This post is sponsored by Hurst’s Ham Beens Brand, all opinions are my own.
Minestrone Soup (Pressure Cooker)
Minestrone is a hearty Italian Soup that offers a flavorful broth, lots of veggies, beans, and pasta. It is simple, easy to make in the pressure cooker, and stores well too!
By using the pressure cooker, you can use Hurst’s dry beans, and still get dinner on the table with minimal prep and in just about an hour.
Why This Is The Best Minestrone Soup:
- Easy to make and totally worth the effort: A little chopping, a few simple ingredients, and the flavors meld into a beautiful medley that is hearty, delicious, and wholesome.
- Homemade: Better than the Olive Garden or any store-bought option, and is super simple to make.
- Affordable: The recipe uses common kitchen vegetables like carrots, celery, and zucchini, and affordable pantry ingredients. Dry beans, for example, which are far less expensive than canned. And work awesome in this recipe. I use Hursts Italian Bean Soup for the minestrone. N.K. Hurst Co. is a family owned and run business, being run by the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th generations of the Hurst family.
- Great as leftovers: This is one of those soups that tastes just as good, if not better on day two!
- Stores well: It can be made ahead and frozen, just skip the pasta until ready to serve.
What You Need to Make Minestrone Soup
Here is what you need for this Instant Pot or Pressure Cooker version of minestrone soup:
- Olive oil
- Flavor Builders: yellow onion and garlic
- Vegetables: carrots, celery, and zucchini
- Spices: dried basil, dried oregano, dried thyme, Salt and Pepper. I used my own seasonings here, but the included seasoning packet would also work great for a quick solution! Delicious.
- Tomatoes: fire-roasted diced tomatoes and tomato paste
- Liquid: Chicken or vegetable broth, or even some water
- Pasta: mini shells
- Beans: Hurst’s Ham Beens Brand Italian Bean Soup Mix dry beans is what I used. However, If you can’t find the Italian Bean Soup product locally, Hurst’s 15 BEAN SOUP could easily be substituted and is available at almost all grocery stores.
Check to see if Hurst’s Italian Bean Soup is available locally here: https://hurstbeans.com/
store-locator If it’s not available in a store near you, it is also now available directly from Hurst: http://www.hurstbeans.com/store - Garnish: Parmesan cheese and parsley
How to Make Minestrone Soup
Time needed: 1 hour and 10 minutes.
Hearty Italian bean soup with vegetables and a tomato broth.
- Prep Ingredients
Chop your vegetables and measure out your other ingredients. This recipe is fairly hands off once you have everything chopped up and ready to go.
- Saute Onions and Garlic
Turn your Instant Pot on to SAUTE and get those garlic and onions going until they are tender and fragrant.
- Add Fire Roasted Tomatoes
You can use diced tomatoes, or other flavors, but after some extensive recipe testing these fire roasted ones took the top billing for the best addition to the soup.
- Add You Spices
Fresh herbs are nice too, but stick with the convenience of dried for this recipe and you can’t go wrong. Or skip the spice mix and use the enclosed spice packet that is part of the bean mix.
- Add Stock, Broth, or Water
You will need between 8 and 11 cups total. The recipe calls for 8, and if you need more, you can add more to get the consistency you want and make sure all your noodles cook!
- Add Tomato Paste
This is going to add more of that yummy tomato flavor to your broth.
- Add Hurst’s HamBeens Brand Italian Bean Soup
Pick through and remove any that are too hard or anything that may need to be removed, and if using your own seasonings, take out the flavoring packet, and set aside to use in a different recipe.
Hurst Beans really stand by their commitment to “quality first” with over eighteen varieties of beans selected from the choicest growers across the U.S. And this is the perfect mix for this soup. It contains Cannellini (white kidney) beans, light red kidney beans, chickpeas, and barlotti (roman) beans. - Stir it all up and Pressure Cook!
Stir everything up, making sure all beans are fully submersed in liquid. Then lock lid into place and pressure cook on high for 40 minutes.
- Add Vegetables
Once your beans are done and softened, it is time to add in your vegetables. So take the lid off, add the vegetables, put the lid back on and pressure cook again for 2 minutes.
- Add Pasta
At this point your soup is nearly done. So add your past if you are going to serve right away, and turn the pot on to SAUTE so it will heat. Then dump the pasta in, and let it cook on SAUTE until it is tender and cooked through. 6-8 minutes.
- Garnish and Serve
Now go ahead and dish up your soup and garnish it with freshly grated parmesan and parsley.
Using dry beans for this soup is the perfect way to get all flavor you want without all the hassle. The Hurst brand offers over 30 flavored varieties and the Italian Bean Soup is the perfect one for this recipe!
Tips and Tricks
Making this recipe is Eazy Peazy…
- Use Hurst’s HamBeen Italian Bean Soup or Hurst’s 15 BEAN SOUP: Hurst Beans only use the highest quality beans, over 20 varieties of beans are selected from the choicest growers across the U.S. These experienced growers use only the highest quality seed and continuously monitor and inspect the crops and harvesting procedures. Hurst accepts only U.S. #1 grade beans that have been electronically sorted for color, size, and overall appearance. And they carefully clean and inspect every load of beans that arrives in the facility. Which means when you buy a bag of the Italian Bean Soup you are buying quality.
- Cook in Stages: Follow the recipe instructions, the vegetables do not need to cook for the full 40 minutes under pressure and will be mush if you do that, so be sure to add them at the end and cook in stages.
- Pasta: The pasta is a great addition that makes this soup extra delicious. But if you aren’t planning on serving your soup right away, it is best added later. If you make ahead and freeze, for example, cook the pasta separate and add it the day you intend to serve.
- Garnish: This soup is excellent with a little garnish. Some parmesan, and fresh parsley really take it over the top! Don’t skip it!
Make Ahead and Storage
How to make this recipe ahead of time:
Prepare according to directions until the point where you add the noodles.
Instead of adding the noodles, simply cool, and refrigerate or freeze soup until ready to serve. Reheat on the stove top until heated through, and either cook noodles separately and add, or bring soup to a boil and cook noodles directly in the soup before serving.
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Minestrone Soup
Equipment
- Pressure Cooker, 6-8 Quart
Ingredients
- 1 tablespoon olive oil
- ½ cup yellow onion diced
- 2 cloves garlic minced
- 2 carrots chopped
- 3 celery stalk chopped
- 1 teaspoons dried basil
- 1 teaspoon dried oregano
- 1 teaspoon dried thyme
- Salt and Pepper
- 32 ounces fire-roasted diced tomatoes
- 2 tablespoons tomato paste
- 8 cups chicken or vegetable broth
- 1/2 pound dry uncooked small shell pasta
- 1 zucchini sliced
- 15.5 ounce Hurst’s Ham Beens Brand Italian Bean Soup Mix dry beans or Hurst's 15 Bean Soup
- Shredded or grated Parmesan cheese for serving
- Fresh parsley finely chopped, for garnish
Instructions
- Press the SAUTE button on your pressure cooker, and add olive oil. Then add onion and garlic, and saute for about 3 minutes, or until fragrant.
- Add basil, oregano, thyme, tomatoes, tomato paste, broth, and Hurst’s Ham Beens Brand Italian Bean Soup Mix, discard flavor packet, or set aside to use in another recipe.
- Press Cancel then close the lid. Press the MANUAL (older models) or PRESSURE COOK (newer models) button and set on HIGH for 40 minutes. Turn the valve to SEALING.
- After the soup has finished cooking for the 40 minutes and the pressure cooker beeps, quick release the pressure by turning the valve to VENTING, being careful to not get burned by the steam.
- Once the pressure is released, open the lid and add zucchini, the carrots, celery, lock lid back into place, and press the MANUAL (older models) or PRESSURE COOK (newer models) button and set on HIGH for 2 minutes. Turn the valve to SEALING.
- When done, quick release pressure again, then press the SAUTE button and add the dry pasta in, and cook for 7-8 minutes, or until the pasta is tender and cooked.
- Taste and season with salt and pepper. Add more water as needed if you like a thinner soup.
- Served topped with Parmesan cheese and parsley if desired.
Notes
NOTE: Pasta should only be added if serving same day. If making ahead or freezing, cook pasta separately and combine just before serving. Make this recipe even easier by skipping the spices and using the enclosed spice packet from the Hurst’s Ham Beens Brand Italian Bean Soup Mix.
Nutrition
Our recipe card software calculates these nutrition facts based on averages for the above ingredients, different brands, and quality of produce/meats may have different nutritional information, always calculate your own based on the specific products you use in order to achieve accurate macros for this recipe.
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