Sometimes you just want something tasty that’s easy and will leave some leftovers — maybe even something that doubles as an easy meal train dish, if it’s that time in your friends’ lives for births, deaths or surgeries.

Chicken chili verde fits the bill and checks a box for using the cheapest cut of meat available, the chicken leg quarter (the thigh still attached to the drumstick, with a little meat from the back).

This recipe is done in an electric pressure cooker (for me, an InstantPot), although a regular pres-sure cooker works just as well.

Did I mention this is a one-pot dump recipe? It checks all the boxes.

Here’s the basic premise: You dump all the ingredients in the pressure cooker, get them up to sizzling, seal the lid and let them cook for 15 minutes.

Normally with an electric pressure cooker, extra liquid is needed to get it to steam, which gets it up to pressure. With this recipe, the tomatillos, chicken and peppers give up their water, leaving you with a nice stew and allowing the pressure cooker to easily come up to pressure.

When hunting for a recipe, I immediately searched for Kenji Lopez-Alt, as I’ve had good luck with his recipes in the past, and I was not let down.

His is perhaps the easiest of the one-pot dump recipes I’ve seen with in a long time. While I often think of dump or one-pot recipes as a gimmick, or not truly one pot, this one is.

In addition to the regulars, the onion and green chiles, Poblano peppers, tomatillos, cumin, garlic, etc., this recipe has one of my favorite add-ins: fish sauce.

The stew doesn’t taste like fish sauce or have a fishy taste, but rather, the salty condiment gives it a depth of flavor, that savory umami taste.

While this is a one pot/dump recipe, there is one caveat: you need to get out the immersion blender or dump the contents of the stew without the chicken into a blender. All those onions, tomatillos and peppers get turned into a nice green stew base through lots of blending.

The other less pleasant part of this recipe is dealing with the bone-in chicken. Certainly, you can use boneless chicken thighs, but for me, the cheapest, easiest and most flavorful way was to use bone-in chicken quarters, usually the cheapest cut of meat in the store.

Once the stew is done pressure cooking, you must take out the chicken and remove the meat from the bones (and chop it into bite-sized pieces). This is the most strenuous part of the recipe. If you’re pinched for time, I suggest wearing thick gloves, like dishwashing gloves, to protect your hands from the hot meat. Otherwise, remove the chicken and let it cool for a few minutes before removing the meat from the bones.

This can be served with rice, tortillas or by itself.

Pressure cooker chicken chili verde

Ingredients

3-4 pounds bone-in, skin-on chicken thighs and drumsticks (3-4 chicken leg quarters)

1 lb. poblano peppers, chopped, seeds and stems discarded

12 oz. tomatillos, husks removed and cut into quarters

1 white onion, chopped

6 green chiles, chopped, seeds and stems removed

2 jalapeno (hot) or Serrano (hotter) chiles, stems removed

6 cloves of garlic, peeled

1 tbsp. cumin seeds, toasted and ground (or ground cumin)

Salt to taste

½ cup cilantro

1 tbsp. fish sauce

Lime wedges for serving

Tortillas or rice for serving

Directions

Chop all the vegetables, and quarter the tomatillos

Put the peppers, tomatillos, chicken, garlic, cumin and a big pinch of salt into the pressure cooker. Put it on sauté, or high heat, until it starts to sizzle. Seal the pressure cooker and set for 15 minutes on high pressure.

Allow at least 10 minutes after the pressure cooker has finished before releasing the pressure.

With a pair of tongs, remove the chicken to a bowl or plate.

Add the fish sauce and chopped cilantro to the pot and use an immersion blender to blend. Add salt to taste. This can also be done in a regular blender.

Remove the meat from the bones and discard them. Chop the chicken into bite-size pieces. Return the chicken to the pot.

Serve with lime wedges and rice or tortillas.

Recipe from Kenji Lopez-Alt/Serious Eats