How to Cook Soup in an Instant Pot

Why soup is a natural fit

Soup plays to every strength the Instant Pot has. You can build the whole thing in one pot— brown the aromatics on Sauté, then pressure cook — so there is no second pan and no lost flavor. The sealed pot melds a soup that would need an hour of simmering in a fraction of the time, and because almost nothing evaporates under pressure, you keep all the liquid and all the flavor. Beans, tough vegetables and cheap cuts that normally need a long simmer soften fast. The few things to watch are what keep a good soup from becoming a Burn message or an overflow.

Build flavor first on Sauté

Do not skip the browning. Turn on Sauté, add a little oil, and cook your onions, garlic, celery or carrots until they soften and start to color, then stir in any tomato paste or spices to bloom them. This is where a soup gets its depth, and doing it in the same pot means all that fond stays in the dish. Deglazeafterward — pour in a splash of broth and scrape the browned bits off the bottom — because anything stuck to the base is what triggers the Burn sensor once the pot seals. Then add the rest of your broth, beans, grains or meat.

The two rules: fill line and liquid

Soup is mostly liquid, so mind the max-fill line— for anything that foams or expands, like beans, split peas or barley, stay at or below the two-thirds “PC max” mark, not the top line, or the froth can block the valve. Make sure there is enough thin liquidto build steam: a very thick, puréed or tomato-heavy mixture can scorch and Burn, so keep the base brothy going in and thicken it aftercooking. Lock the lid, set to Sealing, and pressure cook — most vegetable and bean soups need only 5–15 minutes, longer for tougher cuts of meat. Follow our cooking times for the ingredient that takes longest and let the quicker things ride along.

Add dairy, pasta and greens at the end

The last rule saves the finish. Dairy— cream, milk, cheese — can curdle or scorch under pressure, so stir it in after cooking, on Sauté or off the heat. Pasta and tender greensovercook to mush in the time a soup base needs, so add pasta for a short simmer on Sauté at the end, and stir spinach or kale through the residual heat until it wilts. If the soup is thinner than you want, simmer it down uncovered on Sauté; if it is too thick, loosen it with a little broth. Finish with acid — a squeeze of lemon or a splash of vinegar — and salt to taste.