This Pressure Cooker Tomato Basil Chicken Breast recipe is sponsored by the Crock-Pot® brand. All opinions are mine alone
I just had our fourth baby a couple weeks ago, and the transition to being a mother of four has been just as expected: a little difficult! I was planning on everything being a little crazier around here and being preoccupied with feeding a newborn around the clock, but I'd forgotten how much I'd have to scale back on my to-do list. As in, where I used to get 10 things done in a day, 1 or 2 is now a healthy expectation! I'd like to say that getting wholesome meals on the table has remained a priority, but with a newborn, my cooking window has gotten much shorter. I may only have a few minutes here or there to be working on the family dinner, so time-consuming menus have been set aside for the time being. You can see how when offered the chance to try out the Crock-Pot Express Crock Multi Cooker, I jumped at it! Any help in the kitchen would be appreciated, especially when the word "express" is in the name!
We are so excited to share with you our thoughts on the brand new Crock-Pot® Express Crock Multi Cooker! Our original recipe for Pressure Cooker Tomato Basil Chicken Breast is absolutely delicious, and we've created a week-long meal plan for you so that you can experience new recipes and see new ways of cooking with this fabulous new product! Also, be sure to check out our Pressure Cooker Pot Roast recipe for another delicious meal and another week-long meal plan.
This was my first experience with a multi- cooker, and I was so ready and excited to try it out! I've had friends rave about their latest recipes that were thrown together in 15 minutes or less, and being a food blogger, I was feeling like I absolutely needed to see for myself what this was all about. The Crock-Pot® Express Crock Multi Cooker met all my expectations with the first recipe I tried. True to its claims, meals can go from ingredients in the fridge to a finished dish on the table in minutes, without compromising the delicious taste of being slow-cooked. Nothing about it tastes "instant".
My husband was a little skeptical when another appliance showed up on our doorstep until I explained to him how this was not just another slow cooker! Looking at this front panel, you can see how this goes beyond an "on" and "off" button, or just a high and low feature. You've got different pre-programmed cooking methods built into the control panel like steam, slow cook, keep warm, and my favorite: brown/sauté. You can further customize your cooking method with buttons for specific foods, such as meat/stew, beans/chili, rice/risotto, yogurt, poultry, dessert, soup, and multigrain! Beyond that, you can always adjust the pressure and temperature to higher or lower as needed. You can be sure that whatever you are cooking is done exactly right in this Crock-Pot® Express Crock Multi Cooker! It can cook meals 70% faster than traditional cooking.
Anxious to see what this multi-cooker was all about, I wanted to start by composing a recipe that included some of my favorite ingredients: chicken breast, tomatoes, pesto, and lots of mozzarella.
Here are the ingredients for our Tomato Basil Pressure Cooker Chicken Breast Recipe (serves 2):
- 2 chicken breasts
- 4 T. basil pesto
- 1 small block of mozzarella cheese, cut into 16 squares
- 2 Roma tomatoes
- 18-20 basil leaves
- 2 T. olive oil
- Italian seasoning packet (.7 oz)
Step One: Slice the thawed chicken breasts with slits about ¾" apart. Spread about 2 T. of basil pesto into each chicken breast, divided among all the slits. Deep cuts are best since you'll be stuffing them pretty full.
Step Two: Slice the mozzarella into squares around 1.5" x 1.5" and slice up your tomatoes. Stuff each slit with one slice of cheese, one tomato circle, and one leaf of basil.
Step 3: Mix the Italian seasoning packet with the olive oil in a small bowl, then pour over the top of the chicken. Set the chicken inside a piece of tin foil and loosely fold up the edges. You do not need to cover up or seal the foil shut around the chicken since this is only to keep the juices in and the mozzarella from dripping.
Step 4: Place the steaming rack in the bottom of the cooker and pour in ½ c. of water to keep the chicken moist as it cooks. Set the foiled chicken on the steaming rack. Put on the airtight locking lid and turn until it is in the locked position, which you can see at the top of the picture below. Also, make sure that the steam release valve is in the sealed position. You will leave it open for other recipes that do not use the pressure cooker feature.
Step 5: Plug in the multi-cooker, press "Poultry", and press "Start". Done! This recipe makes perfect chicken in 15 minutes. Just make sure that at the end of cooking, you let the pressure release on its own for a few minutes before switching the steam release valve to "unsealed", and always use a cooking utensil instead of your fingers so you don't get burned by the steam.
What you get are these gorgeous stuffed chickens! Don't they look gourmet? Your dinner guests will never believe how easy these are to make! And in only 15 minutes!
I'm so excited about these new ways to use this Crock-Pot Express Crock Multi-Cooker! I typically haven't ventured far from typical soups and meat, so using a pressure cooker that can brown, sauté, or steam is pretty exciting. I love the idea of having a mini-oven that can cook delicious family meals at hyper-speed at my disposal. My mind is spinning just thinking of the new recipes to try! Risotto, desserts, and even yogurt sound like really fun places to start.
Add some shaved Parmesan on top and a few basil leaves on the side, then serve on angel hair pasta for a complete meal.
No matter my schedule, whether I'm tied up caring for a newborn all day, or I'm out running errands from sun up to sun down, I find that the Crock-Pot® Express Crock Multi Cooker is my new best friend. I'm so excited about the new ways to use it and how it takes family meal prep in a whole new direction of instant dinners.
To help you out on your first week of cooking with your Crock-Pot Express Crock Multi-Cooker, we've created a week-long meal plan! Find all the recipes below!
Monday: Tomato Basil Pressure Cooker Chicken Breast (included in this post)
Tuesday: Omaha Steaks® Crock-Pot® Meals: Rustic Italian Beef Stew
Wednesday: Slow Cooker Pork Tenderloin And Herb Roasted Vegetables
Thursday: Stuffed Green Peppers
Friday: Cola Pulled Pork
Saturday: Chicken Tacos
Sunday: Slow Cooker Potato Leek Soup With Crispy Prosciutto
Be sure to visit crock-pot.com for even more recipes and dinner inspiration!
You can get a Crock-Pot® Express Crock Multi-Cooker at Amazon.com.
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SCCPTOWER-S
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I like the 5 in 1 Mulit Cooker. And I LOVE this recipe. Tomato and Basil are two of my favorite cooking ingredients. And I love the idea of of scoring the breasts to insert different flavors. This could be changed in so many ways for different meals.
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Lauryn R says
This recipe looks absolutely delicious, I really wish I had a pressure cooker now! Tomato, mozzarella, and basil is my favorite flavor combination too! Thanks for sharing. 🙂