SOUP-er Suppers:: 4 Instant Pot Soups to Try

We’re waist-deep in soup season, y’all, and I. am. here. for. it!

Most of our afternoons are spent on the tennis courts and it gets COLD! There’s nothing better than coming home to a hot bowl of soup especially after you’ve spent a couple of hours freezing outside!

I’m excited to share my family’s favorite soup recipes, but before I do, I have to give a huge shout out to our MVP of soup season…the Instant Pot (if I’m being honest, the Instant Pot is the star of my kitchen year-round, but I’ll save that for another day). I love it so much, I bought a second one…and an extra pot insert…and the accessories!

I tried to love the Crock-Pot for years and it just never did it for me. I cannot plan ahead 6-8 hours in advance for meals! With the Instant Pot, I can bring my kids home from school, and in the 30-minute window where they are grabbing a snack and changing clothes to head out to tennis, I can throw everything I need (including frozen chicken and dried beans that haven’t been soaked!) into the Instant Pot and dinner will be waiting for us when we get home! It’s amazing!! I will admit, it was a little intimidating at first. My best advice is to use recipes that are written specifically for the Instant Pot at first because they break everything down, step by step. Skinnytaste.com was my go-to until

I became a seasoned pro! She has a whole section dedicated to Instant Pot recipes. I have two 8 quart Instant Pots but they also sell smaller 6-quart ones if that’s too much real estate for your kitchen. But even if you’re not ready to take the Instant Pot plunge, these soup recipes, that can be made on the stovetop, are sure to be crowd-pleasers!

SOUP-er Supper Recipes

Minestrone – I feel so good about feeding my family this soup!  It’s packed with so many veggies and they all love it!  In fact, my oldest, Mia, has requested this soup for her birthday dinner for several years!  I take a couple of liberties with this recipe, so it’s not-quite-so-skinny once it hits the table, but it’s pretty darn close!  Rather than sautéing my veggies in pureed beans, I just sauté them in a little drizzle of extra virgin olive oil.  I also add a can of kidney beans because they are my family’s favorite.  Definitely don’t skip the parmesan cheese rind (I always keep a bag of them in the freezer!).  For a shortcut, I chop enough of the herbs I’ll need for 2-3 batches, then freeze them together.  The next time I make minestrone, I can just toss the frozen herbs in the pot!

Naughty Chicken Tortilla Soup OR Nice Chicken Enchilada Soup – Sometimes, you need full-on cream and fat! For those times, our favorite is Trisha Yearwood’s Chicken Tortilla Soup!  It’s delicious! The almost as good and so much better for you Skinnytaste Chicken Enchilada Soup is on regular rotation around here! The flavors of both of these soups are very similar and I follow the recipes exactly as they’re written.

Lasagna Soup – After my first spoonful of this soup, I decided I never needed to labor over a lasagna again (well, maybe sometimes I still do…sometimes…). It really does taste like a big bite of lasagna. The key is the cheesy topping. You need a generous dollop in your bowl!  I have followed this recipe exactly and it has turned out delicious. I have also made some modifications and they’ve also turned out delicious. Bottom line, there’s a lot of wiggle room with this one! The two modifications that have stuck in our house have been 1) I always add about half a bag of chopped spinach because I sneak in veggies wherever I can and you really cannot taste it and 2) I sub ground turkey and amp up the seasonings to about 1.5 times what it calls for to offset the lack of flavor (if you use beef, the seasoning is perfect).

Pozole Verde – We were so blown away by this soup, the first time I made it, my family asked me to make it again that very same week!  It has a lot of steps so it’s not one that I can whip together in 30 minutes, but it does keep well in the fridge if you make it over the weekend and then heat it up when you’re ready to serve.  I set up a toppings bar for this soup and was pleasantly surprised by how many extras both of my kids were adding to their bowls.  I set out all of the recommended toppings from the recipe: shredded cabbage, thinly sliced radishes, diced onions, chopped cilantro, avocado chunks, cotija cheese, lime wedges, and greek yogurt (in place of sour cream/Mexican crema).  We found that different combinations for toppings made this soup feel like we were eating different types of soups and they were all so good!

Note, not all of these recipes were written specifically for preparing in the Instant Pot so if you’re a newbie, you may want to stick to the ones that were. They’re all easy enough to adapt so once you feel comfortable with your new appliance, give them a go!

I’ve linked the Instant Pots here (8 quart) and here (6 quart).

Do you have a favorite soup recipe you’re enjoying this season? Let us know in the comments below!