Instant Pot Minestrone

Instant Pot Minestrone. The classic vegetable soup with beans and pasta. A warming soup, ready in about an hour thanks to pressure cooking the (soaked) beans.

Minestrone is vegetable velcro. The Italian classic came from using up what was in season; start with a base of beans and pasta, and then throw whatever vegetables are available in the pot. Here is my late summer/early fall Instant Pot minestrone; tomatoes, summer squash, potatoes, and some cabbage fill out this warming soup.

Jump to:

• Ingredients
• How to make Instant Pot Minestrone
• Equipment
• Scaling
• Sorting Beans
• Substitutions
• How to Quick Soak Dried Beans in an Instant Pot
• Tips and Tricks
• What to serve with Instant Pot Minestrone
• Instant Pot Minestrone Recipe
• 💬 Comments

The key to this recipe is the beans and their broth; bean broth gives the soup body and depth. I usually cook dried beans without soaking, but not this time. I want to cook the beans and (most) of the vegetables together so the flavors have time to mingle. Cabbage and potatoes are sturdy vegetables, but even they can't stand up to the 30+ minutes under pressure that dried beans take to cook without soaking.
Unfortunately, there's a difference between wanting soaked beans and remembering to soak them. (I am an absent-minded cook.) When I forget to soak my beans overnight, I use this Instant Pot quick soak technique:

So, here it is, Instant Pot Minestrone. Enjoy!

Inspired by Lidia Bastianich's Minestrone Recipe.

Ingredients

Beans and Soaking

• 8 ounces dried Borlotti (cranberry) beans (or Cannellini beans, or Garbanzo beans, or a mix of all three), sorted and rinsed
• 2 teaspoons fine sea salt for soaking (optional, see instructions)
• 8 cups water

MINESTRONE SOUP

• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 4 ounces diced pancetta or bacon (optional)
• 1 large onion, peeled and chopped
• 1 large carrot, peeled and cut into ½-inch thick half-moons
• 1 stalk celery, peeled and chopped
• 3 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 teaspoon crushed red pepper
• 1 teaspoon Italian Seasoning (or dried basil)
• ½ teaspoon fine sea salt
• 8 cups water (or homemade vegetable broth)
• 14.5-ounce can of crushed tomatoes
• Large russet potato, peeled and cut into 1-inch cubes
• 1 cup shredded cabbage (about 2 ounces)
• 1 teaspoon fine sea salt
• 1 medium zucchini, trimmed and sliced into ½ inch moons
• 1 cup ditalini (or other small pasta)
• ½ teaspoon fresh ground black pepper
• 1 teaspoon balsamic vinegar (optional)
• Grated pecorino Romano cheese

How to make Instant Pot Minestrone

Sort and rinse the beans:

Sort the beans, discarding any stones, dirt, or broken beans. Rinse the beans. Then, do an overnight or quick soak:

Overnight soak

Cover the beans with 8 cups of water and sprinkle with the 2 teaspoons of salt. Leave the beans to soak for at least 8 hours or overnight. Drain the beans and set them aside.

OR: Pressure Quick Soak for 1 minute with a 30-minute rest

Put the beans, 8 cups of water, and 2 teaspoons of salt in an Instant Pot or other pressure cooker. Pressure cook at high pressure for 1 minute ("Manual" or "Pressure Cook" mode in an Instant Pot). Quick Release the pressure, then let the beans sit for 30 minutes. Drain the beans and set them aside.

Saute the pancetta and aromatics

Heat 2 tablespoons of olive oil in an Instant Pot set to Sauté mode, or use medium heat for any other pressure cooker. Add the pancetta, onions, carrots, celery, and garlic. Sprinkle with the crushed red pepper, Italian seasoning, and ½ teaspoon sea salt. Sauté until the onions soften, about 5 minutes, stirring and scraping the bottom of the pot occasionally with a flat-edged wooden spoon to make sure none of the onions are sticking.

Add the beans, broth, and vegetables

Stir the soaked beans into the pot. Pour in the vegetable broth, then add the crushed tomatoes, potatoes, cabbage, and a teaspoon of fine sea salt.

Pressure Cook for 15 minutes with a quick pressure release

Lock the lid on the pressure cooker. Pressure cook on high pressure for 15 minutes in an Instant Pot or another electric pressure cooker 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 in the pot.

Simmer the zucchini and pasta

Remove the lid carefully, opening it away from you – even when it's not under pressure, the steam in the cooker is very hot. Set the cooker to Sauté mode - high (or medium-high heat), cover (but don't lock the lid), and bring the pot to a boil. Stir the zucchini and pasta into the simmering pot and cook for 8 minutes or for the time listed on the pasta package. Stir in ½ teaspoon of fresh ground black pepper and (optionally) the balsamic vinegar. Sprinkle each bowl with some grated pecorino Romano, serve, and enjoy!

Equipment

• 6-quart pressure cooker
• Fine mesh strainer (for draining the beans)
• Flat edged wooden spoon (for scraping and stirring)

Scaling

This recipe scales down easily - cut everything in half if you don't need as many beans or have a 3-quart pressure cooker. Scaling up runs into space issues; if you have an 8-quart pressure cooker or larger, you can double this recipe, but it's too much to fit in a 6-quart pressure cooker.

Sorting Beans

Beans are an agricultural product, and stuff tends to creep in when processed. Beans should always be sorted before being used to remove twigs, stones, clumps of dirt, or broken beans. Then, they should be rinsed to remove any dirt still on the beans.
To sort the beans, I pour them out on one side of a rimmed baking sheet (a half-sheet pan) to keep the beans from escaping. Then I slowly run my fingers through the pile of beans, pulling them towards me on the sheet. I watch the beans as they move, looking for anything that doesn't seem right. If I see something, I poke around in the beans until I find what caught my eye and discard it. I repeat this several times until I'm satisfied everything is out of the beans.
Then I dump the beans into a fine mesh strainer and rinse them under cold running water to wash off any dirt or dust still on them.
Now, the beans are sorted, rinsed, and ready for soaking or cooking.

Substitutions

Vegetarian or Vegan version: Skip the pancetta, and this recipe is vegetarian. To make it vegan, also skip the pecorino Romano cheese.
Different beans: I like borlotti beans in this recipe; cannellini beans, kidney beans, and garbanzo beans (chickpeas) all make good substitutes. Even better is the "Italian bean mix" I can find occasionally at my local grocery store, which has all four beans listed above for a beautiful blend of beans.
Different vegetables: You can use whatever you have on hand in this soup. I divide them into two groups - the firm vegetables that need to be pressure cooked with the cabbage and potatoes, and the tender vegetables that need to be simmered with the zucchini and pasta.

• The firm group includes asparagus, green beans, turnips, winter squash, carrots, or peas.
• The tender group includes summer squash, or greens: kale, mustard greens, swiss chard, or spinach.

How to Quick Soak Dried Beans in an Instant Pot

Pressure cook the beans at High Pressure for one minute, then let them sit in the cooker for 30 minutes. (The pressure will come down naturally during that time.) At the end of the 30 minutes, the beans are soaked and ready for cooking.

Tips and Tricks

• Salt your bean water! "Salt toughens beans" is a myth. Salting before cooking helps season the beans all the way through as they cook.
• If your beans are still tough when the cooking time is over, especially any "floaters" at the top of the pot, stir the beans, lock the lid, and pressure cook for another five minutes. Older beans take longer to cook, and if the beans have been sitting on the shelf at your store for a while, they may need extra time. (Soaking or quick-soaking should help this, but I still occasionally get a batch of bad beans with some crunchy floaters left, even when all the other beans are cooked through.)
• Simmer to thicken: If you have the time and want thicker bean liquid, simmer the beans for 20 minutes after pressure cooking. I set my Instant Pot to Sauté mode adjusted to low, set the timer to 20 minutes, and leave the lid off to let the broth evaporate.
• What if I forgot to soak? If you forget to soak the beans, you can pressure cook them straight from dry beans. Sort and rinse the beans, then add the dry beans to the pot when the recipe calls for them. Increase the pressure cooking time to 35 minutes at high pressure, and use a Natural Release instead of a quick release.

What to serve with Instant Pot Minestrone

Minestrone is begging to be the main course in soup, salad, and bread combo dinner, especially if you have a loaf of rustic, crusty bread that you can slice up and serve with it.

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What do you think?

Questions? Other ideas? Leave them in the comments section below.

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