Instant Pot Chicken Pesto Pasta tossed with spinach in a creamy sauce. This quick dinner is easy to make and ready in less than 30 minutes.

The creamy broth for this chicken pesto pasta is made up of pesto, milk, cream cheese, and grated parmesan.

Ingredients in Instant Pot Chicken Pesto Pasta

• Chicken skinless boneless chicken breasts – sliced into thin strips
• Olive oil
• Garlic cloves
• Rotini pasta
• Chicken broth
• Pesto
• Ground pepper
• Milk (low fat or milk)
• Cream cheese
• Parmesan cheese

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How to Make Instant Pot Chicken Pesto Pasta

Set the Instant Pot to saute – Set the Instant Pot to saute and add the olive oil.

Saute the garlic and chicken – Add garlic and the chicken sliced in thin strips to the inner liner and saute until the chicken is browned on all sides.

TIP: Use a garlic press to easily mince garlic.

Press cancel – Press cancel, remove the chicken, and deglaze the inner liner by scraping the bottom of the liner to remove any stuck-on bits.

Add the pasta – Add the rotini pasta to the bottom of the pot.

Top with chicken – Place the chicken on top of the uncooked pasta.

Pour in the broth – Pour in the 3 cups of chicken broth.

Pressure Cook – Close the lid and set the Instant Pot to HIGH PRESSURE/MANUAL COOK for 4 minutes.
Once the 4 minutes are over, slowly and carefully release the pressure manually.

Remove lid and other ingredients – Remove the lid and set the pot back to saute.

Make the creamy sauce – Add the cream cheese, milk, Parmesan, and pepper and combine until the cream cheese is melted and combined well.

Stir in spinach – Chop and stir in the spinach and serve with additional Parmesan.

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Can I Substitute the Rotini Pasta?

Yes, you can substitute the rotini pasta in this Instant Pot Chicken Pesto Pasta recipe for other kinds of pasta. Fusilli, ziti, penne, and even rigatoni would work well in this recipe.

When pressure cooking pasta, a good rule of thumb is to divide the time it takes on the back of the box of pasta and then subtract one minute from the never you get. That is the time you pressure cook the pasta for.

Can I Use Gluten-Free Pasta?

You can use gluten-free pasta in the Instant Pot but it’s important to use a good quality gluten free pasta so that it doesn’t turn to mush under pressure. The rest of the recipe will remain the same!