Instant Pot Cauliflower Potato Soup

At a glance

What stands out: You’ll love how creamy Instant Pot cauliflower potato soup is, with fewer carbs than a traditional creamy potato soup but oh, so rich! This is a nutritious soup that feels decadent, creamy and rich.

How long it takes: 45 minutes
Equipment you’ll need: Instant Pot pressure cooker
Servings: makes 7 cups

Creamy potato Soup

So creamy but it’s faux creamy. The silky texture of this puréed cauliflower potato soup makes it seem like you’re enjoying an ultra-rich splurge. It tastes like a creamy bisque, laden with heavy cream and cheese. You’ll be pleasantly surprised when you find that there isn’t a bit of heavy cream or butter in the ingredient list, and only a mere half cup of shredded cheese. The taste is there but not the fat. Be sure to try our cauliflower Alfredo sauce, too.

Low carb. And to make it even better, cauliflower is low in carbs and nutritious. Cauliflower rice is a popular low carb choice and can be used in lots of tasty ways, from side dishes to pizza crust. Have you tried our cauliflower nachos yet? So good, you won’t even miss the chips. You might also like air fryer buffalo cauliflower bites.

A good way to sneak in extra veggies. Even if you aren’t a fan of cauliflower, and we know there are a few of you out there, you’ll be pleasantly surprised by this creamy potato soup. Quite honestly, it’s hard to discern the presence of cauliflower at all. It’s kind of a sneaky way to get your vegetables.

It’s ready to serve in 45 minutes. Like most Instant Pot recipes, this soup comes together pretty quickly. Everything is cooked right in the Instant Pot in thirty minutes, start to finish. Allow yourself fifteen minutes to clean and chop the cauliflower, potatoes, and onions, and you can have a rich creamy soup on the table, complete with a lovely garnish of bacon crumbles, shredded cheddar cheese, and sliced green onions in less than an hour!

What goes in

• Cauliflower: Good news! Both frozen and fresh work in this recipe. Use whatever you have on hand. Don’t worry if the cauliflower is still frozen because it doesn’t matter a bit (yay!). Just dump the frozen cauliflower out of the bag and into the pot.
• Yukon Gold Potatoes: We recommend sticking with Yukon gold potatoes for the creamiest, silky soup. There’s no need to peel them first; just give them a speedy scrub.
• Flavor: We keep things pretty simple in this soup; all you need are onion, salt, pepper, and garlic powder.
• Liquids: The base of this soup is a combination of chicken stock and milk. We always use unsalted or low-salt chicken stock so that we can control the salt levels myself. For a vegetarian soup, use vegetable broth (and leave out the bacon).
• Cheddar Cheese: Stir a portion of the cheese in so it melts and flavors the soup, and reserve the remainder of the cheese to garnish your bowl of soup.
• Garnishes! Aren’t garnishes and toppings always the most fun part? For this soup, try crumbled bacon, more cheese, and sliced green onions or chopped parsley. Fresh chives are terrific, too, if you don’t have green onions.

How it comes together

Sauté the bacon. The process of making this soup begins with a speedy sauté of the bacon garnish. Don’t you just love the Sauté feature of the Instant Pot? So handy! Reserve the bacon, and use the drippings to sauté the onion next.

Add the rest of the ingredients to the pressure cooker (except the cheese), and set the pressure for ten minutes. The pressure cooker will take about ten minutes to come to pressure, so you have twenty minutes of hands-off cooking.

That’s just enough time to make a speedy salad to serve with your soup or a pan of whole wheat cornbread.

Release the pressure. When the timer goes off, speedy release the pressure. Don’t be alarmed if your soup doesn’t look so great yet. It all comes together once it’s blended.

Purée the soup. Use a hand held blender to purée the soup. An alternative is to carefully transfer it to a blender to process. If you aren’t quite ready to serve the soup, keep it evenly warm for up to an hour on the “Keep Warm” setting of your Instant Pot.

Add seasonings and cheese. Stir in the garlic powder, salt, and pepper, and some of the cheese and enjoy with your desired toppings!

Straightforward Recipe Variations

• Vegetarian option: Omit the bacon, and sauté the onion in a tablespoon of olive oil instead. Substitute vegetable broth for the chicken broth.
• Experiment with toppings. Fresh chopped parsley, french-fried onions, from-scratch croutons, or fried sage leaves evenly garnish this soup.
• Try a different cheese. Sharp cheddar cheese can be replaced with another type of cheese. Use a cheese with plenty of flavor and that melts well, such as a sharp fontina, Gruyère, or Swiss.
• Stovetop soup. This recipe can be adapted to cooking on the stove. However, if you don’t have an Instant Pot, you may want to try our roasted cauliflower soup.
• Not a fan of cauliflower? This five ingredient crockpot pumpkin soup is somewhat similar to this recipe (it also has potatoes). If you prefer, go in a different direction with smoky roasted tomato soup or creamy carrot soup.

Keeping leftovers

Refrigerate: Leftover creamy cauliflower potato soup is fantastic and makes a great lunch. Store leftovers in a tightly covered container in the fridge for up to 4 days. We don’t recommend freezing this soup.

Reheat: Individual portions can be reheated in the microwave at 50% power until hot. Larger amounts can be reheated in a saucepan on the stovetop over low heat.

Free Meal Plan

Interested in a weekly meal plan that includes this recipe? Take a look at our Meal Plan #36. You’ll find a wholesome recipe for each weekday plus a categorized grocery list. Let us do the planning for you this week! We add a new meal plan weekly.

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Instant Pot Soup Recipes

• Yield: 7
• Prep: 15 minutes
• Cook: 20 minutes
• Total: 45 minutes

Ingredients

• 3 strips bacon, cut into ½ inch pieces
• ¾ cup coarsely chopped onion (about ½ onion)
• 3 large Yukon gold potatoes, cut into 1 inch cubes (see note)
• 1 bag (16 oz.) frozen cauliflower florets, or fresh cauliflower, cut into florets
• 2 cups low-sodium chicken stock, divided
• 1 cup 2% milk (or whole milk)
• 1 ½ teaspoons kosher salt
• ½ teaspoon garlic powder
• freshly ground black pepper, to taste
• ½ cup shredded cheddar cheese, plus more for garnish
• chopped fresh parsley or sliced green onions, for garnish

Method

1. Heat Instant Pot using the Sauté function. Add the bacon and cook, stirring occasionally, until crisp, about 5 minutes. Remove the bacon and set it on a paper towel to drain. Reserve bacon pieces for garnish.
2. Add onion to the pot and sauté, stirring occasionally, until it becomes soft and translucent, about 3 minutes. Stir in 1 cup chicken stock and scrape the bottom of the pot to deglaze, removing all browned bits. Turn off Instant Pot.
3. Add potatoes, cauliflower, remaining chicken stock, milk, salt, pepper, and garlic powder to the Instant Pot.
4. Attach lid and securely seal. Select Pressure Cook (or Manual, High Pressure setting). Set the timer for 10 minutes. It will take about 10 minutes to come to pressure.
5. When the Instant Pot finishes cooking, quick release the pressure manually.
6. Use an immersion blender to blend the soup to the desired consistency, or transfer it in batches to a blender to puree. Taste and add additional salt, pepper, or garlic powder, if desired.
7. Stir in cheddar cheese until melted. Garnish with reserved bacon, additional cheese, parsley or green onion.
8. Keep soup warm for up to 1 hour using the Keep Warm setting on the Instant Pot. Makes about 7 cups.

Notes

Potatoes: Yukon gold potatoes make the creamiest soup– we don’t recommend substituting russet or red potatoes.

Vegetarian option : Omit the bacon, and use 1 tablespoon of olive oil to sauté the onion. Substitute vegetable broth for the chicken broth.

Cheese options: Sharp cheddar cheese can be replaced with another type of cheese. Use a cheese with plenty of flavor and that melts well, such as a sharp fontina, Gruyère, or Swiss.