Instant Pot Tomato Soup. Homemade tomato soup in under an hour, thanks to crushed tomatoes and a pressure cooker. Sauté an onion, carrot, and some garlic in butter, add some broth and crushed tomatoes, pressure cook for 15 minutes, then stir in some evaporated milk to add a creamy finish. This tomato soup is quick, simple, and fantastic.
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My wife is a huge tomato soup fan, and I didn't get it. I didn't like tomato soup, because all I had tried was the canned stuff. (It makes great modern art, though.)
Once I tried homemade, I understood. But, still, I wasn't the tomato soup connoisseur in the house, so I leaned on my wife's opinions a lot when taste testing this recipe.
And, I did a lot of taste testing, because, wow, are there a lot of different canned tomatoes out there. Whole, crushed, diced, or sauce? (Crushed, definitely). Fire roasted or plain? (Plain were better). With basil? (No, add minced fresh basil at the end). Add cream or evaporated milk? (Yes, and evaporated milk is better). In other words, we had many bowls of tomato soup to get this recipe tuned, and my wife enjoyed taste testing this recipe more than any I've made in a while.
Ingredients Notes
- Crushed Tomatoes: I prefer crushed tomatoes when making tomato soup in the Instant Pot. It's quicker - you don't have to break down whole tomatoes - and results in a thicker, more tomatoey soup than whole or diced tomatoes. Also, in spite of what's in the picture above, I preferred regular crushed tomatoes to fire roasted tomatoes or crushed tomatoes with basil. I thought the fire roasted tomatoes would add a smoky flavor, but the regular tomatoes were better, and the basil didn't add anything to the recipe. (Add some fresh basil if you want basil flavor - see below).
- Whole peeled tomatoes or diced tomatoes: Neither of these worked as well as crushed tomatoes - the soup came out watery. If they are all you have, they'll work in this recipe, but the soup will be thin.
- Onions and carrots: Sautéing the onions and carrots add sweetness to the soup, and the carrots help thicken it up. Don't skip them.
- Garlic: This is a simple soup, but I can't pass up adding just a hint of garlic to the recipe.
- Evaporated milk: Tomato soup can be a bit tart. Most recipes add cream, and some recipes even add a little bit of sugar, to balance out the acidic tomatoes. Cream works, but I'm borrowing a trick from Pam Anderson and using evaporated milk instead. Evaporated milk adds the creaminess of the cream, plus a hint of sweet, caramelized flavor from the evaporation process.
You can skip the evaporated milk (and cream) if you don't want it. - Kick up the heat: If you want some heat in your soup, add ¼ teaspoon of red pepper flakes with the garlic. If you want a lot of heat in your soup, add ¼ teaspoon ground cayenne pepper with the garlic.
- Vegetarian and/or vegan: Use olive oil instead of the butter. Use full-fat coconut milk to get the creamy mouth feel of the evaporated milk. (Oat milk is also OK, but avoid almond milk, because I've heard it separates under high heat).
How to make Instant Pot Tomato Soup in pictures
Sauté the aromatics
Sauté the onion, carrot, and garlic in butter until softened
Add the broth then the tomatoes
Stir the broth into the pot, then pour the crushed tomatoes over the top of the broth and (important) do not stir the tomatoes.
Pressure cook for 15 minutes
Pressure cook on high for 15 minutes with a quick pressure release.
Blend and serve
Add the evaporated milk and blend until smooth. Enjoy!
Adapted from: Pam Anderson, Creamy Tomato Soup with Italian Flavors
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Instant Pot Tomato Soup
- Total Time: 35 minutes
- Yield: 8 cups of soup 1x
Description
Homemade tomato soup in under an hour, thanks to crushed tomatoes and a pressure cooker. Sauté an onion, carrot, and some garlic in butter, add some broth and crushed tomatoes, pressure cook for 15 minutes, then stir in some evaporated milk to add a creamy finish. This tomato soup is quick, simple, and fantastic.
Ingredients
- 2 tablespoons butter (or vegetable oil)
- 1 medium onion, diced
- 1 medium carrot, peeled and diced
- ½ teaspoon fine sea salt
- 1 clove garlic, minced
- 2 cups chicken broth or vegetable broth (preferably homemade chicken broth or homemade vegetable broth)
- 1½ teaspoons fine sea salt (½ teaspoon if using store-bought broth)
- 2 - 28oz cans crushed tomatoes
- 1 teaspoon fresh ground black pepper
- ½ cup (4 ounces) evaporated milk (or use heavy cream)
- Minced fresh basil for garnish (optional)
Instructions
- Sauté the aromatics: Set the pressure cooker to sauté mode - high (medium-high heat for a stovetop PC), add the butter, and melt the butter. When the butter stops foaming, add the onion, carrot, and garlic, and sprinkle with ½ teaspoon of salt. Cook, stirring occasionally, until the onions soften and start to brown around the edges, about five minutes.
- Add the broth and then the tomatoes: Pour in the broth, and scrape the bottom of the pot with a flat-edged wooden spoon to loosen any browned bits of onion. Pour in the crushed tomatoes, but don't stir. (Again, don't stir the tomatoes into the broth, just pour them in. See the "burn warning" note below for more details).
- Pressure cook for 15 minutes on high with a Quick Release: Lock the lid, then cook on high pressure for 15 minutes in an Instant Pot or other electric PC, or for 12 minutes in a stovetop PC. (Use Manual, Pressure Cook, or Pressure Cook - Custom mode in an Instant Pot.) Quick release the pressure. Once the pressure has dropped, unlock the lid, tilting it away from you to avoid the hot steam.
- Blend and serve: Stir in the fresh ground black pepper and the evaporated milk (or cream). With an immersion blender, puree the soup in the Instant Pot, blending it until everything is smooth. (If you use a regular blender: work in batches, don't fill the blender more than half full, and hold the lid down with a towel as you blend.) Serve, optionally topping each bowl with a sprinkle of minced basil. Enjoy!
- Prep Time: 10 minutes
- Cook Time: 25 minutes
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Nutrition
- Serving Size: 1 cup
- Calories: 120
- Sugar: 10.1 g
- Sodium: 687.7 mg
- Fat: 4.1 g
- Carbohydrates: 18.8 g
- Fiber: 4 g
- Protein: 5.5 g
- Cholesterol: 7.6 mg
Tips and Tricks
Avoid the burn warning
Tomatoes have a tendency to burn in a pressure cooker - they sink to the bottom of the pot and scorch. That's why I add the broth first. The layer of broth between the heat and the tomatoes keeps them from burning.
Be careful! Hot soup in a blender!
There is a reason I break out my immersion blender to puree soups. I love my super-powered stand blender, but pureeing hot soup in a blender requires care, patience, and small batches. (I have had bad luck blending hot liquids.) I hate being patient - I am a pressure cooking guy after all - and eventually I overfill the blender. That's when an explosion of hot air shoots off the lid and sprays soup everywhere.
My immersion blender is the easy fix. No air pressure buildup, no extra cleaning, and I can blend right in my Instant Pot. And, as I bonus, I get to pretend I'm driving a motorboat; it's got that same sound to it.
Frequently Asked Questions
Do I have to blend the tomato soup?
No. If you like a more rustic soup, with bits of tomato, onion, and carrot in it, you can serve it without blending. Just stir the evaporated milk into the soup until it is
Can I use fresh tomatoes?
If you have fresh tomatoes, you can use them, but I get more consistent results with canned crushed tomatoes in my recipes, so I didn't test with fresh tomatoes. This is what I recommend if you want to use fresh tomatoes: Peel, seed, and core 4 pounds of fresh Roma tomatoes, and add them instead of the crushed tomatoes. Increase the pressure cooking time to 20 minutes at high pressure. Taste at the end and add a little more salt if you need it.completely mixed. (Use Roma tomatoes if at all possible, because they come out thick and saucy.)
Scaling
This recipe is easy to scale up and down. Double all the ingredients and it will just fit below the max fill line in a 6-quart pressure cooker. Cut all the ingredients in half and this recipe will fit in a 3-quart pressure cooker. (That said, you can use a bigger pressure cooker with this recipe - I made lots of half batches in my 6-quart Instant Pot during the recipe testing.) The cooking time does not change if you scale the recipe up or down; it takes the same amount of time to cook the soup no matter how much is in the pot.
Storage
This soup makes great leftovers. (My wife loves having 2-cup containers of this soup in the freezer, ready whenever she needs a quick, comforting meal). It will last in the refrigerator for a few days, or up to 6 months in the freezer.
What to Serve with Instant Pot Tomato Soup
This soup is the perfect thing to dip a grilled cheese sandwich into - they are a classic combination for a reason. Or, for grilled cheese croutons, make the sandwich, dice it up into small squares, and scatter them over the bowls of soup.
Soup, salad, and a loaf of bread is also great, if you don't want to go through the effort of grilled cheese sandwiches. (My wife's homemade bread in the pictures, and it was a fantastic pairing with the soup.)
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If you're looking for something else, here is my index of Instant Pot and Pressure Cooker Recipes.
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