Easy Instant Pot Gnocchi Soup

Instant Pot gnocchi soup is comfort food in a bowl! Add chicken and it’s like an Olive Garden copycat soup you order when you’re out to dinner. 

Ninja Foodi Gnocchi Soup

Yes you can make this in your Ninja Foodi too of course. It doesn’t make a difference what brand you decided to make. We have a Mealthy and a Crockpot Express as well. It just needs to be an electric version with the high pressure function to it. I use packaged dough balls but you could start from scratch to.

We bought a few packages at the store and started experimenting with making a batch of crispy air fryer gnocchi first. Oh so good but we remembered this awesome dish from our favorite restaurant too. Since we had more we went on to make dinner with them in our pressure cooker. Winner again.

Any pressure cooker brand you might have will work just fine.

Dairy Free Chicken Gnocchi Soup Instant Pot

Okay so I have had to alter things the last few years for my husband. He needs lactose free ingredients so I like to share this option to others too. Now we used half and half in this one to get it nice and creamy. The alternative to this would be coconut milk. It won’t be as thick so you may want to whisk in some cornstarch at the end to solve that.

Another option is half coconut milk and half dairy free sour cream product. I can find this now pretty often at the store. EVERY so often heavy whipping cream can be found without lactose too, that is a huge win.

There are only about 8 ingredients you need to make this gnocchi soup recipe. Chicken thighs were used this time but you could easily swap that out for boneless skinless chicken breasts if you preferred. Let’s start with the ingredients that were used for this batch. There were NO leftovers after this meal.

Chicken Gnocchi Soup Instant Pot Frozen Chicken

If all you have is rock hard right out of the freezer, no worries. Use the instructions in our Instant Pot frozen chicken first which will take about 15 minutes. Then dice or shred and continue on with the directions for this soup. Alternatively if frozen in bite size pieces you can separate and increase timing to 6 minutes cook time inside the soup itself.

What are gnocchi made out of?

The name literally means “lumps” in Italian. They are essentially small dumplings made with potatoes and flour. Cooked potatoes are mashed and combined with flour to create a dough that’s then formed into small pieces for boiling.

As you can see, to make things easier and faster we used pre made packaged gnocchi as well. If you wanted to make them homemade you’re free to do so. I haven’t done this so I am unsure of how this may alter cook time but I imagine it would be the same.

Vegetarian Gnocchi Soup

If you don’t want to add meat at all by all means just leave that out. It is still quite delicious with the other ingredients y’all. Other than that you will need the following ingredients to pressure cook this creamy soup

1. Olive oil
2. Chicken
   1. breasts, thighs, or could use leftover sous vide or rotisserie chicken
3. Celery
4. Onion
5. Chicken stock or chicken broth
6. Carrots
7. Half and half or heavy cream
8. Spinach
9. Seasoning
10. Gnocchi

This is a favorite Instant Pot soup amongst my kids next to our Instant Pot clam chowder recipe. I think it’s because it’s really packed with flavorful ingredients and so creamy. Often times I will just use leftover meat from the night before or rotisserie from the store which adds a lot more flavor too.

What does gnocchi taste like?

It’s a simple dumpling made from potatoes, flour, and egg yolk. With that you probably have an idea of what they’d taste like.

• They’re dense, chewy, and bland eaten on their own. A bit like little gummy potato pellets, they frankly aren’t worth eating on their own.

Done right though gnocchi flavorful in the sauce you add them into, are pillowy, tender, and practically melt in your mouth. Think of it like chicken and dumplings if you have had that. The bits on the top or folded inside that are chewy bits everyone loves.

Want to make Olive Garden chicken gnocchi soup? This is very close to it. You could omit the meat entirely if you really wanted following the same directions too. I have even used diced ham after Easter time because that is what I needed to use up. A different flavor for sure but a tweak we all seemed to really enjoy.

Can you freeze gnocchi soup?

Can you freeze this copycat recipe for Olive Garden soup? Yes! You can freeze this easily. This stays well in the freezer for a couple of months when stored in an air tight container. You want to make sure that it is completely cool before you store it in anything to prevent bacteria from growing.

1. Set pot to saute with onions and diced chicken to brown the outsides
2. Turn pot off and add all other ingredients other than the heavy cream, gnocchi and spinach
3. Close lid and steam valve and set to high pressure for 4 minutes followed by a quick release
4. Open lid, add last 3 ingredients on saute function until gnocchi is cooked

The whole process should take about 15 minutes with time to come to pressure. You need to keep this in mind if you are timing side dishes or have a few hangry people in your household. a few minutes to cook, yes but it takes a bit to start the countdown as well.

Get the idea? I think we covered all the alternatives we have tried and could think of. If you have others just let us know below and we will try to help you out further. Looking for other pressure cooker recipes?

• Our Instant Pot lasagna soup is so good when it’s chilly outside.
• Feeling under the weather? Try our feel good soup to get you going.
• Sausage soup in a pressure cooker with kale is fantastic.

This is our favorite snowy day meal that’s Instant Pot creamy delicious in less than 30 minutes. You really don’t need a side or rolls on the side since you have bits of carbs floating in there already.