Chicken Youvetsi is a classic Greek dish and a popular comfort meal made in many regions of Greece. Known for its simplicity, the recipe is essentially a tomato based chicken stew that is often cooked in the oven from beginning to end. This recipe speeds up the process by cooking the chicken in a pressure cooker and finishing it off on the stove top.
For me, this Greek youvetsi dish tastes like home. It is a dish that my mom has cooked for me so many times in the past and a dish that I have continued to cook for myself and my husband since venturing out to live on my own. It is truly one of my favourite meals!
Full disclosure: I had a difficult time determining the reasonable servings for this recipe. I don’t exactly eat a reasonable portion of this, I’m afraid. Neither does my husband. We should eat it with a side salad. We should. But most of the time, we greedily fill our plates and dig in without a thought towards portion control. We should know better but sometimes its good to be bad and it sure as heck doesn’t feel bad in the moment!
Why you should make pressure-cooker chicken youvetsi
- this dish is so delicious
- its comfort food at its best!
- this is a hearty meal, sure to satisfy the whole family
- it takes only 40 minutes to make
- it uses simple ingredients
- the steps are simple and easy to do
- the liquid used to cook the chicken is used to boil the orzo infusing so much flavour. Each and every little bit of orzo soaks up the flavours from the liquid.
- it’s delicious. (Yeah I said it twice but it deserves to be said twice!)
How to make Chicken Youvetsi in a pressure cooker
The version of Chicken Youvetsi I am sharing with you is a pressure cooker version I use to speed up the cooking process on a busy weeknight. It is an easy recipe that uses ingredients you probably have on hand already. Nothing too fancy here!
The steps involved are pretty simple and don’t require a lot of hands on time. I set the prep time for the recipe to 20 minutes only to account for the time needed for the pressure cooker valve to drop so it is safe to open. In reality, there is very little prep and hands-on time needed.
Steps for making this recipe:
- Salt and pepper the chicken. Add the olive oil to a pressure cooker and add the chicken and onion. Cook on medium heat to brown the chicken on all sides. Add the tomato sauce, water and cinnamon and secure the lid on the pressure cooker.
- Once the pressure cooker has reached desired pressure and is whistling, lower the stove temperature to medium low. Cook for 8 minutes. Turn off heat and allow the pressure cooker to cool.
- When it is safe to do so, remove the lid on the pressure cooker. [Note: Pressure cookers vary so be sure to follow the safety instructions for your own model]. Remove the chicken and set it aside. Bring the liquid to a boil and add the orzo pasta. Cook until the orzo is fully cooked, stirring often. As the orzo is cooking, most of the liquid will be absorbed. If the liquid is absorbed before the orzo is cooked, add hot water. Remove from heat. Taste and adjust seasoning if needed.
- Spoon orzo into dishes and top with chicken. Serve with shredded mitzithra cheese (or Parmesan cheese).
That’s it! I hope you enjoy this recipe!
-Cathy
You may also like:
Greek Lemon Chicken Soup (Avgolemono Soup)
Simple Beef Stroganoff
Slow Cooker Creamy Lemon Chicken Thighs
Oven Roasted Lemon Chicken Drumsticks
If you try and enjoy this recipe, I would love to hear about it! Leave a rating and/or comment below to let me know what you think!
Pressure-Cooker Chicken Youvetsi (Chicken and Orzo in Tomato Sauce)
Ingredients
- 8 chicken drumsticks or thighs
- 2 tablespoon olive oil
- 1 small onion finely chopped
- 1/2 jar tomato sauce (I use a simple homemade tomato sauce with tomato and basil)
- 2 1/2 cups water
- 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon powder
- salt and pepper
- 3 cups orzo pasta
- mitzithra cheese (or Parmesan cheese) to serve
Instructions
- Salt and pepper the chicken. Add the olive oil to a pressure cooker and add the chicken and onion. Cook on medium heat to brown the chicken on all sides. Add the tomato sauce, water and cinnamon and secure the lid on the pressure cooker.
- Once the pressure cooker has reached desired pressure and is whistling, lower the stove temperature to medium low. Cook for 8 minutes. Turn off heat and allow the pressure cooker to cool.
- When it is safe to do so, remove the lid on the pressure cooker. [Note: Pressure cookers vary so be sure to follow the safety instructions for your own model]. Remove the chicken and set it aside. Bring the liquid to a boil and add the orzo pasta. Cook until the orzo is fully cooked, stirring often. As the orzo is cooking, most of the liquid will be absorbed. If the liquid is absorbed before the orzo is cooked, add hot water. Remove from heat. Taste and adjust seasoning if needed.
- Spoon orzo into dishes and top with chicken. Serve with shredded mitzithra cheese (or Parmesan cheese).
Note: Metric ingredient measurements are provided as a courtesy using a third-party calculator and are rounded to the nearest unit. The recipes provided on this site have not been tested with metric measurements and their accuracy cannot be verified.
Nutrition
The nutritional information provided is based on third-party calculations and is an estimate only. Accurate nutritional facts will vary based on the particular brands used, portion sizes, measurement accuracy and more.
