Instant Pot chicken rice soup is total comfort food using fresh or leftover rotisserie chicken. A healthy low fat comfort food everyone loves.
This simple Instant Pot chicken rice soup can be made with fresh or precooked meat. A hearty healthy meal packed with protein, it’s one of many quick Instant Pot recipes we make year round. (affiliate links present, originally published 6/21)
Instant Pot Chicken Rice Soup Frozen Chicken
That is right, you can use fresh, defrosted or frozen meat in this one. We made this pressure cooker chicken and rice dish years ago. It was such a hit we kept going from there. With precooked meat you can just throw it in with everything else. Right out of the freezer you’d want to follow the cooking times in our chicken noodle soup with frozen chicken post.
It’s one of the best leftover chicken breast recipes (or use precooked thighs) too so you never waste food again. It doesn’t matter what brand of machine you have either. We don’t have just one but many and have a few ourselves. You can make it as an easy Ninja Foodi recipe, in a Crockpot Express or any other brand too.
FIRST – You should sign up for my free newsletter so you get new posts emailed to you twice a week and never miss out on anything! Now let’s start with a few basic tips:
- Make sure to Bookmark our InstaPot recipes page. We add new ones each week!
- Then PRINT this —–> Instant Pot cooking times cheat sheet that will help you understand how long meat, vegetables and beans take to cook in your pressure cooker.
- This is a great InstaPot cookbook and a set of wooden utensils are great to grab too.
- I HIGHLY recommend you buy this non stick pot.
- You should still deglaze pressure cooker after sautéing but it won’t have as many issues with this better liner.
For reference, this is the pressure cooker I have (a 6 quart) and use for all recipe creations.
Instant Pot Chicken Rice Soup Rotisserie
And we just kept going since we always seem to have leftovers. We just added this one to our list of Instant Pot soup recipes. If you too love a bowl of warmth for dinner too you should try a few others after you fall in love with this one. 😉
If you do want to use raw meat that is fine too. You’ll just have an extra step of shredding it at the end. If it is already cooked you could also decrease the cook time from 30 to 25 minutes. The rice still needs plenty of time to get tender though.
- Thawed chicken breasts or diced leftovers
- Chicken broth
- Carrots
- Celery
- Onion
- Wild rice, I have not tried this with brown rice because the other holds up better
- Mushrooms
- Garlic
If you want another way to cook this grain, you can follow our pressure cooker wild rice recipe. It’s a great healthy side dish that goes with just about everything.
Ninja Foodi Chicken and Rice Soup
If you can only find rather large pieces I’d slice them in half to ensure they shred easily when done. Medium is my preference because then I can just throw them right in.
- Turn pot to saute and add olive oil. Add the amount recipe calls for for chopped onions, celery, carrots and minced garlic. Cook until these start to soften, then press cancel.
- Add chicken, mushrooms, thyme, and wild rice on top sprinkled with salt and pepper. Then pour broth over it all.
- Lock the lid and set steam valve to sealing position. Press pressure cook button, set on high for 30 minutes. When done naturally release steam.
Remove chicken and shred or chop on cutting board, will fall apart easily. - Return meat to soup and stir. If you want a thicker version you can scoop some of the hot liquid out of your pot and whisk in 2 tbsp cornstarch until smooth.
- Set pot to saute again and pour this in when it is bubbling. Stir and let it bubble for about 2 minutes so it can thicken up nicely. Then turn off and serve.
Not with this or our Instant Pot cabbage soup either. That is the beauty of pressure cooking, well just one of them.
You can use some cornstarch if you’d like. If you want to add a creaminess to it then opt for some heavy cream instead. Either of these would be added at the end using the saute function. A little will go a long way.
You could load in the veggies but slice them thick. After a thirty minutes on high pressure they’ll disintegrate if you don’t make them pretty big. Onions are a given for me with just about any dish so I always add those.
Chicken Wild Rice Soup Instant Pot
Remember when you’re accounting for cook times that it takes 10 – 15 minutes to reach pressure. In case you’re in a hurry you might need a really accurate time.
Personally I usually just throw it all in and walk away and don’t pay much attention. I will set an alarm on my phone though if I am not in the room so I can check and not have it sit longer than it should, or it would get mushy.
Yes you will need to naturally release, not quick release, but after about 15 minutes you’ll want to take the lid off so it doesn’t sit and continue to soften much longer. When you pressure cook on high it will get as tender as you want but….
I just don’t like the rice to get tooooo soft, or it’s a bit mushy for my tastes. You do not have to use fresh meat either. This is a great leftover chicken recipe during the Wintertime. I make this a lot after I buy a rotisserie.
Many times I’ll have a breast left and will make this the next day. Just dice it up and it doesn’t need to cook but with the time it will bring back the nice moisture and tenderness of the meat.
As a healthy low saturated fat dinner idea you’ll all love this one. Let’s jump to recipe below and talk about a few yummy side dishes for this as well;
What side dishes go with soup?
I think bread of some kind is a must, rarely do I make anything else to go with this or our Instant Pot chicken noodle soup.
- Our air fryer garlic bread rolls are amazing.
- You can make just a simple loaf of air fryer bread as well.
- Give this pretty bundt Instant Pot cornbread a whirl.
- OR if you want to cook something outside, people love our cheesy smoked bread.
Want to see a few of my favorite things that I am totally obsessed with?? Take a peek and see how many you might already have…twinsies!
Looking for more easy family recipes and tips? LIKE The Typical Mom Facebook page?
Then sign up for my free newsletter, and follow me on Pinterest! 😉
***** If you LOVED this recipe give it 5 Stars below and let everyone know what you thought about it. 😉
Instant Pot Chicken Rice Soup
Equipment
Ingredients
- 2 chicken breasts boneless, skinless cut into large chunks
- 1/2 onion chopped
- 3 stalks celery cut into chunks
- 1 c carrots dials
- 1 c mushrooms halved or sliced
- 1 c wild rice uncooked
- 1 tsp thyme dried
- 1 tsp minced garlic
- 2 tbsp olive oil
- 4 c chicken broth
- 1 c water
- salt and pepper to taste
Instructions
- Turn pot to saute and add olive oil.
- Add chopped onions, celery, carrots and minced garlic. Cook until these start to soften, then turn pot off.
- Add mushrooms, thyme, wild rice, with chicken pieces on top sprinkled with salt and pepper. Then pour broth over it all.
- Close lid and steam valve and set to high pressure for 30 minutes. When done let steam release naturally.
- Remove chicken and shred or chop on cutting board, will fall apart easily.
- Return meat to soup and stir. If you want a thicker version you can scoop some of the hot liquid out of your pot and whisk in 2 tbsp cornstarch until smooth.
- Set pot to saute again and pour this in when it is bubbling. Stir and let it bubble for about 2 minutes so it can thicken up nicely. Then turn off and serve.