Easy Instant Pot Minestrone

What’s more comforting than a steaming bowl of minestrone soup and crusty bread? This healthy Italian soup is made up of chunky vegetables, savory broth, and pasta, and it’s downright delicious! Alex and I realized 1. we love minestrone and 2. we didn’t have a recipe for this Italian soup using our pressure cooker. So, we set about to create the very best Instant Pot minestrone we could find. This one is chock full of all the best vegetables and teaming with flavor. Even better: you can top it with pesto for loads of savory flavor. Ready to get started?

How to make Instant Pot minestrone (basic steps)

First things first. Despite the branding of this pressure cooker, the Instant Pot does not make minestrone faster or easier than on the stovetop. It takes the same amount of time and effort as our Stovetop Minestrone Soup. Then why make it in the Instant Pot? Well, if you have a pressure cooker it’s a great way to use your favorite to make a healthy vegetarian meal! But even better: the Instant Pot replaces the need for a stovetop. So you don’t need a kitchen at all to make this minestrone soup: which is kind of amazing! It’s perfect if your kitchen is out of commission, you’re teaching a cooking class, etc. While it’s not quicker or easier than the standard way, it’s certainly still fun to use an Instant Pot to make soup! Here are the basic steps to make it.

Step 1: Prep the veggies.

You’ll dice an onion, chop carrots and celery, and chop zucchini. If you’d like, you can use 1 to 2 cups of any other veggie instead of the zucchini, since minestrone was originally intended to use up vegetables you had on hand.

Step 2: Saute mode: cook the onion, carrots & celery.

You’ll use Saute mode twice in this recipe. The first time is to soften the onion, carrots and celery and add flavor. It should be on the Medium setting, the default for Saute mode. (In Step 4, you’ll want it to be on Low.)

Step 3: Pressure cook 0 minutes, then quick release.

Add the zucchini, broth, tomatoes and spices and pressure cook. 0 minutes? Yes, this still cooks the soup because it cooks as the pot builds pressure. It takes about 15 minutes to build pressure.

Step 4: Saute mode: cook the pasta.

Then, you’ll use Saute mode again! This time it should be on the Low setting, because you don’t want it to boil too high. Add the beans and pasta. Then grate the garlic cloves into the broth (the pressure cooker dulls the flavor of garlic, so we add it at the end in our soups.) Cook for 8 to 10 minutes until the pasta is al dente. Stir in the baby greens and you’re done! Delicious Instant Pot minestrone: a fabulous healthy dinner.

Top with all the garnishes!

This Instant Pot minestrone is tasty as is, but it’s made even more delicious with various garnishes! Here’s what we recommend:

Finely chopped parsley (or other herbs). Sprinkling with herbs adds a fresh element. Other nice additions would be basil, thyme or oregano. Serving this way keeps it 100% plant based. Parmesan or Pecorino Romano cheese. Add a few shavings of Parmesan and it’s incredibly good. Even better, Pecorino Romano is sharper and even tastier.Basil pesto or vegan pesto. Serve this soup with pesto and it’s called Minestrone alla genovese. In Italian this means “minestrone soup from Genoa,” the capital of the region of Liguria Italy and where all the great pesto comes from! Alex and I love serving this one “alla genovese” because it adds incredible savory flavor.

What kind of Instant Pot to use?

The pressure cooker we used to test this recipe is the Instant Pot 6 Qt Pressure Cooker. But there are lots of great brands out there! If you’re using a different brand, you may find that the cook times are slightly different. With this soup, it shouldn’t be an issue since there aren’t tough vegetables like dried chickpeas or lentils.

Ways to make Instant Pot minestrone a meal

You’ll have two breaks in this Instant Pot minestrone recipe to make a side dish to go with the meal! Here are a few of our sides for soup that we recommend:

Crusty Bread Use either store bought or one of our Homemade Bread Recipes.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.Garlic Bread A total treat would be this easy garlic bread! It’s crunchy on top, chewy on the inside, and full of flavor: the perfect side for minestrone soup.

More Instant Pot soup recipes

Lastly: are you into Instant Pot soups? Alex and I love making pressure cooker recipes and providing them as resources for your kitchen. If you like this Instant Pot minestrone, we think you’ll love:

Best Ever Instant Pot Vegetarian Chili This really is the BEST, featuring two beans, lentils, and a robust flavor. (It’s vegan too.) Instant Pot Lentil Soup This ultra cozy soup stars fennel, fire roasted tomatoes, and lentils: it’s an easy vegetarian meal that everyone will love.Instant Pot Split Pea Soup The ultimate meal: it’s filling, plant based, and easy to make in a pressure cooker. It’s a tasty, healthy vegan dinner recipe.