Instant Pot Vegetable Beef Soup
DESCRIPTION
INGREDIENTS
- 2 pounds beef stew meat
- 3 medium ribs celery chopped
- 3 medium carrots chopped
- 1 small onion chopped
- 28 ounces canned crushed tomatoes
- 3 cups low sodium beef broth
- 4 ounces frozen green beans chopped
- 1/2 cup frozen corn
- 1/2 cup frozen green peas
- 1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar
- 1 tablespoon olive oil
- 1/2 teaspoon each: salt, pepper, ground thyme
INSTRUCTIONS
- Pat the beef dry with paper towels if wet, and cut into smaller than 1-inch bite-sized chunks. Trim off any excess fat. Season them with salt and pepper.
- Turn on the saute mode on the pressure cooker for high heat. When it comes to temperature, add olive oil and half of the beef, spreading it out. Cook until browned, 3 - 5 minutes per side, and transfer to a large plate. Repeat with the remaining beef.
- Add celery, carrots, onions, and thyme to the pot. Cook the vegetables for about 5 minutes, stirring occasionally.
- Add crushed tomatoes and stir everything together. Turn off the saute mode.
- Return the beef to the pot, including any liquid collected on the plate. Add green beans and beef broth, stirring them with the other ingredients.
- Secure and seal the lid. Cook at high pressure for 10 minutes, followed by a 25 minute natural release. Manually release remaining pressure by gradually turning the release knob to its venting position.
- Uncover, and stir in corn, green peas, and balsamic vinegar. Serve while hot, and season with salt to taste. Yields 8 servings with a portion size of 1 1/2 cups.
NUTRITION
| Makes 8 Servings |
| Amount Per Serving: |
| Calories 230 | |
| Total Fat 6g | 9% |
| Saturated Fat 1g | 7% |
| Cholesterol 75mg | 25% |
| Sodium 740mg | 31% |
| Net Carb 8g | |
| Total Carb 12g | 4% |
| Dietary Fiber 4g | 15% |
| Sugars 6.5g | |
| Protein 29g |
Variety of Vegetables
This isn’t just a winter soup; you can also make this during hotter months by using summer vegetables. Or you can make this soup to clean out your kitchen fridge of leftover ingredients.
I add a wide variety of fresh veggies, including celery, carrots, and onions. They’re coarsely chopped into 3/4-inch chunks so that they’re bite sized, which I prefer over diced. To save time, you can see if your local grocery store sells mirepoix in the refrigerated produce section, which is a pre-cut package of all three ingredients.
Also thrown into the mix are frozen staples like green beans, corn, and green peas. If you’re not eating low carb, you can replace some of the soup’s ingredients with potatoes or barley. Lots of possibilities here, and you can use this recipe as a template to make your perfect vegetable beef soup.
Selecting A Cut Of Beef
I use beef labeled as “beef stew meat” in U.S. grocery stores; they’re usually trimmed and chopped-up chunks of meat from tougher cuts, like chuck or round. Looking at a diagram of beef cuts, chuck usually comes from the shoulder and round is from the bottom.
These tougher cuts are appropriate for soups and stews (like Instant Pot Beef Ragu and Instant Pot Beef Bourguignon) because the long cooking time helps break them down. Round is usually leaner than chuck, so you can select your beef based on your taste preferences.
Pressure Cooker and Cooking Timeline
I use a 6-quart Instant Pot, and any electric pressure cooker with similar or larger capacity will work. Avoid smaller models because this recipe produces a large volume of soup, almost 3 liters.
If you’re new to pressure cooking, give yourself enough time to make this recipe because it takes time to pressurize and depressurize the pot. This is especially true when cooking large amounts of liquids, since they take longer to heat up. I estimated that it took about 30 minutes to prepare all ingredients, 20 minutes for active cooking like sauteing, 20 minutes to pressurize the pot, 10 minutes for pressure cooking, and 25 minutes for natural pressure release. Most of this time is not active, so you can be doing other things.
Serving and Leftovers
The soup will be very hot after cooking, so ladle it into bowls and let it cool down a bit before serving. Then season with salt and pepper to taste.
If you’re looking to add more potassium to your diet, use LoSalt in place of salt. This is a low sodium salt that has a fair amount of potassium as a byproduct. I add about 1/4 teaspoon of LoSalt to each soup serving.
Leftovers are fabulous. I usually don’t eat this soup after making it; instead, I make a big batch ahead of time and refrigerate them as individual servings. They reheat well in the microwave, and you can enjoy them for lunches during the week.
Followed the recipe. Used potatoes instead of string beans -was amazing!
Hi Julia… looks great—cannot wait to try. I have a question for you about this and other recipes that use multiple functions in the Instant Pot… I have noticed on nearly every recipe I try that I have some scorching when I use sautee and then go to the pressure mode. (Manual for whatver the pressure time is, to be more accurate.) I read on another of your recipes that this can hapen when there is not enough liquid in the recipe, but the dish I made this weekend had almost two cups of fluid before I started pressurization and still scorched. I think it is scorching because the element is too hot from the sautee function and the food sits without stirring while it comes to pressure. Any tips for working around this? I am reluctant to work with meat or other expensive items until I figure this out. Thanks for your help!
Hi Lisa! Two suggestions: (1) Turn off the saute setting as soon as you’re done with it, so it doesn’t continue to heat up the food. (2) Just before closing the lid and going into the pressure cooking mode, stir everything around, using a stiff wooden utensil to scrape up any brown bits stuck to the bottom of the pot. Depending on what you’re cooking, some vegetables (like tomatoes) can help you deglaze the pot this way. Or you can add a bit of vinegar or wine to help you loosen those brown bits. Hope that helps!
How would you adjust this for cooking in a crock pot/slow cooker?