Winter Series – Instant Pot Soups – Butternut squash

I couldn’t have a winter soup series without attempting to make my most favorite soup, which I eat year round and not just in the fall: butternut squash.

I ended up making my own recipe and it can be made vegan if you would like. If you are able to buy the uncooked butternut squash already peeled and cut, I highly recommend it. I tried to do it when I was prepping to make this soup but the supermarket was out of the pre-cut squash! The most annoying part was peeling and cutting the squash but totally worth it at the end!

Instant Pot Butternut Squash Soup

Ingredients:

1. 2 cups chicken stock (can use vegetable stock if preferred)
2. 4 garlic cloves, minced
3. 1 carrot, peeled and diced
4. 2 celery stalks, diced
5. 1 medium uncooked butternut squash, peeled, seeded, and cut in cubes
6. 1 medium yellow onion, diced
7. Spices: sage (1-2 teaspoons), salt and pepper to taste, ground cinnamon and nutmeg to taste (1/2 a teaspoon worked well for me), 1 tsp sweet Hungarian paprika
8. 1/2 can unsweetened coconut milk

Instructions:

1. Add all the ingredients, except the coconut milk to the Instant Pot, mix them and close lid securely.
2. Press “pressure” and set to high pressure (depending on your model high pressure may be its own button) but essentially you want to use your manual setting for high pressure cooking and adjust the time to 8 minutes. Cook for this time and then do a quick release vent (push the valve on top of the lid, be careful with the hot steam!).
3. Remove the lid once all the steam is out and stir in the coconut milk.
4. Use an immersion blender to puree the soup until desired consistency (you can do this in a blender in small batches but you have to be careful and it is a pain!).
5. Taste soup and add any extra seasoning as needed, like more salt or paprika. Feel free to add a little spice with cayenne pepper but I don’t eat spicy, so I can’t vouch for the taste.

I stored the soup in glass containers and ate it throughout the week. I suspect it would freeze well in the appropriate container but I haven’t tried that since we ate it rather quickly! You can add a swirl of half and half, heavy cream, or paprika on top for decoration. This soup would pair well with a grilled cheese sandwich – there are plenty of elevated grilled cheese sandwich options out there and I may have to try that next time.