Oddly enough, this chicken recipe was born from a batch of French macarons. I know, how could it be? It turns out that I made a filling for macarons using white chocolate ganache and sour cherry jam. Quite a bit of jam was left in the jar, and I knew it would sit in the fridge at the risk of being forgotten. Why not put it to use in a savory recipe? I adapted bits from a few cookbooks, and came up with a pressure cooker version for chicken thighs that had some sweetness, some spice, some sourness, and what I love the most: that falling-apart texture. I hope you give it a try.
CHERRY CHIPOTLE SHREDDED CHICKEN
(from the Bewitching Kitchen, adapted from several sources)
One 28-ounce can whole tomatoes
1/2 cup sour cherry jam
¼ cup packed dark brown sugar
2 tablespoons red wine vinegar
1 tsp salt
1 canned chipotle in adobo sauce, stemmed, seeded, and minced
1 tablespoons paprika
1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
¼ teaspoon ground cinnamon
¼ teaspoon ground cloves
3 pounds boneless skinless chicken thighs, trimmed
Place the tomatoes, jam, brown sugar, vinegar, salt, chipotle, paprika, Worcestershire sauce, cinnamon, and cloves in a blender. Blend and pour the smooth sauce in a pressure cooker.
Add the boneless chicken thighs, whole. Close the pressure cooker (or Instant Pot) and bring to full pressure. Cook for 20 minutes, release the pressure manually, and remove the chicken pieces to a cutting board. Shred the meat with two forks (it should be very tender).
Add the shredded meat back to the sauce, heat gently for a few minutes, adjust seasoning (you may need a bit more salt). Serve over rice or the side dish of your choice. Also great as a filling for fajitas.
ENJOY!
to print the recipe, click here
Comments: As a good Brazilian-American, I use my pressure cooker all year, but of course now that the temperature outside starts to fall down, this type of comfort food shows up more often in our menu. On weeknights, the pressure cooker is the best tool to have a meal with that aura of hours and hours in the making, materialize in the blink of an eye. Well, a few blinks. Not that many, though.
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Bewitching Kitchen 
Mmmmm. My first thought, not surprisingly, was to pair the sour cherry jam with cheese. But yes, this is a spectacular idea, to create a BBQ sauce with chipotle and cherry. If you sold it, you could charge some big money for it! Nice to see you doing something besides FINE PASTRIES! Have a fabulous Thanksgiving week.
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I post about 50/50 these days, but I get a lot more “blog love” from dessert and bread than regular cooking. It does make it less fun to talk about savory stuff, but I like to cover everything that happens in the kitchen, and there is a lot of dinners prepared 😜
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I get it. I follow lots of baking blogs, but not because I’m going to attempt anything. I can bake yeasted breads in my sleep, but I remember my kids being so mad cause my cookies never even came out well. Quick breads were easy; you don’t really need a recipe. But beyond that? No thanks. And sweets aren’t my thing, anyway. I prefer just about everything in the savory department!
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I bought a certain rolling pin for Polish cookies influenced by your beautiful production of years ago… so I am not sure you are really that bad in the cookies department… I am not buying that… 😉 I understand you might now enjoy the process that much, but you are pretty darn good at it.
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Wow this sounds delicious…although I must confess if I had leftover sour cherry jam in a jar I would commence to eat it with a spoon right from the jar as I am addicted to it 😉 I will be trying this though…thank you and Happy Thanksgiving Sally ❤️
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Happy Thanksgiving to you! Hope it is full of love, family, good food….
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Whenever I think a certain main ingredient cannot possibly be treated in a new way – you manage it 🙂 ! To combine tomatoes, chipotles and cherry jam takes a certain innovative mind I lack 🙂 ! But shall certainly try soonest ! Methinks I can taste it now . . . perhaps over hockier or udon noodles . . . and as far as sweet v savoury is concerned inevitably I am just an appreciative onlooker on the sweet side . . .
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it’s kind of a departure on regular barbecue sauces… but I must say I was pretty happy with the way this turned out – maybe could be tweaked here and there mainly with different vinegars and perhaps the amount and type of sugar (not adding more, I think the jam is sweet enough), but maybe a different kind of sugar can bring something else to this party
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This! I love how you repurposed the cherry jam! Everything in this chicken sounds amazing.
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I hope you try it, I think your whole family might fall in love with this one…
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I love the idea of this, I’ve seen grape jelly used in a BBQ sauce but I think I might like the cherry jam better. I do enjoy reading all your fabulous dessert recipes but savory is much more my thing. Have a wonderful Thanksgiving.
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This sounds quite unique 👌
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