Instant Pot Meatball Soup with Frozen Meatballs

Easy Instant Pot meatball soup with frozen meatballs in pressure cooker or homemade with ground beef is made in under 20 minutes! A healthy low carb and keto friendly dinner you’ll love, packed with vegetables. Can make in a Ninja Foodi or Crock pot express too.

Instant Pot Meatball Soup with Frozen Meatballs

We love this healthy meatball soup when it is chilly outside! Now that we’re trying to incorporate more low carb soups into our diet, this one has been a fave. It’s been made a few different ways over the years. Throwing in a handful of meat right out of the freezer when we are in a hurry works well.

When I do have some time I will make them homemade like I did with our Instant Pot Swedish meatballs dish, so whatever works. You don’t have to have an IP either, the brand doesn’t matter. I have a few different models and both the crockpot express and Ninja Foodi work just as well too.

Chicken Meatball Soup Instant Pot

To make things easier (and under 30 minutes) we often times will use frozen like I said. This way it can be made in under 20 minutes flat.

That’s my kind of semi homemade dinner. In the new year we have vowed to eat healthier with lower fat options. With that said I have made this with air fryer chicken meatballs.

Meatball Vegetable Soup Instant Pot

We always incorporate ALL the vegetables we can, especially when it comes to Instant Pot soups. During the summertime fresh is easy to find. Since we live in a smaller town I will buy mixed frozen vegetables in the colder months since the others don’t typically look so great. Use what you like, or swap out those you’d rather have inside really.

Those that can be found year round though I will. Peeled and sliced carrots are a given and celery is always around too. Onions are a cheap add in that add texture and flavor to any dish.

Ninja Foodi Meatball Soup

Once you make this you can later swap out the meat too. Think sliced kielbasa would work, leave the protein out and make it vegetarian, or if you have leftover chicken then use that!! You know i hate wasting food so I use what I have on hand y’all.

1. You do not need to know how to cook frozen meatballs for this one. Just throw them in and cooked in the liquid they will get tender nicely in no time.
   1. you could make them homemade beforehand
      1. use ground beef or ground turkey to make Italian meatballs

with homemade meatballs

Note: if you do NOT use frozen, you need to add them at the end once the soup is done cooking. If not they’ll fall apart. Now with the Foodi you can cook homemade with the air crisp function on 400 for 6 min. or so, or saute with the lid off. This is how long to cook meatballs in oven too.

Super quick cooking time y’all for this one. Now if you start from scratch with the meat, make your balls. Hit sauté function with a little olive oil, cook 2-3 minutes on each side until they are done and browned on the outside.

Remove, set aside and keep warm. Then make this recipe as directed below and add your meat at the end so they stay in tact.

Ingredients

1. Broth, either chicken broth or beef broth, your choice
2. Olive oil is needed if you made balls from scratch
3. Onions are diced or sliced but optional
4. Carrots and celery sliced into bite size pieces are great
5. Garlic will amp up the flavor
6. Tomato sauce or crushed tomatoes could be used as an alternative
7. Salt and pepper are the basic seasonings
8. Basil and parsley are nice touches
9. Bag of frozen meatballs

Unlike our Instant Pot Italian wedding soup recipe we did not add any pasta or noodles to this one to keep it keto. If you wanted to add some you’d need to cook it 3 minutes shorter, release steam, add noodles and add 3 more minutes with a quick release.

How come I don’t I add raw homemade meatballs into the mix? Because they tend to fall apart in the cooking process. If you don’t want store bought, just bake beforehand.

Why do my meatballs fall apart when cooking?

The binder is usually the problem if they do. Most meatball recipes call for using bread crumbs and eggs. Too many bread crumbs makes them loose, but not enough bread crumbs won’t help them hold together either.

Adding homemade Instant Pot meatballs into liquid like this doesn’t seem to work real well as far as them staying in tact. Using frozen eliminates this issue, so that’s my preference.

How long do you brown meatballs before putting in sauce or soup?

Give them a minute or two on each side to fully brown in a skillet or in your pressure cooker with the saute function with a bit of olive oil. Then finish cooking them in the oven.

Here are some simple step by step directions. I also have a printable recipe card at the bottom of this post.

How to Make Instant Pot Meatball Soup

1. Set pot to saute and add olive oil. When it is hot add onion, celery, carrots, garlic and all of the seasonings. Cook until onions begin to soften, a few minutes should do it. Then turn pot off.
2. Pour in tomato sauce and broth, stir contents. Drop in frozen meatballs and stir again.
3. Close lid and steam valve and set to pressure cook high for 15 minutes. Do a quick release of steam when done.
4. Serve with parmesan cheese on top and enjoy.

Serve in bowls alone or with parmesan cheese on top. You could use our slow cooker frozen meatballs timing first, then add the other ingredients halfway thru and make it that way too. That would of course take a lot longer but I do like to have options depending on how our day is going.

Can you can soup in an Instapot?

No, that is not recommended by the manufacturer. They state that the temperature doesn’t get high enough to kill all of the bacteria like a stovetop version would. With that said it may not be safe to then store at room temperature and consumer later.

I’ve made another version using ground sausage where I didn’t form them into balls at all. I just browned it on saute and left it as it. That worked well too.

• If you’re interested in that version you can try this Instant Pot sausage soup with kale. It’s another one of our favorite comfort foods.
• This Instant Pot minestrone soup is packed with vegetables with pasta too if you want another simple dinner idea.

What should you serve with pressure cooker meatball soup?

1. Our favorite is probably this semi homemade refrigerated biscuit pull apart bread.
2. You can also make this easy roll recipe.
3. Garlic bread from scratch goes well with just about anything….I mean I can’t resist crusty bread with soup and stew!

Print recipe below. Nutritional information is included to with saturated fat and calorie information.