Our Instant Pot chicken drumsticks recipe will get you perfectly cooked teriyaki chicken on your table in under 30 minutes, even if you are using frozen chicken!

These juicy chicken legs are so good!
You'll love our easy delicious version using just 3 simple ingredients, whether your drumsticks are fresh or frozen. Cook the legs in the pressure cooker, brush on your favorite teriyaki (or BBQ sauce), and broil them for 2-3 minutes to get that just off the grill char.
We recommend serving the chicken drumsticks with steamed broccoli, baked cauliflower mac and cheese, or white rice. So good!
Ingredients list
- Chicken legs - these are also called chicken drumsticks
- Liquid - chicken broth, apple juice, pineapple juice, or water
- Sauce - teriyaki or BBQ sauce are both great options
We let the liquid and sauce infuse flavor into the chicken and didn't add salt and pepper or seasoning other than that. You can sprinkle on other seasonings if you prefer.
How to make Instant Pot chicken legs
This is just a basic overview, get the full instructions in the recipe card.
Add 1 cup of liquid to your instant pot. Insert the rack.
Pressure cook- Add the chicken drumsticks. Pressure cook for 12 minutes, do a quick release of the remaining pressure.
Brush on sauce- Remove the chicken from the pressure cooker and place them in an oven-save dish. Brush on teriyaki sauce.
Broil (optional). Brush the drumsticks with your favorite teriyaki sauce, and broil them 2-3 minutes. This step is optional, but it adds a just charred or grilled look.
Serve and enjoy! Make a simple dinner and serve these with white rice, steamed broccoli, and pineapple.
Recipe notes
- For the liquid, you can basically use any kind like water, chicken broth, pineapple juice, apple juice, beer, or hard apple cider. When we add juice we typically split it 50/50 with broth or water.
- If you're using frozen chicken drumsticks, add 3-5 minutes of pressure cooking time.
- You can marinate the chicken in teriyaki sauce for 2+ hours if you have the time. This will infuse the teriyaki flavor deep inside the chicken!
- Use BBQ sauce in place of teriyaki for BBQ chicken drumsticks.
- Make these low carb by using a sugar-free sauce.
Using frozen chicken
Pre-frozen chicken legs that are frozen into individual pieces will give you the best results. If yours are one big block all stuck together, they WILL take longer to cook. An estimate is to open up the pot after 12 minutes, break the chicken apart, and then pressure cook them for 5 more minutes.
How do I double the recipe?
You can easily double the recipe by stacking defrosted chicken legs on top of each other. You will want to also increase the liquid to 1 ยฝ cups. We don't recommend doubling the recipe if you are cooking frozen chicken.
More Instant Pot chicken recipes
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Instant Pot Chicken Drumsticks (Fresh or Frozen)
Teriyaki chicken drumsticks in a pressure cooker that gets dinner on the table in less than 30 minutes, even with frozen chicken!
Ingredients
- 1 ยฝ lb chicken legs (5 drumsticks)
- 1 cup liquid (chicken broth, water, pineapple juice, apple juice)
- sauce - teriyaki or BBQ
Instructions
- Add the liquid to the bottom of the pot. When we're making teriyaki chicken legs we love to add 4 oz (ยฝ cup) of pineapple juice to the pot along with another ยฝ cup of water or chicken broth.
- Insert the trivet and place the drumsticks on top of that. Close the lid.
- Set to Manual (some models call this Pressure Cook) and cook on High for 12 minutes.
- Do a quick release and remove the chicken drumsticks from the pressure cooker and put them in an oven safe baking dish.
- Brush the meat on both sides with the sauce of your choice like teriyaki sauce.
- Broil for 2-3+ minutes with the pan 4" away from the heat source until the sauce is warm and has started to brown in places for that fresh "grilled" appearance. Brush the remaining sauce in the bottom of the pan over the chicken before serving.
Notes
- Add 3-5 minutes to the cooking time if your chicken is frozen, but only individually frozen legs will work for this recipe.
- Instead of using teriyaki sauce, BBQ sauce makes a great option too.
- Feel free to marinate the chicken in teriyaki sauce for 2+ hours if you have extra time for even more flavor.
- We didn't season the chicken but you can add salt and pepper, or a chicken dry rub if desired before cooking.
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Nutrition Information
Yield 5 Serving Size 1Amount Per Serving Calories 76Total Fat 2.5gTrans Fat 0gCarbohydrates 0gSugar 9gProtein 12.4g
The nutritional data is just for the chicken drumstick and does not include sauce. Please calculate that manually if you're on a restricted health plan.
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