Instant Pot Broccoli Cheese Soup: Gluten-Free, 30 Minutes, Vegetarian

This easy instant pot broccoli cheese soup recipe only takes about a half hour, has hearty vegetables to go along with the broccoli like onion and carrots, and tastes even better than you favorite restaurant’s version. It’s a gluten-free and meatless soup recipe that’s perfect for a chilly day or pairing with a salad or sandwich! This broccoli cheese soup also makes great leftovers, so you can enjoy it all week!

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Instant Pot Broccoli Cheese Soup Ingredients

You will first need to have all of your vegetables prepped. For the soup you will need a half cup of diced yellow onion, one and a half cup of matchstick carrots, and four cups of packed broccoli florets. For the broccoli florets, you’ll want to dice them pretty small so that they’re bite sized or smaller, and more like the restaurant type broccoli cheese soup!

For the soup you’ll also need a bit of minced garlic, butter, chicken broth, half and half and shredded cheese. For the shredded cheese, I do find that shredding block cheese to use works best because it seems to melt into the soup much better than the pre-shredded bags of cheese.

Then you’ll need a form of thickener, such as cornstarch, arrowroot flour, regular flour or 1:1 gluten-free flour. Any of them work and just depends on your preference and needs!

Step By Step Cooking Process

The first step in cooking broccoli cheese soup in the instant pot is setting it to sauté mode and adding the butter, minced onion and minced garlic. You will sauté these together until the onion is translucent and the garlic is fragrant, which will take about 3 minutes.

Next you will add in the spices, broccoli, carrots and chicken broth. Then you’ll place the instant pot lid on, set it to “sealing” and then set it for manual high pressure for 1 minute. Setting it for a cook time of 1 minute makes it so the broccoli cooks in the time it takes to come to pressure, and then you can do an immediate pressure release.

Right before it’s done, you should make your slurry by combining the thickener you’re opting to use with a few tablespoons of water in a small bowl or measuring cup. You’ll want to use a fork to stir it until the flour is completely dissolved in the water, and then you can pour that directly into the instant pot once you open the lid.

Place your instant pot back on sauté mode while you stir the thickener into the soup. Finally, pour in the half and half, and then add in the shredded cheese. Turn sauté mode off and just give everything a good stir until the cheese is fully melted and smooth. Take a taste and add any additional salt to your preferences.

Serving and Storing Your Broccoli Cheese Soup

You can serve your soup with extra shredded cheese on top, with crusty bread, oyster or saltine crackers, or croutons! Of course it’s great all on it’s own and doesn’t need anything extra. It pairs well with salad or a sandwich, but again it really can be eaten simply as it’s own meal.

To store your broccoli cheese soup from the instant pot, you will first want to allow it to cool completely. Then from there you can transfer it to individual storage containers or one large one, so long as they have air-tight containers.

Stovetop Cooking Instructions

If you’d rather make your broccoli cheese soup on the stovetop instead of in the instant pot, you will basically follow the same instructions but with a stock pot and a few minor changes! First, still sauté your butter, onions and garlic together for 3 minutes, over medium-high heat. Then you will add in all of the ingredients in step 2, and bring the soup to a boil.

Once it’s boiling, reduce the heat to medium-low, cover, and allow to simmer for about 10 minutes, or until broccoli and carrots are soft. At that point you will stir in your slurry to thicken the soup, and then stir in the half and half and cheese. Once it’s all incorporated together, remove it from the heat, add any salt as needed, and that’s it!

Other Meatless Recipes You’ll Love:

Meatless Mexican Stuffed Peppers

Blueberry Oatmeal Bake

Slow Cooker Vegetarian Minestrone Soup

3 Bean Vegetarian Chili

Creamy Vegetable Soup

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