Instant Pot Potato Leek Soup is a classic, simple, delicately flavored soup. Enjoy this delicious creamy, but light, pressure cooker Potato Leek Soup with some nice crusty bread for a wonderful meal!
Potato Leek Soup in the Instant Pot
Today I'm sharing one of my Grandpa's recipes with you. It is a very simple Potato Leek soup that I tweaked just a little so you can easily make it in your Instant Pot electric pressure cooker (because I just love making soup in my IP!). My Nana and Grandpa were great cooks. I love to make their recipes.
This is one of the recipes from Grandpa's side of the family. He said it's a Welsh recipe. I'm not sure, but have seen references to that. I think like many recipes, each region has their own version and claims it as their own.
Is This the Same as Vichyssoise?
This Potato Leek Soup is very good hot, though in the Summer we would often eat it chilled, then it is called vichyssoise.
Can I Make Potato Leek Soup Without Dairy?
Yes, you can make dairy-free potato leek soup by substituting non-dairy milks like almond milk or coconut milk for the half and half, and using vegan butter or more olive oil instead of butter.
This soup is easy enough to make on the stove, but I prefer making it in my pressure cooker. Instant Pot Leek and Potato Soup is easy to prepare, and doesn't take long at all to cook and get the leeks super tender.
Instant Pot Minestrone Soup
Instant Pot Easy Tomato Soup
Instant Pot Taco Soup
Instant Pot Mulligatawny Soup
Instant Pot Creamy Chicken Gnocchi Soup
One thing's for sure, it is a simple and tasty soup. I hope you like it!
My family has enjoyed my Grandpa's Potato Leek Soup recipe for years. Now I'm sharing it with you! Often times the recipes that we remember from childhood are the simplest ones.
Our family recipes are some of my greatest treasures. Each one has a story. and brings to life all of the wonderful memories from the good old days.
Instant Pot Potato Leek Soup is a classic, elegant, simple soup with a delicate flavor of leeks and potatoes. Easy to make in your electric pressure cooker.
- 2 Tablespoons Olive Oil
- 3 Tablespoons Butter
- 4-5 large Leeks, 5-6 cups sliced
- 2 cloves Garlic, pressed or minced
- 2 Tablespoons Flour
- 5-6 cups Chicken Broth (or vegetable broth)
- 1 Bay Leaf
- 1 teaspoon Salt
- ¼ teaspoon White Pepper (or black)
- 1 ½ lbs Gold Potatoes, cubed
- ⅛ teaspoon Nutmeg (optional)
- ¾ cup Half and Half (or heavy cream, for lower fat use milk)
- Chopped Chives (or parsley)
- Sour Cream
- Bacon (cooked and chopped)
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Clean and slice leeks into half-moon shapes. Cut off the dark green part, trimming to the part where the color is a pale green. Rinse well to get the dirt out of the layers.
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Press the Sauté button on the Instant Pot. When the display reads 'Hot', add the oil and butter.
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Add the leeks and stir. Cook until soft, stirring occasionally. It's fine if they brown a little.
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Add garlic and cook for about 30 seconds, until fragrant, stirring frequently.
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Sprinkle the flour over the leeks and stir. Cook for a minute to get the raw taste out of the flour.
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Stir in the broth. Be sure to dissolve the flour and scrape the bottom of the pot so you don't get a "burn" issue.
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Add the bay leaf, salt, pepper, and the potatoes, nutmeg. Stir.
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Put the lid on the pot and set the steam release knob to the Sealing position.
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Press the Manual (or Pressure Cook) button, and the +/- button to select 7 minutes.
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When the cooking cycle has ended, let the pot sit undisturbed to naturally release the pressure for 15 minutes. Then manually release the remaining steam.
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When the pin in the lid drops, open it and stir the soup. Remove the bay leaf. Then use an immersion blender to puree it. If you don't have an immersion blender, you can use a blender, pureeing the soup in small batches very carefully.
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Stir in the half and half.
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Taste and adjust salt, if needed.
Garnish with chopped chives and sour cream.
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Serve hot or chilled.
Adapted from my Grandpa's recipe.
sanderson
This soup was perfect! Thank you for adapting and sharing it. I recommend no substitutions if you're after the traditional flavors- don't leave out the nutmeg folks. I've been growing weary of testing new recipes from blogs, so many don't work as expected. But this one is quintessential vichyssoise with the ease of the Instant Pot. The only thing I'll do differently next time is use a tiny bit of the finely chopped chive option instead of the parsley as the garnish. My parsley seemed very strong tasting and I think a bit of chive will better compliment the leek. Ate it hot last night with dinner and can't wait to bring it to lunch cold today. Thanks again Sandy, to you and your grandpa. 🙂
Sandy
Hi, I'm so glad you liked this recipe! Thank you for the nice review!
Jackie
Do you need to peel potatoes, assume not. Also is the flour necessary? Trying to keep it gluten free.
Sandy
Hi Jackie, I don't peel them if using the gold potatoes. I do like to peel the russets. Flour is not necessary. You can use a GF option to thicken it at the end. Maybe potato starch.
Jessi
Hey there, I used your recipe as a guide for making my first instant pot potato leek soup. It was delicious. I love how the pressure cooker infuses the flavors. It was so leeky! I did only a couple things different. I added two heaping tablespoons of white miso in place of cream. Also, rather than cubing the potatoes, I cooked them halved. After the cooker was done, I scooped them out, blended the rest of the soup with an hand held blender and then ran the potatoes through a potato ricer. It's extra work, but the ricer really does make the texture of the soup extra velvety.
Anyway, thanks again for your recipe. Its my go to guide for this soup from here on out. Cheers!
Doreen
Absolutely delicious. Does this soup freeze well?
Sandy
Yes.
CHRIS HICKETHIER
I doubled the recipe, its amazing! Will definitely make again. Thanks so much for sharing!
Sandy
Awesome, Chris! Thank you for your review!
Patel
Hi Sandy - for doubling this recipe do you change the minutes of the pressure cooking to double?
Sandy
Nope, just keep the cook time the same.
Carol Coppens
I made this tonight in my Instant Pot. Oh my goodness....so delicious!!
Sandy
That's great, Carol! Thank you for your review!
Kaye Swafford
Thanks very much for your explicit instructions as well as your lovely recipe. I just got my pot and thought I would try out my favorite slow cooker recipe for potato leek soup and see how it came out in the pressure cooker, hopefully tasting great and cooked in a lot less time. I found your recipe on the internet and it had a similar number of leeks and potatoes so I decided your timing would be my model. Worked great and now I've got a big bowl of delicious soup on my lap while I'm writing this. Thank you again. I've clipped this recipe to to try as you've written it to taste an entirely new set of flavors, my only changes will be that I'm plant based, so will make those changes.
By the way, if you know of a reference on pressure cooker timings I would appreciate that. Thanks again.
Sandy
Hi Kaye! I'm so glad this method worked for you! As for timing, they are all over the place, and I usually do my own thing. I'm sure Pinterest has some timing printables you could download. Just go there and do a search. Enjoy your soup!
Melanie
This soup was absolutely delicious. So good that I couldn’t stop eating it. It was super fast using frozen sliced leeks I found at trader Joe’s. I used like 6 cloves of garlic, added an extra bay leaf and used 4 cups of broth and 1 cup of stock. Otherwise stuck to the recipe. Highly recommend!
Sandy
Yay! Grandpa would be happy that you liked his recipe! Thank you for letting me know!