20 Minute Whole Chicken

Name: 20 Minute Whole Chicken | Slimming & Weight Watchers Friendly
Prep time: 10 min
Cook time: 20 min
Total time: 30 min
Ingredients: 1 whole chicken (see above for cooking times); 1 onion (cut into slices); 1 potato (peeled and sliced); 1 carrot (peeled and sliced); 1 stick celery (chopped roughly); 3 cloves garlic (peeled); low calorie cooking spray; 1 tbsp thyme; 2 tbsp paprika; the zest of 1 lemon (reserve the juice for the stock); sea salt; freshly ground black pepper; the juice of 1 lemon (use the zest for the rub); 1 chicken stock cube (made up with 400ml / 1½ cups of boiling water)

10MINS
20MINS
Serves 4
411KCAL

If you’ve got an electric pressure cooker then you should try this slimming friendly 20 Minute Whole Chicken – low in Points and calories!

Also in these categories:

Easy Peasy

NutritionPer Serving

Calories411
Carbs46g
Protein23g
Fat17g
Saturates4g
Sugars10g

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For the full list of ingredients and comprehensive instructions, please see the recipe card below. Before you scroll, there’s important stuff in the blurb!

There’s nothing better than a roast chicken as part of a traditional Sunday lunch or just as great source of lean protein to last you all week!

Our 20 Minute Whole Chicken saves you spending hours in the kitchen, plus cooking a chicken whole is much more cost-effective than buying pre-prepared chicken portions.

A pressure cooker is required for this recipe as it’s that which makes the cooking time so short. The vegetables that the chicken sits on really helps to boost the flavour of the stock and keeps the chicken off the bottom of the pressure cooker. They’re not intended to be eaten so don’t worry if it doesn’t look like you have enough veg for 4 portions!

What diets is this 20 Minute Whole Chicken recipe suitable for?

This 20 Minute Whole Chicken recipe is suitable for dairy free diets.

It can be made gluten free as long as you swap out the following ingredients for gluten free versions;

Chicken stock cube

Please make sure to double or triple check all of your ingredients if you’re cooking for people with allergies.

Do you need any special ingredients to make this 20 Minute Whole Chicken?

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Instant Pot

If you’ve never heard of the Instant Pot you really should go and check it out over on Amazon.

It’s like a slow cooker/pressure cooker hybrid, and it’s probably one of our favourite and most used kitchen gadgets. It makes cooking this 20 Minute Whole Chicken SO much easier.

If you are going to use the stock from the chicken, we suggest using a fat separator to skim off any excess fat.

Ensuring your chicken is properly cooked is very important before serving. You can do this with a food and meat thermometer.

Hints & Tips

Below we added some of our communities most common hints and tips. We hope you find them useful.

Quick, easy and convenient

Will defo be doing it this way again!

I used my air fryer for the crispness

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This post contains affiliate links: what this means

You can pick up an Instant Pot on Amazon.

You can buy a fat separator from Amazon.

You can also cook this in a slow cooker. You can pick up slow cookers in most large supermarkets, or online from Amazon.

You can pick up a food and meat thermometer like this one from Amazon.

How many calories are in this 20 Minute Whole Chicken?

There are 411 calories per portion in this 20 Minute Whole Chicken, which means it falls into our Weekly Indulgence category.

You could also cut the portion size in half, and serve it with an extra vegetable accompaniment to cut the amount of calories down!

This 20 Minute Whole Chicken is perfect if you’re following a calorie controlled diet and fits well with any one of the major diet plans such as Weight Watchers.

As a guide, an average man needs around 2,500kcal (10,500kJ) a day to maintain a healthy body weight. For an average woman, that figure is around 2,000kcal (8,400kJ) a day. Obviously, if your goal is to lose weight then you might want to adjust these slightly! You can read more about these recommendations on the NHS website.

In the Instant Pot pressure cooker

Step 1

Mix all the seasoning ingredients together, then rub all over the chicken. Lift the skin up on the breast and rub some seasoning between the skin and the breast.

Step 2

Put left over lemon (after zesting and squeezing) in the cavity.

Step 3

Put the Instant Pot into Sauté, spray with some low calorie cooking spray, then brown the chicken on all sides. A couple of minutes on each side should be enough to colour it.

Step 4

Take the chicken out and turn off Instant Pot.

Step 5

Add a bit of the stock to the pot, and make sure to scrape any bits that may be stuck to the bottom of the pot. If you don’t do this the Instant Pot won’t come to pressure.

Step 6

To add flavour to the chicken, place the garlic, onion, potato, celery and carrots on the bottom – pour in the stock and lemon juice.

Step 7

Place the chicken on top.

Step 8

Put the lid on the Instant Pot with the valve set to sealing – cook on Manual for 20 minutes for a small chicken, 25 minutes for a medium 30 minutes for a large.

Step 9

Let the pressure release naturally (aka NPR) then take out the chicken and let rest for 5 minutes before taking the skin off.

Step 10

If you wish to use the juice that comes from the chicken, make sure to skim off the fat or use a fat separator and blitz to make a jus. Or, if you prefer a thicker sauce, blitz the juice with the discarded, cooked vegetables.