These Instant Pot Honey Sesame Chicken Noodle Bowls will satisfy your cravings for takeout, and it's all ready within 20 minutes!
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Ingredients in Instant Pot noodles
The ingredients are pretty simple, and you likely already have them in your fridge and pantry!
Protein:
- Chicken Breast — diced
For the Sauce:
- Honey
- Soy Sauce
- Ginger
- Garlic
- Sriracha
- Sesame Oil
Veggies:
- Red and Yellow Bell Pepper — rough chopped
- Snap Peas
Noodles:
- Rice Noodles
- Water
Garnish:
- Scallions — sliced
- Sesame Seeds
How to make noodles in the Instant Pot
Believe it or not, these Instant Pot noodles are so easy to make, and come together in less than a half an hour! Talk about a perfect last minute dinner!
- Add the chicken and all of the sauce ingredients into the bottom of the Instant Pot.
- Place the rice noodles on top, just above the liquids.
- Set the Instant Pot to manual pressure cook, on high, for three minutes. It will take around 10 minutes to come to pressure, then pressure cook for three.
- Press the “cancel” button once the pressure cooking is complete. Carefully turn the knob to quick release the steam until the pressure button drops.
- Open the lid (do not attempt this before the pressure button drops!!) and stir in the snap peas and peppers.
- Replace the lid, and allow the mixture to sit for five minutes.
- Serve the noodles and sprinkle with scallions and sesame seeds. Enjoy!
Ingredient substitutions
If you don't have or don't want to use some of the ingredients as written, have no fear! This dish is super versatile and it's easy to swap things out. Here are some quick suggestions:
- Chicken — You can just as easily swap the chicken out for boneless pork chops, or go plant-based with some extra firm tofu or tempeh.
- Honey — If you want to avoid honey, switch it for agave or maple syrup. No syrup at all? Feel free to use brown or regular white sugar.
- Soy Sauce — If you need to avoid gluten, use tamari instead. And if you want to skip the soy, coconut aminos are a great choice!
- Sriracha — Any hot sauce will work here in a pinch: Texas Pete, Louisiana, or Mexican hot sauces are great. Or stay with the Asian flavors and use Korean gochujang.
- Sesame Oil — Avocado or grape seed oils are wonderful substitutes for sesame oil if you have to avoid it.
- Rice Noodles — You can use wheat noodles instead. Try angel hair, linguini, or fettuccini. If you use wheat noodles, you'll probably have better luck cooking and draining them separately before stirring in at the end, though.
- Bell Pepper — Try another veg that's a little sweet and pleasantly crunchy. Chunky chopped zucchini and yellow squash are great. Thick sliced sweet onions are also delicious!
- Snap Peas — Perfectly fresh chopped green beans make a wonderful sub for snap peas.
- Sesame Seeds — Allergic to sesame? Poppy seeds are a great replacement! You can also use roasted sunflower or pumpkin seeds for a nutty crunch.
- More Veggies — If you want to add more veggies, please do! Good choices include fresh broccoli, Brussels sprouts, chopped carrots, and spinach.
How to get the perfect noodles
Cooking the noodles in the Instant Pot this way does make them a bit soft, and lots of folks might prefer the noodles to have a bit more bite to them. If this is you, it's super easy to cook your noodles to perfection on the side:
- Boil water
- Add to noodles
- Soak for 1-2 minutes
- Drain
Tada! So easy!
Thickening the stir fry sauce
The sauce as written is pretty brothy, because that's how I like it. If you'd like it to be thicker though, there are a couple of ways you can do it:
- Add a tablespoon of cornstarch mixed with 1/4 cup of cold water or broth to the mix when it's finished. Turn on saute mode on low, and stir continually until the sauce thickens.
- After the noodles are finished, leave the lid off for a few minutes to let it dry out a bit.
- Stir in a few tablespoons of peanut or other seed/nut butter. The flavor goes really wonderfully in the dish and it makes the sauce so creamy.
What to serve with honey sesame noodles
These noodles are a great complete meal on their own, but serving with a fresh salad on the side is never a bad idea. Or, maybe an Asian side like hot and sour soup!
Storing & reheating
Portion out leftovers into some glass meal prep bowls and store in the fridge for up to 4-5 days. Reheat in the microwave for two minutes, stir, and then at one minute intervals with quick stirs between until it's your preferred temperature.
Can you freeze the noodles?
Yes, you can!
Rice noodles actually freeze super well! Just cook them a little underdone if you plan on freezing so they don't go mushy when you reheat.
Meal prep tools
- The Instant Pot DUO Plus 60
is the version I use in this recipe. - I use these Thai Kitchen Rice Noodles too
- This is the brand of tamari I like, and I love this low-sodium soy sauce
- Grab some Glass meal prep bowls for your leftovers.
- I get all my free-range chicken from Butcher Box
is the version I use in this recipe.
tooMore Instant Pot recipes
Instant Pot Honey Sesame Chicken Noodle Bowls
Ingredients
- 2 chicken breasts, diced
- 1/4 cup honey
- 1/4 cup low-sodium soy sauce or tamari
- 1 tbsp ginger
- 4 cloves garlic minced
- 1-2 tsp Sriracha
- 1 tbsp sesame oil
- 1/2 (454g) package rice noodles
- 1 1/2 cups water
- 1/2 each red and yellow pepper, chopped
- 1 cup snap peas
- 3 scallions, sliced
- 1 tbsp sesame seeds (for topping)
Instructions
- Add all ingredients except for snap peas, bell peppers, scallions and sesame seeds to Instant Pot. Leave noodles sitting on top of other ingredients just above the liquid. Set to manual and pressure cook on high for 3 minutes. Instant Pot will take about 10 minutes to pre-heat and then the 3 minutes to cook. When complete, press cancel and do a quick release of the steam, waiting until the pressure gauge drops back down and the lid is safe to open.
- Stir in snap peas and bell peppers, then place lid back on and let sit for 5 minutes. Serve and top with scallions and sesame seeds. Enjoy!
Video
Nutrition
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Tamara says
What modifications can I make to this to make it in a slow cooker? I really want to make this but I don’t own an instant pot.
Taylor Stinson says
Hi Tamara – unfortunately I have not tried it in a slow cooker myself so I don’t feel comfortable advising, and I’m not sure that it would work. My apologies!
Laura says
My husband and I proclaim this a Home Run! Excellent! Seeing comments about soupy/brothy noodles, I cut the water to 1 cup, but it turned out great so the additional water would not have been a problem. This is going into our regular circulation of heathy and flavor-packed quick dinners! Thank you for a great recipe!
It’s perfect as-is but I might mix it up next time with different veggies like mushrooms, water chestnuts, broccoli or baby corn.
Taylor T. says
Seems like an awesome recipe! Do you have to cook the chicken before?
Kara E. says
Great recipe! I need more recipes like this due to a variety of family allergies and this was perfect! I didn’t have to adapt the recipe to accommodate everyone’s diets. I added shredded carrots because I had them, and had to substitute red onion for the green onion. Even my 2 year old loved it!
Karen says
The rice noodles I buy come in packages that are 227g. The recipe says 1/2 (454g) package rice noodles.
Are you saying this calls for 1/2 of 454g OR is 1/2 of the package you buy 454g? I bought two boxes of 227 each to equal 454g. Do I use both boxes or half of that, which would be one box at 227g?
Taylor Stinson says
Hi Karen – it is half of a 454g package of rice noodles (that is the size I most frequently find). So your 227g package will work perfectly here, just use the one package 🙂
Phoebe says
My whole family loves this recipe. I’ve made it at least 10 times now. It’s so easy and delicious. I’ve made it in it’s original form and I’ve also swapped for what veggies I’ve had on hand. It works no matter what combination I’ve used.