Instant Pot Chicken Soup With Rice (From Scratch)

Instant Pot Chicken Soup With Rice (From Scratch) - Cooking once, cooking twice, cooking chicken soup with rice in a pressure cooker.

Chicken Soup with Rice is a comfort food for my family. Growing up, I read a lot of Maurice Sendak, and my wife listened to a lot of Carole King. We want a comforting soup when we're fighting a cold.

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• INGREDIENTS
• How to make chicken and rice soup in an Instant Pot
• Make Ahead Broth
• Tips and Tricks
• Instant Pot Chicken Soup With Rice Recipe
• What do you think?
• 💬 Comments

Cooking once, cooking twice, pressure cooking chicken soup with rice.

Apologies to Maurice Sendak and Carole King.

Chicken broth was my entry to pressure cooking - once I learned how good it was and how quick it was to make, I could never go back to the boxes on the grocery store shelf. Three pounds of bony chicken pieces - I use chicken backs because my grocery store stocks them cheap - an onion, some (optional) carrot and celery, and a bay leaf. Cover with water, pressure cook for 60 minutes, strain, and you have a flavorful chicken broth that is much better than store-bought. I use it in all sorts of recipes, like my Instant Pot Rotisserie Chicken Noodle Soup Recipe .

INGREDIENTS

Chicken Broth (Makes about 3 quarts of broth)

• 3 pounds chicken backs (or the carcasses from 2 roasted chickens)
• 1 medium onion, peeled and halved
• 1 rib of celery, broken into pieces
• 1 carrot, scrubbed and broken into pieces
• 1 bay leaf
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 8 cups of water (or to cover or to the max fill line of the PC)

Chicken Soup with Rice

• 1 tablespoon vegetable oil or olive oil
• 1 medium onion, chopped
• 1 rib celery, chopped
• 1 carrot, peeled and chopped
• ½ teaspoon fine sea salt
• ½ teaspoon dried thyme
• 1 pound boneless skinless chicken breasts, cut into 1-inch cubes
• ½ cup white rice
• 8 cups of Chicken Bone Broth (from above)
• 1 ½ teaspoons fine sea salt
• ½ teaspoon fresh ground black pepper
• Minced fresh parsley for garnish

How to make chicken and rice soup in an Instant Pot

Pressure cook the broth for 60 minutes

(See my Instant Pot Chicken Broth for a detailed recipe.)
Add the chicken backs, onion, celery, carrot, bay leaf, and salt to an Instant Pot or other pressure cooker, then add the water. (It should cover the chicken backs - if it doesn't, add water to cover or up to the max fill line on the pressure cooker). Lock the lid and pressure cook on high pressure for 60 minutes in an Instant Pot (or other electric pressure cooker) or 50 minutes in a stovetop PC. Let the pressure come down naturally – about 30 minutes. (It takes a long time for all that water to cool off. If you're in a hurry, let the pressure come down for at least 20 minutes, then quick release any remaining pressure.) Scoop the bones and vegetables out of the pot with a slotted spoon and discard. Strain the broth through a fine mesh strainer and discard the solids. Reserve 8 cups of broth for the soup, and refrigerate or freeze the rest for another use.

Sauté the aromatics

Wipe out the pressure cooker pot liner, then put it back in the pressure cooker base. Add the vegetable oil and heat over sauté mode - medium until shimmering, about 3 minutes. (Use medium heat for a stovetop PC.) Add the onion, celery, and carrot, and sprinkle with ½ teaspoon of salt and the thyme. Sauté, stirring occasionally, until the onions soften and turn translucent, about 5 minutes. Stir in the cubed chicken breast, then stir in the rice.

Pressure cook the soup for 4 minutes with a 10-minute Natural Release

Add the 8 cups of chicken broth to the pot, lock the lid on the pot, and pressure cook for 4 minutes on high pressure (use the same timing for both electric and stovetop PCs). Let the pressure come down naturally for 10 minutes, then quick release the rest. (If the released steam starts to sputter and spit out starch, shut the valve and let the pressure come down for another 5 minutes before quickly releasing again.)

Season and serve

Unlock the lid on the pressure cooker, and stir in 1½ teaspoons of salt and the fresh ground pepper. Serve and enjoy!

Make Ahead Broth

I show how to make the broth as part of the recipe, but I usually make it ahead of time and freeze it in 2-cup containers. (I use both pint canning jars and 2-cup storage containers.) When I need a quick weeknight soup, I skip the "make the broth step" by pulling jars of broth out of my freezer.

Tips and Tricks

• ½ cup of uncooked rice will not look like much, but it will expand a lot. Rice absorbs a remarkable amount of liquid. Don't add more, or you will wind up with more of a rice stew than a soup. The first few times I made this recipe, I used 1 cup of rice to 8 cups of chicken broth, and while it looked OK coming out of the pressure cooker, by the time I served dinner, it was a rice stew, not a soup.
• If you have leftovers from 2 roasted chickens, use the bones to make the broth and about 2 cups of shredded chicken instead of the raw chicken breast.
• If you insist on using store-bought chicken broth, substitute 2 quarts of reduced sodium broth for the 8 cups of homemade broth. But please try the homemade broth at least once. You won't go back to store-bought.
• Brown rice: You can substitute brown rice for the white rice, but increase the pressure cooking time to 20 minutes to cook the rice through. (I also recommend substituting boneless skinless chicken thighs for the boneless skinless chicken breast, because chicken thighs will do better with the longer cooking time.)
• Wild rice: Chicken and wild rice soup is a very different recipe, so I recommend using my Instant Pot Rotisserie Chicken and Wild Rice Soup Recipe  instead of this one.
• A little lemon: I didn't include it in the recipe, but a little lemon juice is a good addition to this recipe. Stir in a tablespoon of fresh squeezed lemon juice with the salt and pepper right before serving.
• Rotisserie Chicken Trick: Looking for a quick way to make homemade chicken broth? Buy a rotisserie chicken, save the breast meat for the soup, and toss the rest in the pot to make the broth. See my Instant Pot Rotisserie Chicken Broth recipe for the details.

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What do you think?

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

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My other Instant Pot Recipes

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