Green Dragon Instant Pot Shredded Chicken Breast

You’ll only need 6 ingredients and about 30 minutes to make this Instant Pot shredded chicken breast that’s perfect for chicken tacos, rice bowls, or as a meal prep protein option. Every serving of this chicken has 22 grams of protein with only 3 grams of fat and 115 calories, so you could pair it with all kinds of goodies while keeping calories in check.

It’s super easy to make, and thanks to Trader Joe’s Green Dragon sauce it’s super flavorful without being overly spicy. At least in my opinion! I’ll walk you through the recipe in the post below and cover a few ingredient notes along the way. If you want to skip straight to the recipe card, hit the jump to recipe button above.

Making Green Dragon Shredded Chicken Breast in the Instant Pot

Everything you’ll need:

• boneless skinless chicken breast
• diced onion and minced garlic
• Trader Joe’s Green Dragon sauce
• chicken broth
• olive oil

I’ve included several ingredient swaps and notes below.

Step 1: Use the sauté function on the Instant Pot to cook diced onion and minced garlic.

Similar to the beginnings of my Instant Pot buffalo chicken dip, this Green Dragon chicken starts with sautéed onion and garlic to build a nice base layer of flavor. Have picky eaters in the house? Don’t worry, the veggies nearly disappear during pressure cooking. If you decide to omit the veggies for some other reason, you may need to add a bit more broth.

Step 2: Turn off the Instant Pot and add Trader Joe’s Green Dragon sauce and chicken broth to the onion and garlic.

The Trader Joe’s Green Dragon sauce has a nice blend of tomatillo, cilantro, lime, garlic, and peppers. While the sauce contains jalapeño and habanero, it’s not overly spicy. The recipe calls for 3/4 cup, which may seem like a lot, so you’ll have to just trust me!

By the way, if you’d like to see all the TJ’s staples we keep in our kitchen, check out my Trader Joe’s recipe guide and shopping list.

Trader Joe’s Green Dragon Sauce Alternatives

Looking at the ingredient list, I’d say you could use something like a salsa verde with a little hot sauce in its place. I’d go with something like a tomatillo-based green hot sauce if you have one. Though it’s worth noting other ingredients like spinach and cilantro powder in the Green Dragon sauce mean it’s not purely a “hot” sauce. So tread carefully if you’re adding a pure hot sauce.

Step 3: Add boneless skinless chicken breast to the Instant Pot.

If you have a few calories to spare, I’m always a fan of using boneless skinless chicken thighs instead of chicken breast. You can take a look at my Mexican shredded chicken thighs to get an idea about the difference in nutrition facts.

Step 4: Pressure cook for 8 minutes.

I’ve found 8-10 minutes is the sweet spot for nearly any quantity of chicken in the Instant Pot. I always like to mention that having a food thermometer is super helpful when cooking proteins, especially chicken. Once your chicken reaches 165ºF internally, it’s good to go.

Step 5: Shred the chicken breast and toss in the Green Dragon sauce. 

If you have the time, I’d let the shredded chicken breast hang out in the sauce for a while. Or if you have an Instant Pot Duo Crisp or Ninja Foodi, you can accelerate this with their broil functions for 8-10 minutes. The chicken will soak up the flavor and you’ll even get some crispy edges in the process. Check out my Instant Pot BBQ Pulled Chicken or Crispy Pork Tenderloin Carnitas for examples.

Serving Your Instant Pot Shredded Chicken Breast

I used most of my test batches to make Green Dragon chicken tacos. To make your own, you’ll need corn tortillas, an Asian slaw mix, and some lime wedges. If you can’t find an Asian slaw option in your store, you could make your own like this Asian slaw with ginger peanut dressing or Asian quinoa slaw with sesame ginger vinaigrette.

Other non-taco options might be rice bowls with some pickled red onion or veggies, chicken nachos using my low calorie tortilla chips or these baked wonton chips, or just about anything you can think of for shredded chicken. Thanks to the flavor profile, this Green Dragon chicken fits into all kinds of cuisines.

Whatever you end up doing with your Instant Pot shredded chicken, I’d love to hear about it. Let me know in a comment or recipe review, or you can join my free Facebook group and share it with 16,000+ other healthy home cooks. And if you have a recipe question I forgot to cover, drop a comment at the bottom of the post and I’ll be happy to help!