Chicken Soup in the Instant Pot

Well, I decided to make a chicken soup in the Instant Pot. Usually I cook my soup for hours & hours on the stove & then some more! Lots of skimming & skimming…this is how my grandmother made her chicken soup & my mom & my sisters… but I have found a new way for me!!!! This soup was so delicious…full of flavour…Unless I am going to make a lot of chicken soup for a crowd, I am going to make my chicken soup in the Instant Pot from now on!! The final amount of soup that I got is exactly 8 cups which the amount of water I put in… no evaporation in the Instant Pot.

The soup was not ready to eat right out of the pot for me, I had to strain the soup. I used chicken carcasses so had t take them out of the soup & strain it. But otherwise the soup is delicious. Usually I use cut up chicken pieces… I think that I will use the bones from now on if I am using the Instant Pot since it worked so well, unless I want the meat from the boiled chicken. If I was going to use chicken pieces I think I would use about 2 legs & thighs attached. If you use too much chicken the pot will be too full & you would have to put less water in…

The colour of the soup is a beautiful rich yellow which I do not always get when cooking chicken soup on the stove

Here are the pluses I see to making chicken soup in the Instant Pot

1. No spill over of soup onto the stove!
2. No evaporation  (so the desire to add more water to the soup which waters down the flavour is gone)
3. There was some scum in the soup but not nearly as much as when it is cooked on the stove..so I only strained the soup once instead of a couple of times after it was finished cooking! Of course some people wouldn’t even strain the soup for this little amount of sum…but I heard my moms voice in my head telling me the soup should be crystal clear…so I strained it!
4. I put everything into the pot…turned it on & forgot about it!
5. As I stated above, the colour of the soup is beautiful

Here are some negatives…

1. The house did not smell like chicken soup & I love the wonderful smell of soup cooking…so I won’t use the instant pot if I am making the soup for a holiday…
2. The celery, onion got way too mushy to keep in the soup, but the carrots were ok…but my family likes the other vegetables…this is not a reason not to make the soup in the pot for me though…I could always cook up some celery & parsnips & add to the soup???
3. The amount of soup that can be made in the Instant Pot is not much, so for a crowd this would not work. If I need soup for more than 6 people I would make the soup on the stove

My conclusion …. when I making soup for just the family I will absolutely make it in the Instant Pot

Time wise it takes…time for the Instant Pot to come to pressure…then the time to cook the soup….then the time for the pot to de-pressureize naturally… total time maybe around 90 minutes…to 2 hours….

BEFORE USING THE INSTANT POT…READ THE INSTRUCTIONS COMPLETELY SO YOU UNDERSTAND HOW TO USE IT PROPERLY FOR YOUR SAFETY! 

Here is my recipe

Ingredients 

2 celery stalks

3 parsnips

5 carrots

1 onion

water,,, originally I had only 8 cups of water down for this recipe, but I now add water to to the max fill line … so I think it is about 12 cups of water…but the amount will depend on the size of your pot!

1/2 tsp pepper

2 tsp salt

1 kg ( 2 pkg) chicken bones/carcasses

Method

1. Take the lid off of the Instant Pot
2. Cut the celery, carrots & parsnips into pieces… I cut the celery into 1 1/2 inch chunks, the carrots on a diagonal about 1/4 inch thick & the parsnips into 2 inch pieces…I cut the thick ends of the parsnips into quarters first then into pieces
3. I put all of the vegetables into the pot of the Instant Pot
4. Now put the chicken carcasses into the pot
5. Then add water…*** UPDATE JULY 2018….I just made this soup & filled the inner pot up to the max fill line once all of the ingredients were in the pot… this make a nice amount of soup & it was still super tasty!
6. Add the salt & pepper
7. Close the lid according to manufacturers instructions
8. Plug the instant pot in!
9. Put the soup setting on for 30 minutes & that’s it!!!
10. I left the pot to de-pressurize naturally after the soup was done…. it took awhile but I just did other stuff & then when I thought about the soup again the little button was completely down & I knew it was ok to open the Instant Pot.  I did this so that I would know my soup was cooked completely…
11. So my manual says… Natural Release…continue cooking using the cookers residual heat & steam by pressing cancel & waiting for the pressure to come down unites own…this will take about 20 minutes… more if the cooker is very ful
12. BE VERY CAREFUL TAKING THE LID OFF…DO NOT TAKE IT OFF IF THE POT HAS NOT RELEASED THE PRESSURE…YOU COULD GET HURT..READ YOUR MANUAL BEFORE USING THE INSTANT POT SO YOU UNDERSTAND HOW TO USE IT SAFELY
13. Now, i took the bones out…& strained the soup through a cheese cloth into a soup pot… I only wanted the carrots in the soup I was going to serve, since the other vegetables were mushy… so I took out the carrots & rinsed them off & added them to the soup…
14. I served this soup with matza balls, but noodles would have been great too! ( I happened to have some frozen matza balls so I wanted to use them)
15. And that is it!

Enjoy!