Easy Recipe for a Hearty & Healthy Vegetarian Soup
Minestrone Soup is an Italian vegetable soup, traditionally made with root vegetables, like onions, celery, carrots, and vegetable stock, dried herbs, beans and tomatoes. It is mostly vegetarian and often includes a grain like rice or pasta.
This version of Instant Pot Minestrone Soup is one of easiest, tastiest and healthiest soups that you can make in a flash. It’s a great one-pot comfort meal for my family that is made gluten-free and healthier by adding quinoa instead of pasta! If you enjoy Minestrone soup, you will likely also enjoy this Pasta Fagioli soup.
30-Minute Dump-and-Start recipe
Instant Pot Minestrone Soup is part of my ‘dump-and-start’ instant pot pressure cooker meal series. This recipe is on rotation in my house for weeknight meals. All you have to do is add all ingredients to the Instant Pot or any electric pressure cooker. Close the lid and set a cook time. The pressure cooker does its magic, and in under 30 minutes you get a meal that tastes like its been simmering low and slow for hours. Check out more 30-minute Instant Pot Soup Recipes
Step by Step Instructions for Instant Pot
Step 1: Add olive oil and chopped carrots in the cooking pot. Step 2: Add chopped celery. Rinse and drain canned Northern beans and add them to the pot. Step 3: Add vegetable broth to the pot. Alternatively, add water. Add salt, Italian seasoning, black pepper, garlic powder and paprika to the pot. Step 4: Add chili garlic paste. Adjust the quantity based on personal preference. Add three tablespoons of tomato paste. You can also add canned diced tomatoes instead of tomato paste (about 1 cup). Step 5: Rinse quinoa in a sieve under running water, shake off the water and add it to the pot.
Why rinse Quinoa before cooking?
Quinoa is coated with a natural compound called saponin, which may cause a slight bitter taste after cooking. Rinsing it with water before cooking gets rid of that coating. That being said, if you’ve been enjoying the taste of quinoa without rinsing, you can skip it. Step 6: Close the lid. Set vent to Sealing mode (DUO models). Cook on Manual (high) for 3-4 minutes, depending on how you like your vegetables (I cook for 3 minutes). Wait for 5 minutes and release the pressure manually. To do this, turn vent to ‘Venting’ position in DUO models, or push down the pressure valve in ULTRA. Open the lid after the pin drops. Step 7: Stir in chopped spinach. The heat from the soup will wilt the spinach and bring everything together. Garnish with freshly grated parmesan cheese and enjoy!
Customize This Minestrone Soup Recipe
Veggies: You can easily customize this soup to your taste- I keep switching the veggies in this soup. Sometimes, I add chopped squash or pumpkin to this, and it tastes amazing.Beans: I prefer to use canned beans in Minestrone Soup, simply out of convenience. The time it takes for dry beans to cook is too long for the vegetables, so, if using dry beans, one has to make this a two-step cooking process- cook the beans first and then add the remaining ingredients.I personally like using organic Northern beans here, but you can use the beans of your choice, Kidney, Pinto or Cannellini Beans.Broth: I make this soup with low-sodium vegetable broth, but you can use regular broth or even chicken/Beef broth. You can add diced tomatoes to this soup. We prefer a slightly less tomatoey flavor, so adding tomato paste just works out great for us.Greens: You can use any dark leafy baby-greens instead of baby spinach in this recipe. Chopped baby kale would be a great addition here too. If using regular spinach or kale, add it along with other veggies.
Gluten-Free Minestrone Soup
Typically, this soup calls for a small pasta like small shells, ditalini or elbow macaroni. I substitute pasta with Quinoa. My family likes the taste of quinoa, it’s gluten-free, plus it bumps up the fiber and protein in the soup. Alternatively, you can even add Amaranth or wild rice instead.
Optional Variation
Sometimes, I like to add an extra, totally optional, ingredient in this soup towards the end. I add chopped, pre-cooked, chicken and jalapeño sausage from Trader Joe’s. The sausage is fully cooked, so it just needs to hang out in the soup for a few minutes and it absorbs the flavors of the soup and becomes really soft. My family loves the combination of this spicy sausage with Minestrone soup, but you can skip it and make it totally vegetarian.
Stove-top Recipe for Minestrone Soup
You can cook this soup on the stove-top too. Add all the ingredients in a soup pot, stir well, and cook covered on medium-high heat for 20-25 minutes, or till quinoa grains have sprouted. Follow the remaining instructions for garnish and enjoy!
Stove-top Pressure cooker (Hawkins/Prestige):
Follow all instructions and cook for 2 whistles in the pressure cooker. Wait 5 minutes and manually release pressure by carefully lifting the pressure weight.
📖 Recipe
