Instant Pot Chicken and Frozen Dumplings (2024)

When you need a shortcut comfort food meal, Instant Pot chicken and frozen dumplings is just the ticket!

You’ll love how easy it is to make Instant Pot chicken and frozen dumplings, saving you time while still serving your family a delicious, soul-warming meal!

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Homemade chicken and dumplings are the perfect comfort food! Whether it’s a rainy day, a cold evening, or just one of those days when you want to be reminded of simpler times, chicken and dumplings are the ticket!

There are a lot of different ways to make this classic comfort food, but I think the best recipes for chicken and dumplings are the ones that are easy to make, yet fill you with warm memories.

My recipe for pressure cooker chicken and dumplings is a reader favorite around here, and for good reason! Tender from-scratch dumplings and chicken cook in the Instant Pot, making a savory and hearty meal.

But one of the most common questions I’ve received regarding that recipe is, “Can I use frozen dumplings in this recipe?”

So I decided to create this pressure cooker version that uses frozen dumplings, because I know you don’t always have time to make your own dumplings from scratch!

You might also like these shortcut recipes for Instant Pot chicken and dumplings with Bisquick and Instant Pot chicken and dumplings with canned biscuits!

If you don’t have an Instant Pot and you need a stovetop version, I’ve got you covered with my chicken and dumplings recipe using frozen dumplings.

How to Cook Chicken and Frozen Dumplings in a Pressure Cooker

To start, you’ll cut some chicken breasts into 2-3 pieces each, then place those pieces in the insert pot of your Instant Pot.

Add in some broken celery ribs and a chunk of onion, followed by the chicken broth.

Next, pour in the frozen dumplings. If you see any large clumps of dumplings stuck together, try to break them apart. Then, make sure the dumplings are mostly submerged in the broth.

Cook at high pressure for 5 minutes, followed by a natural release of pressure.

Once the pressure has released and the valve has dropped, you’ll carefully open the lid of the pressure cooker. Use some tongs to remove the chicken breasts to a cutting board.

Then, remove the celery and onion pieces and discard.

Whisk together some cornstarch and water to create a slurry. Stir that into the hot broth and use the Saute setting to simmer for a few minutes. The broth will thicken while you shred or chop the chicken.

Once you have the chicken shredded, return it to the pot and stir. Press the Cancel button to turn it off once the broth has thickened to a gravy-like consistency. Then and salt and pepper to taste.

Serve and enjoy!

What are the Best Frozen Dumplings?

I like to use Reames frozen dumplings, because they are very similar to the ones I make from scratch for my copycat Cracker Barrel chicken and dumplings, which are just so good!).

I also use their frozen noodles in my Instant Pot chicken and noodles recipe!

The Reames frozen dumplings can generally be found in the freezer section of the grocery store, near the frozen bread.

How to Reheat Leftover Chicken and Dumplings

To reheat leftovers, you’ll want to add a little bit of water or broth, as the dumplings will absorb some more of the liquid during refrigeration.

Simply mix in the additional liquid, then reheat the leftovers in the Instant Pot, microwave, or on the stove top.

How to Prevent Dumplings from Sticking Together

I have had a couple of readers tell me that their frozen dumplings have stuck together while making this recipe.

While that has not happened to me personally, and many people have successfully made this recipe without clumping issues, I wanted to give a few tips to help prevent clumping.

First of all, make sure your dumplings aren’t stuck together before you add them to the pot.

Sometimes frozen dumplings have a tendency to clump up in the bag, especially if they’ve partially thawed at some point and then re-frozen. So be sure to break them apart if needed.

Then, make sure you have a 12-ounce bag of frozen dumplings, not the 24-oz bag! Reames makes two sizes of bags, and you want the smaller bag.

If your dumplings are overcrowded in your Instant Pot, they will stick together.

If you are concerned about your dumplings clumping, I have an alternative method you can follow if you choose. Again, I have not had issues with the main recipe, but this is simply another way to go about cooking the dumplings.

After you’ve broken apart the dumplings, you can bring the broth, chicken, onion, and celery to a boil using the Saute function.

Drop the dumplings in, one or two at a time, on opposite sides of the pot. This will let them just start to cook on the outside, making it less likely they will stick together during pressure cooking.

Once the dumplings are in the pot, press Cancel to turn off the Saute mode, then program the pressure cooking mode.

Alternatively, you can simply pressure cook the chicken, broth, celery, and onion together, then use the Saute function to simmer the dumplings after pressure cooking, but that will take longer.

Notes and Adaptations:

• Feel free to add in veggies if you’d like! Frozen peas, carrots, or green beans make nice and easy additions to this recipe. If using vegetables, just add them with the other ingredients before cooking.
• Because the dumplings are frozen, it will take a little bit longer for the Instant Pot to achieve pressure. Mine took about 19 minutes.