Best Instant Pot Potato Soup No Cream

Ready for the coziest of Instant Pot recipes? Meet this Instant Pot potato soup. It’s velvety and creamy, with light chunks of potatoes for texture. It’s savory with a hint of Old Bay seasoning. There’s no heavy cream, and loaded with all the fixings, it’s a deliciously tasty healthy dinner idea. And did we mention you don’t even need a blender? Alex and I knew when we made our new favorite loaded potato soup that we’d need a version for the pressure cooker too! And are we glad we did! Here’s how to make it.

How to make Instant Pot potato soup: basic steps!

This Instant Pot potato soup is easy to make: it’s the perfect creamy, cozy pressure cooker soup to load up with toppings! Truly, I can’t think of anything more comforting. The nice thing about this one is that it’s a healthy spin too! It uses milk and a moderate amount of butter, instead of loads of cream like many recipes. In just a 10 minute cook time, the potatoes mash down into a beautiful puree using a potato masher. Here are the basic steps for how to make this recipe.

Step 1: Use Saute mode to cook shallots in butter.

First, you’ll use Saute mode on your Instant Pot to cook the shallots in butter. Tip: We usually set our Saute mode for 10 minutes: if you don’t set a time, it shuts off on its own. Cook those shallots until they’re tender but not yet browned. Your kitchen will smell amazing at this point! What are shallots? If you haven’t cooked with them before, they’re like a small onion. Their flavor is more delicate and mild, and they’re perfect for potato soup.

Step 2: Pressure cook on High with potatoes and broth for 10 minutes.

To those fragrant shallots and butter, add the peeled diced potatoes and vegetable broth. Then pressure cooker on High for 10 minutes. If you’re a seasoned pressure cooker pro, you’ll know it takes a few minutes to “preheat” the Instant Pot to come up to pressure. Here it takes about 10 minutes, making this step take about 20 minutes total.

Step 3: Quick release, add seasonings and flour, and stir! Then add milk & Saute for 2 minutes.

Do a quick release to release the steam from the Instant Pot. Here’s the fun part: whisk together flour with a little bit of broth. This will simulate a “roux” to thicken the soup. Add the flour, salt and Old Bay seasoning. Then here’s the important part! Stir stir stir until it’s creamy! The potatoes will be so tender that they will fall apart. Once they’re the texture of chunky mashed potatoes, stir in the milk. The very last step only takes a few minutes! Just turn back on Saute mode and heat the soup until it’s warmed through. And that’s it: the most delicious, creamy Instant Pot potato soup you’ll find!

Ways to top Instant Pot potato soup

The best part about Instant Pot potato soup? The toppings! Once you’ve made a batch, load with toppings and enjoy. Here are the toppings we used:

What kind of Instant Pot do you use?

The brand we use is an Instant Pot 6 Qt Pressure Cooker, so this recipe is customized to that pressure cooker! There are lots of other great brands, but we love this one and find it’s been very reliable. We also have 3 Instant Pot sealing rings: they can pick up the flavors of food, so we like having multiple ones and washing them as necessary. Looking for more? Try more of our Best Instant Pot Recipes!

How to make it a meal

So, what to serve with this Instant Pot potato soup to make it into a meal? Here are a few great sides to serve with potato soup we’d suggest:

Easy Arugula Salad Here’s the simplest salad you’ll ever make! This easy arugula salad is fool-proof: you don’t even need to make dressing. Make it while the soup cooks. The BEST Kale Salad This is the BEST way to eat kale! A dressing of lemon, garlic and Parmesan cheese transforms kale into tangy goodness in this Tuscan kale salad. Homemade Cornbread or Classic Cornbread Muffins This tender, moist homemade cornbread is easy to make and tastes like box mix, but 100 times tastier. We also have a vegan version.