Instant Pot Spicy Korean Chicken Stew

I really wanted Korean food the other day but I didn't feel like leaving the house, which happens. It was overcast, cold and dreary, I didn't have the car so that would also entail cramming my body onto the subway to go downtown...not today, Satan, not today.

Luckily, I keep a pretty full pantry of Korean ingredients and had a couple pounds of chicken thighs in the freezer. I decided I could manage throwing a coat on over my pjs for a quick trip to the fancy pants organic market on the corner for some vegetables if it meant that I was going to be able to whip up some Spicy Korean Chicken Stew (Dakdoritang)

Instead of the more traditional carrot, I threw in a sweet potato since they are both orange and added daikon because I like the texture and worked backwards on my math to adapt my regular recipe to the Instant Pot because not only did I not want to get dressed or leave the house, I also wanted it immediately.

The one major change was to skin and debone the chicken thighs. Normally, you would just chop the chicken thighs into smaller pieces and leave the skin and bone intact but I wanted to make sure that the vegetables didn't turn to mush in order to make sure the chicken was cooked and, let's face it, it's easier to eat when you are not wrestling with bits of bone.

All in all, I am very happy with the end result, it was done in under 20 minutes but tasted the same as the version that I simmer, stove top, for a couple of hours.
If you like your finished dish a bit more saucy, just add a bit more water but don't add more than 1 cup or the intense flavours will start to get diluted.

Oh, and don't get too hung up on the vegetable weights - I used 3 medium sized waxy potatoes, 1 medium sweet potato and a chunk of skinny daikon that was about the length of my sweet potato. It's a stew so you don't have to be as exact.

Instant Pot Spicy Korean Chicken Stew

serves 4

680-700g (1.5 lb)  boneless, skinless chicken thigh, cut into bite sized chunks
450 g (1lb) potatoes, peeled and cut into 2" chunks
375 g (3/4 lb) sweet potato, peeled and cut into 2" chunks
200g (1/2lb) daikon, peeled and cut into 2" chunks
1 onion, peeled and cut into 2" chunks

2 tbls Korean Chili Powder
3 tbls gochujang
1 tbls red miso
2 tbls rice wine
4 tbls soy sauce
1 tsp ginger, grated on a rasp
2 large cloves garlic, grated on a rasp

1/2 cup water, dashi or chicken broth (up to 1 cup if you want it more saucy)

3 green onions, sliced (save one for garnish)
2 tsp sesame seeds (I used both white and black) with a bit more for garnish


Mix all of the sauce ingredients together in a bowl big enough to hold the chicken. If your gochujang is stiff from the fridge, put it in the microwave for 30 seconds to soften it up so that you can easily stir it all together. Add the chicken and stir to coat well and marinate for a few minutes while you get everything else ready but even longer is better. If you are going to let it marinate more than about 15 or 20 minutes, throw it in the fridge.

Pour the water/dashi or chicken broth into your inner pot, throw in your cut up vegetables and the scrape in your chicken and sauce but let it sit on top - don't stir it all together. Trust me, when it's done, it will be combined.

Set the timer to 10 minutes at high pressure. When the time is up, give it a 10 minute NPR before you manually release the rest of the pressure and open up the lid. Add in the sesame seeds and 2 sliced scallions and give it a good stir which will wilt the scallions and serve it with a pinch of sesame seed and some sliced scallion on top, either on it's own, over rice or even noodles.