This Instant Pot chicken noodle soup is one of the easiest and quickest weeknight meals you can make. The soup is made with leftover chicken meat (roast a whole chicken or use the meat from a rotisserie chicken), broth, spaghetti noodles, and a basic veggie mix.
Cooking isn’t anywhere near my college major, yet here I am over a decade later with a real food blog as well as writing for others with food blogs. Ironic isn’t it?
I have never taken a cooking class in my life. When I fell into real food it was literally that: I fell into real food. I had my first baby and just wanted her to eat better food than I did as a child. Plain and simple.
The very first thing I learned how to cook on my real food journey was bone broth, and how to use it for soup. I wasn’t a huge fan of just drinking bone broth straight up (remember, my taste buds were not used to any of this!), so soup-making became a love of mine right from the very beginning.
Why Make Chicken Noodle Soup in the Instant Pot?
Over the last handful of years, I’ve come to learn the art of making flavorful, delicious soup.
A flavorful soup begins with a veggie medley added to a perfectly hot pot with some melted butter. The flavors are sautéed together to create the building blocks for a delicious soup. This is why the sauté feature on the Instant Pot sold me. Sure, I was intrigued by friends making meals in minutes versus hours, but I’ll admit that I was skeptical on how the flavor would turn out. When I learned that I could still layer my flavors and make a fast meal, I was sold.
As much as I truly adore cooking, there are those days or stretches of weeks where projects are due and I just don’t have the time to be standing by the stove all day. My Instant Pot has made it possible to still put nourishing, real food on the table despite crazy schedules. Today’s recipe uses the Instant Pot to make a nourishing meal in under 15 minutes, from start to finish.
How to Make Chicken Noodle Soup in the Instant Pot
The soup starts with a quick sauté of vegetables. Next, add broth, seasonings, chicken, and noodles. And that’s it. The rest of the recipe is completely hands-free, leaving you time to check homework, change that diaper, send that email, or…ahem…make a cup of coffee like I did.
If you aren’t quite there yet on making your own bone broth, just grab a quality store-bought version. I would rather that you make this fast homemade recipe than grab fast food or an additive-loaded can of soup at the store. If you’re ready to make the leap into making bone broth, your Instant Pot will be your best friend. You can make bone broth in the Instant Pot very quickly.
A Note About The Chicken in This Recipe
You can cook a whole chicken in your Instant Pot in 25 minutes and have lots of budget-friendly chicken meat for the freezer. You can pull out a cup or two when you want to make your soup and just dump it right in.
If you’re running short on time and don’t have time to cook a whole chicken (or don’t have any chicken in the fridge or freezer), shred a rotisserie chicken and use a portion of the meat.
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Instant Pot Chicken Noodle Soup
Ingredients
- 3 TB butter unsalted is best, or extra virgin olive oil for a dairy-free option
- 1 medium onion diced
- 2 large carrots diced
- 3 celery stalks diced
- 5 garlic cloves minced
- 1 tsp dried thyme
- 1 tsp oregano
- 1 tsp dried basil
- 8 cups chicken broth or vegetable broth
- 2 cups cooked and shredded chicken add more if you want meatier soup, or leave it out if you wish for it to have a vegetable-based soup
- 8 ounces spaghetti noodles broken in half
- 2-3 cups chopped spinach amount depends on your preference
- salt to taste
- black pepper to taste
Special Equipment:
Instructions
- Plug your Instant Pot in and push the Sauté button. The screen on the front will read On and the bottom of the pot will get hot to sauté.
- Melt the butter in the Instant Pot. Once melted, add the onion, carrot, celery, and a big pinch of salt to bring out their juices. Cook the veggies for about 5 minutes until they're soft and sweet.
- Add the garlic, thyme, oregano, and basil. Cook for 1 minute.
- Add the broth, chicken, and noodles, and turn off the Instant Pot so the sauté mode turns off. Put the lid on your Instant Pot, turn the vent valve to closed, and push the Soup button. Use the manual buttons (the +/- buttons) to bring the time down to 4 minutes. It will turn on automatically after a few seconds.
- The Instant Pot will take about 10 minutes to come to pressure, and then it will count down the 4 minutes. When the 4 minutes is done, quick release your valve (use a towel or oven mitt to turn the valve). It will take 1-2 minutes to release all of the pressure from the pot.
- After the pressure releases, take the lid off, stir in your chopped spinach to wilt and more salt and pepper (to your taste). The soup is hot enough to wilt the spinach, so there's no need to add more heat.
- Serve warm.
If I add more broth do I have to change the cook time?
Hey Jp, No, you don’t need to adjust time. Cook according to the time provided here.
Amazing recipe!
Glad you liked the soup, Nancy!
This recipe has been my go-to chicken soup for several years. I just wanted to say thanks! The recipe is well written and very tasty
Hey Amy, That’s so great to hear! Thank you so much for coming back to the site to leave a review, too. That means so much!
So easy and so good! My favorite chicken noodle soup ever!
Yay, Jamie! So glad you enjoyed it!
This was the best chicken noodle soup. It will be on repeat.
So glad you enjoyed it, Papi!
Great recipe for my husband who loves soup! I added a little fresh lemon juice, it perks up the soup a little and sneaks in a little Vitamin C!
YUM! Thanks for sharing, Reena!
LS Team
Looking delcious. Thank you so much for the recipe.
We love this soup! Make it the night after cooking a whole chicken in the IP using the tasty broth. I use linguine noodles broken in fourths. Served it tonight with a fresh loaf or einkorn sourdough bread….delicious! Thanks for this great recipe!
Hey Belinda, I’m so happy to hear that! Your meal tonight sounds AMAZING!!! Thank you for coming back to rate and review the recipe. That means so much.
I just Pressure Cooked this Soup when I got home from Work , at 9:30pm…
It was GREAT !!! I was eating by 10:30 pm. as I already had a Chicken Slow Cooked . I used Chicken Broth , but think I will try Bone Broth the next time I SlownCook or Pressure Cook a
chicken . Thanks !!!
Thats wonderful, Mike! So happy you loved it! Thank you for taking the time to comment and rate, means a lot to the LS.
LS Team.
This is my favorite recipe! I use bone broth, extra garlic, and spatzle noodles. I have made it for sick friends and family. It is so nourishing and healing. Thank you so much for sharing it years ago.
Hey Deb, I’m so glad you’re loving this recipe! Thank you for sharing and rating. That means so much.
Came out great, but low on broth. Going to add another 2 cups of water with Better than Bouillon. Flavor is on point!!!