This Instant Pot wild rice soup recipe is cozy and naturally creamy, so it’s a 100% plant based dinner. Serve with crusty bread.
Alex and I begrudgingly got an Instant Pot last year, but it’s actually become a well used tool in our house! Don’t get us wrong: it’s not magic. It doesn’t cook food in an instant. For example, this Instant Pot wild rice soup takes over 1 hour to make. Then why use a pressure cooker for soup at all? Well, it’s so, so delicious. It cooks dried white beans at the same time as the rice (wow!), and it’s hands off, for the most part. When I took the first bite after Alex created and made this recipe for me, I was blown away! It’s also vegan and vegetarian, so it’s all naturally creamy goodness. Keep reading for all the secrets to this Instant Pot wild rice soup recipe.
Related: Easy Vegan Recipes for Beginners | Best Healthy Dinner Recipes
How to make wild rice soup in an Instant Pot
This wild rice soup recipe is a bit different than most. First of all, it’s made in a pressure cooker or Instant Pot! Alex and I wanted to try making Instant Pot soup. For our first recipe, we decided on wild rice soup because wild rice typically takes so long to cook on the stovetop. Also, we decided to create this wild rice soup without using meat or dairy, so it’s naturally creamy! Since then we’ve made lots of Instant Pot soup recipes, but this one remains a favorite!
To make this wild rice soup recipe, you use the Saute mode on the Instant Pot. Saute up the onion, celery, carrot, garlic, and mushrooms, then add the remainder of the ingredients and pressure cook. And while the soup is cooking, some cashews are also left out to soak. Once the soup is done, you’ll blend together the cashews with some of the soup and some dried sage to create a naturally creamy base without cream. That makes this wild rice soup recipe vegan, vegetarian, and gluten free! Everyone we’ve served it to positively raves about it: it’s the perfect cozy fall dinner.
Why make Instant Pot soup?
The advantage of cooking this soup in an Instant Pot instead of the stovetop is that it’s totally hands off once the cooking starts. You can throw the soup in the pot and then go do other things, until your dinner is done! Because this recipe takes over 1 hour to make, we made the serving size large: it serves about 8. That way, you can have plenty for leftovers.
A wild rice soup with dried beans
For this wild rice soup recipe, we’ve used dried white beans in the Instant Pot. In a normal stovetop soup recipe, you would typically use canned or already cooked beans and add them to the soup. Because the wild rice takes so long to cook already, Alex decided to add dried white beans to this wild rice soup recipe because they’re cheaper and taste even better than canned. Beans cooked from dried often hold up better in soups as well. The white beans also add a filling protein to the soup.
Related: Here’s the Instant Pot we use at home.
Looking for Instant Pot recipes?
Outside of this wild rice soup recipe, here are some of our favorite recipes to make in a pressure cooker:
- Basics: Sweet Potatoes | Chickpeas | Lentils| Eggs | Quinoa | Rice | Refried Beans
- Sweet Potatoes with Thai Peanut Butter Sauce
- Chickpea Couscous Bowls
- Smoky Lentil Tacos
- Apple Cinnamon Steel Cut Oats
- Granola Instant Pot Apple Crisp
- Instant Pot Stuffed Acorn Squash with Pecans
Looking for soup recipes?
Here are a few more favorite soup recipes:
- Tomato Basil Gnocchi Soup
- Tortellini Soup with Basil
- Golden Vegetable Soup Recipe
- Easy Tomato Basil Soup
- Creamy Corn Chowder or Vegan Corn Chowder
- 13 Best Soup Recipes for a Cozy Evening
- Vegetarian Tortilla Soup
- Cozy Farro & Brussels Sprouts Soup
- Vibrant Spring Green Soup
- Green Pea Soup with Chive Flowers
- Related: 10 Romantic Dinner Recipes
Instant Pot Wild Rice Soup Recipe
- Prep Time: 15 minutes
- Cook Time: 1 hour
- Total Time: 1 hour 15 minutes
- Yield: 8 servings 1x
Description
This Instant Pot wild rice soup recipe is cozy and naturally creamy, so it’s a 100% plant based dinner. Serve with crusty bread. For a stovetop version, go to Best Wild Rice Soup.
Ingredients
- ½ cup raw or roasted cashews*
- 1 medium yellow onion
- 2 celery ribs
- 4 medium carrots
- 8 ounces baby bella mushrooms
- 6 cloves garlic
- 2 tablespoons olive oil
- 1 tablespoon dried thyme
- 2 tablespoons dried oregano
- 8 cups vegetable broth
- 1 cup wild rice (not a wild rice blend)
- 1 cup dried great northern white beans (not canned! The Instant Pot will cook the dry beans)
- 2 ½ teaspoons kosher salt, divided
- ½ teaspoon black pepper
- 2 teaspoons dried sage
- 1 tablespoon soy sauce, tamari, or liquid aminos
Instructions
- Place the cashews in a bowl and cover them with water. Leave them to soak while you make the recipe.
- Dice the onion. Thinly slice the celery. Cut the carrot into rounds. Slice the mushrooms. Mince the garlic.
- Add the olive oil to the Instant Pot and turn on Saute mode. Add the onion, celery and carrot and cook, stirring occasionally for 5 minutes until lightly browned. Add mushrooms and saute for 2 minutes. Add garlic, thyme and oregano and stir for 2 minutes.
- Add the broth, wild rice, dried white beans, 2 teaspoons kosher salt, and black pepper. Lock the lid of the Instant Pot. Place the pressure release handle (vent) in the “Sealing” position.
- Cook on High Pressure for 45 minutes: Press the Pressure Cook button, making sure the “High Pressure” setting is selected, and set the time. Note that it takes about 5 to 10 minutes for the pot to “preheat” and come up to pressure before it starts cooking. (During cooking, avoid touching the metal part of the lid.)
- Quick release: Vent the remaining steam from the Instant Pot by moving the pressure release handle to “Venting”, covering your hand with a towel or hot pad. Never put your hands or face near the vent when releasing steam. Open the pressure cooker lid. Taste a bean to see if it is tender (bean brands can vary). If not, cook on High Pressure for another 5 minutes and do a quick release.
- Using a liquid measuring cup, carefully remove 2 cups of the hot soup (including the broth, veggies and rice) to a blender. Drain the cashews and add them to the blender with the dried sage. Blend on high for about 1 minute until creamy. Then pour back into the soup.
- Add ½ teaspoon kosher salt and the soy sauce. Taste, and adjust seasonings as desired. Garnish with a drizzle of olive oil and fresh ground pepper.
Notes
*If you use roasted salted cashews, omit the soy sauce at the end; then add it to taste. If you have a cashew allergy, try using the same amount of whole milk or cream to make a creamy base.
- Category: Main Dish
- Method: Pressure Cooker
- Cuisine: American
Keywords: Wild Rice Soup, Wild Rice Soup Recipe, Wild Rice Mushroom Soup, Vegan Soups, Instant Pot Recipes, Healthy Instant Pot Recipes, Pressure Cooker Recipes, Vegetarian Soups, Healthy Soup Recipes
The soup looks great! Is there something I could sub for the mushrooms?
You could definitely omit the mushrooms and it would still taste great!
So this was a hit! The only thing I did different was to add some chili flakes along with the thyme and oregano. I also added lemon juice at the end to help brighten it up a bit. I cooked the beans and rice for about 30-35 minutes and let it naturally depressurize for about 10-15 minutes. Boths beans and rice were cooked just right, so times will vary. The “cashew cream” is a game changer. Nice work guys! You have been become my go to food blog.
I can’t imagine pressure cooking for 45 mins without the soup turning totally to mush. I presoaked the beans the morning of (~10 hrs) and the rice for 1hr, and pressure cooked for only 12 minutes. Still the vegetables had largely disintegrated. There also was too much water remaining. I sauteed on low for 20 mins to thicken it up, and tossed in another handful of cashews blended with some of the soup.
Other changes:
Reduced oregano to 1tsbp (still quite a strong taste). Added dried rosemary, parsley, and basil (~1tsp each). After the fact thought it could use a little heat, so added some paprika and chili powder to taste.
Still felt like something was missing… If you’re not vegan, I recommend serving with cheddar cheese. Otherwise top with coconut cream or cashew cream and nutritional yeast, with some additional salt/soy sauce to taste.
Good general idea, but definitely won’t repeat as directed.
You don’t presoak the beans. That is the point of using the pressure cooker and they will also use up a lot of the liquid. Just follow the recipe as it is written.
Is there an option to make this if you just have a traditional crock pot?? It looks amazing!
Great question! We have not tested it in a crockpot, so unfortunately we can’t speak to that! (You could try soaking the beans the night before, then sauteeing the veggies in a pan before slow cooking. Let us know if you want to try testing it out!)
I have a surplus of chickpeas – do you think they would work just as well as the white beans? thanks!
That’s a great question! I think that dried chickpeas would also work — the texture might be a little different, but it should be ok. Then you’ll have to try it with white beans to compare!
I ended up buying some great northern white beans to make this recipe true to the original Alex and Sonja version. In the end, it turned out GREAT and I can’t wait to adapt the cashew cream method in other soups too. I always shy away from cream-based soups because they feel so heavy and overly-decadent, but not with the cashew cream!
Great job on the flavors, textures, and nutritional punch in this recipe!
NOTE: I used Whole Foods 365 beans and I had to reset the pressure cooker twice at 8 minutes after cooking for the prescribed 45 minutes for the beans to be soft.
Ahhh we are so so glad to hear this! SO glad that you enjoyed the cashew cream spin on a creamy soup. Let us know what other soups you try that way! Thanks for making it!
I’ve had problems with dried beans from Whole Foods too. I suspect there is not enough turnover and the beans are old. Try to shop for beans at a grocery store with a big ethnic foods inventory. And Goya dried beans always seem to be good quality.
I made this tonight as my very first Instant Pot recipe. It is delicious! Only change, I substituted Cranberry beans for Great Northern as I had them on hand (from Rancho Gordo in Napa – the best and freshest beans!). There is a fair amount of prep but the IP makes you get organized and have all your ingredients out and ready to go. I followed the recipe exactly – even the 2 T oregano, and was very pleased with the result with one exception…..this soup does not have visual appeal as it is brownish. If that’s important to you, think about adding some jarred red pepper slices at the end to improve the visual – it helps.
★★★★★
Delicious!!!! I followed the recipe almost exactly, with the exception of the cashews. I didn’t have cashews and we are not vegan, so I added milk at the end for the creaminess. My husband, who is a hard core meat eater, even loved it and was satisfied with just the soup for dinner! Thanks!
So glad you enjoyed!
I have a thing against cooking something for 45 minutes in an instant pot at high pressure. If I soaked the beans overnight, would it be possible to cut the cooking time this recipe to 15 min – which is the usual time it take to cook beans if they have been soaked previously? Thank you
Hi Anita! Because of the wild rice, it takes 45 minutes to cook. If you wanted to find “quick wild rice” — there are some brands that are precooked and take only 10 minutes to cook — and then did the soaked beans, it’s possible that it could work. But we have not tested either of those options!
Thank you for your clarifying Sonja. I love your blog and cookbook!
Looks delicious! What do you think about adding greens? We have a whole bunch of collard greens in our garden but am not sure if that would change it to much. Thoughts? And do you think it would be okay with other types of mushrooms…shitake, portabella, crimini? Thank you!!
Any type of mushroom would work! Not sure about collards since they’re a bit tougher than most greens. If you wanted to add greens, maybe stir in some spinach leaves after pressure cooking and let it wilt in for a few minutes? But we’re not sure how collards would work here. Sorry!
Looks great! Making this now but 2 tbsp or 2 tsp of oregano? Seems like a lot
Hi there! 2 tablespoons is correct! The pressure cooker really dulls flavors, so you have to overcompensate ?
I used 2 tablespoons of oregano. That’s the only flavor I taste.
I have precooked wild rice. Would I use the same recipe for cooking the beans and then add the wild rice at the end?
Yes!
Thank you, it’s delicious :-) My beans took the 5 extra minutes.
So glad you enjoyed it! Glad to know the beans worked with another 5 minutes. We tried a few brands and found some differences between them!
This soup looks like it has tons of flavor! My wife has been on soup diet the past few days because she’s sick and I know she’d totally love this recipe, thank you!
Sorry to hear about your wife’s sickness! I hope she loves this one!
I don’t have an Instant Pot. So, I followed the directions right up to the point of putting it into the Instant Pot minus the dry navy beans. Brought the mixture to a boil then reduced heat and simmered for 50 minutes, then stirred in a drained can of cannellini beans (that’s what I had on hand). Did the blending and stirring. Delicious!! Next time I would cut back on the oregano if made on the stovetop.
This is so helpful! So glad to hear this worked without the Instant Pot as well!