Instant Pot Minestrone Soup

Soups are incredibly versatile. They can be light and refreshing for a springtime lunch or hearty and satisfying for a winter supper. They can be great to put in a jar and throw in your bag when you’re on the go, or you can spend hours simmering and concentrating their flavor. We love soups of all kinds, and we especially love making them in the Instant Pot. There’s nothing like the hands-off convenience of throwing everything into the pot, sealing it, and going about your business. If you’re a fan too, you’ll love our Instant Pot Minestrone Soup. Packed with vegetables and loaded with flavor, this soup comes together easily and is great for all ages. Don’t own an Instant Pot? No worries, we also include stove top directions.

Instant Pot Minestrone Soup ingredients 

Onion, garlic, celery, carrots, parsley, and canned diced tomatoes: these are the more traditional minestrone ingredients you’re familiar with, and they give this soup a delicious base of flavor. 

Zucchini, bell pepper, green beans, eggplant, potatoes, and garbanzo beans: these veggies are less traditional, but still super yummy. They also help pump up the nutrition. 

What’s not included: many traditional minestrones include pasta, but we’ve elected to turn the veggies up to 11 instead, which gives this soup the added benefit of being gluten-free. If you’re missing the starch, serve your soup over cooked pasta or brown rice for a super satisfying meal. 

How to make Instant Pot Minestrone Soup

First, prep and measure your ingredients. You can throw everything into the same large bowl as you prep to minimize cleanup.

Next, press the saute button on your Instant Pot and let the inner pot warm up for about two minutes. 

When it’s nice and hot, add all of the onion, garlic, zucchini, bell pepper, green beans, eggplant, celery, potato, parsley, garbanzo beans, tomatoes, basil, oregano, black pepper, and salt to the inner pot (all of the ingredients except for the water). 

Saute your veggies for about five minutes, stirring regularly and adding a small splash of water if things start to stick. This will be our only chance to add a bit of caramelization and brown the veggies, so don’t skip this step.

Once you’ve softened your veggies a bit, turn off the Instant Pot, add the water, and give everything a stir. Alternatively, if you’d like a deeper flavor, you can substitute oil-free veggie broth for the water.

Add your lid, lock into place, and be sure the steam nozzle is in the sealed position.

Use the manual setting (high pressure) and set the timer for 10 minutes. Use your downtime to read that book you’ve been meaning to finish.

Once the time is up, allow the pressure to dissipate while leaving the steam nozzle sealed, this is called the natural release method. After the pressure is released and the locking mechanism is disengaged, you can remove the lid.

If you’re serving immediately, ladle your desired amount of soup into bowls and enjoy! We like serving this soup with some toasted sprouted bread. 

If you’re planning on serving later in the week, allow the soup to cool completely before storing it in the fridge.  

Extra info and substitutions

Our Instant Pot Minestrone Soup recipe makes about six cups and will keep for up to five days when stored in an airtight container in the fridge. 

This recipe is absolutely full of veggies, so feel free to use pre-cut ones from the store if it makes things easier. No judgment!

Substitutions

This soup was originally created to use leftovers in Italian kitchens. It’s incredibly forgiving and flexible, so don’t be afraid to get creative. If you have lots of one thing and none of another, that’s cool! Use what’s leftover from your garden or co-op this week, or only purchase and use what’s on sale.

You can’t mess this up and dinner will be delicious no matter what. The only thing we recommend is that if you’re using canned vegetables (other than tomatoes) or very quick-cooking veggies (like corn), you may want to use the stove top method and add them towards the end of simmering. You got this!

Have you used this Instant Pot Minestrone Soup to absolutely slay weeknight dinners? Have you made creative substitutions and blown yourself away? Let us know in the comments below! We want to celebrate your plant based wins.

Here’s to dinners that are tasty and easy. 

Xo 
Team Dirty