chicken, hot sauce, 1 cup broth, ranch seasoning instead of dressing (to save fat & calories) and a few pats of butter. I set the timer for 6 minutes and took the pan out to shred the chicken. Threw everything back together along with the cream cheese and shredded cheese. I forgot the bacon, but it was delicious still, and so fast and easy! I think I will make it for a work pot luck next week.
Thank you for this tip!! What pan do you use that you put inside the IP??
This was so delicious! Way better than crack chicken!
Made this tonight for dinner. Amazingly delicious. Definitely making this again and again.
In the directions it says “poultry button OR 14 minuets on manual high”. Is it 14 minuets for the poultry button too? If not how long for that button? I haven’t used the poultry button yet and have no reference of timing with it. This dish looks and sounds Fabulous!
you can use manual high pressure or the poultry button 🙂
My poultry button is 15 minutes. My chicken was almost all the way thawed and it cooked perfectly.
Does “2 large chicken breasts about 1 pound” mean each breast should weigh 1 pound, or collectively, they should be 2 pounds?
Literally make this at least once a week! Our favourite meal!!!
Do I empty the water after I cook the chicken? Or just leave what’s left and add the 2 cups water and pasta?
no need to empty 🙂
Thanks for answering i was wondering to..it said to take out only the chicken but didn’t say what to do with the fluid after.. making this for supper tonight..
OMG this is fanastic
I’m gonna make this tonight BUT, I’m just doing pasta part. No,chicken
Should I use 4cups of water for the pasta because I’m not doing the chicken with 1 cup of water? Thanks.
Can I double this recipe?
Quick, easy, and cheap dinner! This is my new go-to recipe!! I don’t change a thing.
This calls for 1/4 cup hot sauce. Do you use it to coat the chicken in the beginning? In Step 5 it says to combine the hot sauce with other ingredients, so I’m just wondering if you are to split the hot sauce or use extra to coat the chicken?
I followed most ingredients & many directions… ha! … and we loved it. What I changed: I did not return shredded chicken mixture to pot. (I heated the shredded chicken,Buffalo ranch mixture a little in microwave.) I left it separate from (penne) pasta & served both with more Buffalo sauce available. When pressure cooking the (penne) pasta I cooked it as directed. After quick release, I added 2-4 oz cream, 1/2 t dry mustard, and over 8 Oz shredded cheese (sharp cheddar and a Mexican blend). It melted to a smooth awesome sauce. Then everyone served themselves the homade Mac n cheese with Buffalo ranch chicken on top, mixed in, or on the side. It was a hit.
Made this last night. Only thing I did different was add and saute one small onion and approximately 1 tbsp of garlic to pan with 2 tbsp butter for about 3-4 minutes. Turned off saute then followed recipe. I did not have enough Ranch dressing, only 3/4 cup so added 1/4 cup of 1/2 and 1/2. Used 12 oz of pasta. This recipe is very good. Thank you.
Wasn’t sure to drain what water was already in pot I did and my noodles stuck even with 2 cups water ☹️
Do I place the chicken on the trivet? Or lay directly in the pot? Wasnt sure if it would burn. Newbie here. Will only be my 4th recipe!
Hiiii thanks so much for the recipe! It was delicious and soooo creamy! I was in a terrible hurry to make dinner and made a couple of changes so I could cook it all at once! At the bottom of the Instant Pot, I put in the pasta and just enough chicken broth to cover it.
On top of that, I put the chicken breast (chopped into cubes) and coated with Buffalo sauce. (Do not mix it into the pasta. On top of that, I placed dollops of cream cheese which I had mixed with a packet of dry ranch seasoning. (Again, don’t mix!) Then I just cooked it all for 6 minutes and then QPR and mixed it gently. Overall, I omitted the extra shredded cheese, the bacon and the ranch dressing and added a packet of ranch. Worked like a charm, thanks again for the creative recipe! 🙂
I made the chicken mixture in the morning, then refrigerated it until dinner time when I finished the recipe. SO good. This joins the family favorites
We make this weekly! Soooooo delicious!!!
I am new to IP. I have an 8 oz. IP duo. Do I need to increase the cups of water when cooking the chicken breast from 1 cup to 2 cups or does it not matter what size IP I have. I’m confused on this?
My husband LOVES this one! Even better than the fajita soup! This will be my fast go-to dinner! I used whole wheat pasta and a little less hot sauce (but he adds more on his). I’m really liking these recipes. Thank you SO much!
This recipe is one of my FAVORITES for the instant pot! Do you know if it would freeze well? I was thinking of making the whole dish and putting it in a pan and then freezing it. What are your thoughts?
Can you use a ranch powder mix instead of dressing?
@Caitlin, Was this question answered?
Made this twice. Both times salvaged it but got burn message due to pasta andy easy fix?
I’m confused about how much hot sauce to use. The ingredients say 1/4 cup. Step 1 Says to coat with hot sauce & step 5 also calls for hot sauce. How much do you coat with in step 1 & how much goes into step 5? Thanks for any help!
This is definitely an all time FAVORITE for my fiancé. I make it atleast twice a month, I’m sure he’d like it more though! It’s super yummy and leftovers are just as good. He’s even eaten it for breakfast leftover! Thanks for sharing 🥰
This has become a weekly staple in our home. My bf is a buffalo chicken expert, according to him, and he loves this recipe. The only thing I do differently is to add extra hot sauce. I don’t even mix the cream cheese and chicken. I dump it in a go. Thanks for a great recipe.
Too spicy for us, next time half the hot sauce, used frozen chicken breast, still not cooked thru after 19 minutes, just chopped it up and threw it in with the rest of the ingredients. Simply and tasty.
Now I know why it was so hot! Recipe says 1 Cup of hot sauce, NOT 1/4 cup of hot sauce!!! Next time, if there is one, 1/4 cup!
If I cut this recipe in half, do I still use the same cooking times?
Yes
Love this recipe, but it had been awhile since I made it. I noticed updates to the recipe that made it easier and quicker to make. I remember thinking 1 c of hot sauce seemed more than in the past and debated using less since my family doesn’t like a lot of spice. I didn’t adjust and boy did it have some kick! Next time I will adjust down to 1/4 c. I noticed a similar comment after the fact that it looks like that changed from before. So I would suggest to use an amount that matches your family’s tolerance for heat.
In the instructions they forgot to add the chicken back in. It does show it in the video.
I have made this several times, and it always comes out great! I tried the bow ties, and they got mushy and stuck to the bottom of my instapot. We often leave out the bacon. If you add more hot sauce, replace the water so the liquid level is the same.
Amazing the whole family loves it been cooking it for over a year. It is our go to cheat meal!
This recipe has become a staple in my house. My husband requests it every couple of weeks. I always make sure I have the ingredients on hand at any given time because of how often it gets made. My hopeless at the grocery store husband has even memorized what I need for it and will pick up extras when he is out just in case. Whenever we are feeling stuffed up we just add a bit more hot sauce. Perfect comfort food at our house.
So happy you like it
When do you add the chicken back in after shredding?
right after shredding