Instant Pot Salsa Chicken with Cheesy Rice (instant pot mini recipe) (2024)

Instant Pot Salsa Chicken with Cheesy Rice is a quick one-pot meal in the Instant Pot mini!

This post has been sponsored by Kroger and Tillamook. All thoughts, opinions, photos and recipe are my own.

A few weeks ago, I had a ‘legenDAIRY' weekend in Detroit, and I’m finally sharing all of the details! If you followed along on my instagram, you saw so much good food, good friends, good co*cktails and good vibes. It was such a fun, refreshing weekend.

The trip was actually a party to celebrate the expansion of Tillamook products in select Kroger stores nationwide. I was invited because I’m a loyal Kroger shopper. I have a Kroger Marketplace near me, and it’s the only grocery store I’ve ever shopped at that always has everything I need.

Seriously, I’ve lived in 4 states in the last 6 years, and I’ve had to shop at multiple stores for years. But not anymore! And, I believe I was also invited because hidden cameras in Kroger captured just how many Tillamook products I buy on a weekly basis. (Just kidding about that one).

Anyway, a large group of super fun bloggersand I all gathered for the weekend party. Everything we ate was infused with Tillamook dairy products (from yogurt smoothie bowls, gougeres, ice cream, cheese boards, and even co*cktails).

Our weekend in Detroit:

On Friday, we all arrived and sat down to a dinner prepared by local chef Sarah Welch from the newly opened Detroit restaurant Marrow. She featured Tillamook Cheese and the best of local Detroit produce in every course, and it was amazing!

Her beef tartar with frites, quail egg, and Tillamook Cheddar gougeres stole my heart, but then she followed it with a dandelion salad, crab pasta, and mini cake bites with Tillamook Stumptown Coffee Ice Cream quenelles, and I basically had to be rolled home in a food coma.

After a quick sleep in the lovely Detroit Foundation Hotel (a former fire house converted into a beautifully modern hotel!), Liz pulled me out of bed for a morning yoga class. I’m so glad she did, because I needed to stretch my stomach to prepare for the day’s eats!

After yoga, we headed over to make smoothie bowls using Tillamook’s Farmstyle Yogurt, and Lena and I styled a pretty pink yogurt bowl topped with blueberries and chia seeds. And then we ate it up so fast, it was almost as if it never happened.

Then, the fun part began. You guys know I have a background in agriculture, yes? Kroger invited a Tillamook employee to teach us about their practices. Tillamook is a farmer-owneddairy co-op in Tillamook, Oregon that has been making exceptional dairy products since 1909. The dairy products are produced by nearly 100 farm families who run their farm according to high standards and produce high-quality rich milk. She taught us how to pull a cheese sample, and it was harder than it looked!
It was great to hear about how responsible the farms are managed and just how many quality control check points there are in the process.

Lunch was an epic cheeseboard display, where we all practiced styling a cheeseboard before consuming them. Such delicious work! My cheeseboard featured the Tillamook 3-year Aged White Cheddar, and it completely took my breath away with its complexity. I’ll be looking for that one in the stores!

For a fun afternoon break, we made custom candles and perfume at Detroit Rose, which I brought home for Camille. She’s very into lavender lately, and has her own little lavender bush in our garden right now that she sniffs daily. (Side note: I swear the lavender helps tame the terrible twos she’s going through right now, hah!)

Let me preface what happened next by saying I never expected 6 courses of delicious food with 6 perfectly paired co*cktails to land in front of me. The chef and mixologist at Grey Ghost served us the most delicious things!

I slept so well that night (equal parts amazing hotel bed and full stomach), and woke up to enjoy a final brunch with everyone. Just when we didn’t think we could eat anymore, brunch was perfection. I have to admit my favorite thing was the gochujong-spiced fruit! But, I did love the shakshuka and the pretty rhubarb bakewell tart!

Ok, that’s a lot of food, drink, and dairy products. Thanks for following along! Be sure to check your Kroger stores for new Tillamook products, and then let me know how much you guys love them!

If you have to pick, I would grab the Tillamook Farmstyle Cut Shredded Cheese blends, because you’ll notice immediately that their shredded cheese is a cut above the rest—the shreds are so much bigger and thicker with a better melt!

I made this Instant Pot Salsa Chicken with cheesy rice to test the melt on the Mexican blend, and I’m happy to report that it was incredible. I love using my instant pot mini to make one-pot meals like this, and the extra cheese at the end ensures my entire family (toddler included) will eat dinner!

And just in case you're looking for my collection of recipes for the instant pot mini, I've got you covered with more than just this instant pot salsa chicken. You would also like my instant pot chicken tacos, too!

Ways to use this Instant Pot Salsa Chicken:

-eat it plain in a bowl, topped with extra cheese, olives, and cilantro
-roll it in a tortilla, top with enchilada sauce and bake
-top with fried eggs for a savory brunch

If you make this instant pot salsa chicken with cheesy rice, let me know how it goes. Also, please tell me which salsa you used because I'm always looking for new ones to try! If you love salsa, you would like my mango habanero salsa!

Here's a quick video of the weekend: