Instant Pot Potato Soup
In the cold weather we eat a lot of soup. Soup is warm and filling and easy for me to make. Once in a while, when I haven’t planned a dinner and feel like making something, I have a few recipes I can turn to. One of these recipes is Instant Pot Potato Soup. I serve Instant Pot Potato Soup with a room temperature roasted vegetable as a finger food and we are all happy.
Usually, I have all the ingredients to make this soup in the house. I keep potatoes, bags of shredded cheese, precooked bacon packages, chicken broth, garlic, onion, butter, and milk well stocked here. This brings me a strange feeling of safety, since I can’t just run out to get groceries. I store one item that goes in this soup that I have not always been so very proud of. In fact, I keep canned cream of chicken soup in my cupboard. In the past, I made homemade cream of chicken soup if I needed it for something. Those days are long gone so I have had to resort to the canned version. You know what? It’s fine, and I can’t taste that kind of weird canned cream of something soup taste in this recipe. I have to make compromises these days.
I use the Instant Pot for this, but it could be easily made on the stove. When I am converting a stove top recipe to Instant Pot, I usually do about a third of the cooking time. So, if I were to convert this recipe back to a stove top recipe, the 10 minutes of pressure cook time would probably be about 30 minutes on the stove. My biggest choice is which vegetable I want to serve with Instant Pot Potato Soup. Tonight, I will roast some baby carrots and Brussel sprouts about an hour or two before the soup is ready and serve them on the side. Is it fancy, or what you would get with soup at a restaurant? Not exactly. What makes up for it is the joy of eating roasted vegetables with our fingers. Also, finger foods save me from washing forks.
Instant Pot Potato Soup
Ingredients
- 1 Tablespoon Butter
- 1 medium Onion chopped
- 3 cloves Garlic minced
- 12 slices PreCooked Bacon roughly
- 3 cups Chicken Broth
- 1 10-12 oz. can or carton Cream of Chicken Soup (there are organic brands on the market)
- 1 teaspoon Liquid Smoke (optional)
- 2.5 lbs. Russet Potatoes peeled and chopped into 1 inch cubes
- 1.5 teaspoons Kosher Salt
- 4 grinds Black Pepper
- 1 cup Milk
- 1 Tablespoon All Purpose Flour (For OPTION 1)
- 2.5 cups Shredded Cheddar Cheese (I prefer sharp or extra sharp for this
For Garnish
- Your choices of: Sliced Green Onions, Chives, and Shredded Cheddar
Instructions
- Add butter to the Instant Pot and turn on the sauté function to low. Once butter is melted, add in the onions, garlic, and precooked bacon and cook for 4-5 minutes until the onion is soft. Stir often.
- Add the chicken broth, cream of chicken soup, liquid smoke, potatoes, salt, and pepper to the pot, and stir well.
- Place the lid on the Instant Pot and turn the vent to Seal. Cook over Manual pressure for 10 minutes, then Quick release the pressure.
OPTION 1 FINISH (For slightly thinner broth, chunkier soup)
- While soup is cooking, stir the flour into the cup of milk to make a slurry. After quick release, set the pot to saute ,and add the slurry. Stir well. Bring to simmer, and let simmer for 1 minute stirring occasionally.
- Stir in the cheddar cheese, stirring until incorporated.
OPTION 2 FINISH (For thicker, less chunky soup)
- After the quick release, open the lid and stir in the milk. Turn the pot to sauté, and once the soup reaches a simmer, cook for 1 minute, stirring often.
- Partially puree the soup with an immersion blender just enough to thicken up the soup a little but leaving some chunks of potato.
- Stir in the cheddar cheese, stirring until incorporated.