Instant Pot Butternut Squash Soup - Easy and Healthy Recipe (2024)

This Instant Pot Butternut Squash Soup is luxuriously creamy, yet it’s made without cream. This healthy pressure cooker recipe is quick and easy to make!

Serve your butternut squash soup with my easy honey yeast rolls and a spinach salad.

Meet the fall soup recipe that will become your go-to when you’re craving a warm bowl of cozy soup: Instant Pot Butternut Squash Soup. When you need dinner to be quick and easy, yet still unbelievably tasty, this soup recipe has got you covered.

This easy butternut squash soup has the rich butternut squash flavor of a soup that has simmered for hours, but you can have it ready in less than an hour from start to finish. You can thank your pressure cooker for this – that magical appliance that melds flavors together and brings out the natural richness of ingredients with hardly any effort on your part.

When I make this butternut squash soup in my Instant Pot, I like to make a big batch because it’s perfect for meal prep. This vegetarian soup reheats beautifully for lunches during the week. Alongside a salad or some bread it’s a hearty, satisfying meal. This butternut squash soup also freezes really well for quick meals later on.

For more delicious butternut squash soup recipes, try my Slow Cooker Butternut Squash Soup, Roasted Butternut Squash Soup and my favorite Golden Winter Soup. Learn more about preparing butternut squash.

How to Make Instant Pot Butternut Squash Soup

First let’s talk about the ingredients for this soup. There are just a few!

Butternut Squash Soup Ingredients

• Olive Oil, Onion and Garlic. You’ll sauté onion and garlic in olive oil. This provides a flavor base for the soup. I like to use a sweet yellow onion in this recipe.
• Vegetable Broth. I recommend using low sodium broth so that you have more control over the amount of salt in your soup. If you don’t need a vegetarian recipe, you can substitute chicken broth.
• Carrot. Adding one large carrot to this soup brings another layer of flavor and a hint of sweetness.
• Butternut Squash. Look for a butternut squash that is heavy for its size. The squash should feel firm and the skin free of blemishes and green lines, which mean that the squash isn’t fully ripe. The stem of the squash should be intact. For this soup, you want to use a butternut squash that is about 3 pounds, which will yield 6 to 8 cups of cubed squash.
• Butter. Butter is my secret ingredient that makes this soup luxuriously rich and creamy, without adding any cream. If you need a dairy-free soup, you can omit the butter.
• Salt and Pepper. This recipe calls for minimal salt and pepper before cooking, so that you can taste and adjust the amounts to your liking after the soup is cooked. It’s easy to add more, but once you’ve added it you can’t take it away.
• Cinnamon and Nutmeg. Just a tiny bit of ground cinnamon and nutmeg enhance the cozy fall flavors in this soup.

Steps to Make Butternut Squash Soup in your Instant Pot

1. Sauté onion and garlic. Use the Instant Pot’s sauté function to sauté the onion until it starts to soften. Then stir in the garlic and cook for about 30 seconds. Press the cancel button to turn off the Instant Pot.
2. Deglaze the pot. Pour in one cup of the chicken broth and scrape up any bits that may be stuck to the bottom of the pot. If there are bits stuck to the bottom they could cause the pot to give a burn warning during pressure cooking.
3. Add remaining ingredients. Stir everything together.
4. Seal the pot. Close the Instant Pot lid and turn the steam release valve to the sealing position.
5. Pressure cook 10 minutes at high pressure, followed by a 10 minute natural release. The pot will take about 15 minutes to come to pressure and then the cook time will begin counting down. When the cook time ends, leave the pot alone for 10 more minutes for the pressure to naturally release. The timer will count up during this time, so you can easily tell when it’s been 10 minutes. Then quick release the remaining pressure.
6. Puree the soup. You can use an immersion blender to puree the soup right in the pot. Or, you can transfer the soup in batches to a counter top blender to puree.
7. Serve garnished with roasted pumpkin seeds, pepitas, or a drizzle of cream or coconut milk, if desired.

How to store and reheat butternut squash soup

You can store butternut soup in the refrigerator for up to 4 days, or in the freezer for up to 3 months. Let the soup cool before storing and freeze/refrigerate in a sealed airtight container. If you wish to add cream or half and half to this soup, wait and add it after freezing and thawing, since it will not freeze well if cream is added.

Individual servings of soup are easy to reheat in the microwave. You can also reheat this soup in a pot, covered, on the stove over medium-low heat.

If you want to make this soup ahead for Thanksgiving or entertaining, you can reheat it in your Instant Pot using the sauté setting. Once the soup is hot, press cancel to turn off sauté and then press the keep warm button to turn on the keep warm function.

More Instant Pot Soup Recipes

• Instant Pot Leek and Potato Soup
• Instant Pot Chicken Noodle Soup
• Instant Pot Chicken Tortilla Soup
• 29+ Instant Pot Soup Recipes

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