Instant Pot Wild Rice Soup Recipe

Alex and I begrudgingly got an Instant Pot last year, but it’s actually become a well used tool in our house! Don’t get us wrong: it’s not magic. It doesn’t cook food in an instant. For example, this Instant Pot wild rice soup takes over 1 hour to make. Then why use a pressure cooker for soup at all? Well, it’s so, so delicious. It cooks dried white beans at the same time as the rice (wow!), and it’s hands off, for the most part. When I took the first bite after Alex created and made this recipe for me, I was blown away! It’s also vegan and vegetarian, so it’s all naturally creamy goodness. Keep reading for all the secrets to this Instant Pot wild rice soup recipe.

How to make wild rice soup in an Instant Pot

This wild rice soup recipe is a bit different than most. First of all, it’s made in a pressure cooker or Instant Pot! Alex and I wanted to try making Instant Pot soup. For our first recipe, we decided on wild rice soup because wild rice typically takes so long to cook on the stovetop. Also, we decided to create this wild rice soup without using meat or dairy, so it’s naturally creamy! Since then we’ve made lots of Instant Pot soup recipes, but this one remains a favorite! To make this wild rice soup recipe, you use the Saute mode on the Instant Pot. Saute up the onion, celery, carrot, garlic, and mushrooms, then add the remainder of the ingredients and pressure cook. And while the soup is cooking, some cashews are also left out to soak. Once the soup is done, you’ll blend together the cashews with some of the soup and some dried sage to create a naturally creamy base without cream. That makes this wild rice soup recipe vegan, vegetarian, and gluten free! Everyone we’ve served it to positively raves about it: it’s the perfect cozy fall dinner.

Why make Instant Pot soup?

The advantage of cooking this soup in an Instant Pot instead of the stovetop is that it’s totally hands off once the cooking starts. You can throw the soup in the pot and then go do other things, until your dinner is done! Because this recipe takes over 1 hour to make, we made the serving size large: it serves about 8. That way, you can have plenty for leftovers.

A wild rice soup with dried beans

For this wild rice soup recipe, we’ve used dried white beans in the Instant Pot. In a normal stovetop soup recipe, you would typically use canned or already cooked beans and add them to the soup. Because the wild rice takes so long to cook already, Alex decided to add dried white beans to this wild rice soup recipe because they’re cheaper and taste even better than canned. Beans cooked from dried often hold up better in soups as well. The white beans also add a filling protein to the soup.