Delicious & Healthy Instant Pot Potato, Garlic & Rosemary Soup

This is a lovely, hearty and healthy smooth soup that you can add crunchy things like croutons to, if that is what you like. Would also be lovely with nuts or pine nuts or roasted pumpkin seeds - anything like that. It uses coconut milk for some extra creaminess as a delicious alternative to cream or milk.

Now before you say, but I don't have an Instant Pot, never fear, you can make this on the stove top just as easily, except you'll probably have to give it a stir every now and then. Simply follow the instructions using a large saucepan on the hob and cook the potatoes until they are tender.

Vegetarian / Vegan / Gluten Free

Serves 6 hungry people min, and will keep in the fridge/freezer

Equipment

Required

5.7 lt / 6 quart Instant Pot (or you could halve the recipe if you have the smaller one)
or a large heavy base saucepan
trivet
wooden spatula
1lt / 4 cup jug
Stick blender of stand blender

Optional if you're not worried about how smooth the soup is

sieve
large bowl
silicon spatula
ladle

Ingredients

2kg/4.4lb potatoes of your choice (I used Albert Barlett Rooster Potatoes)
1 bulb/head of garlic
1 large white onion
1.5 tsp dried rosemary
1lt/ 4 cups low or no salt veggie stock (I use 2 good quality stock cubes and boiling water) - chicken stock would work too if you're not worried about it being vegetarian.
1 can (400ml / 1.7 cups) coconut milk
salt and pepper to taste
1 tbsp oil for frying

Potato, garlic and rosemary soup in an instant pot.

Instant Pot Potato, Garlic & Rosemary Soup

Instructions

Peel and chop the onion and garlic roughly (it's going to be blended so doesn't need to be fancy, just small enough to fry off).
Use the sauté option on the instant pot on high - add in the oil and the onion and fry off until translucent (make sure to stir often of it will stick).
Add the garlic and fry for another minute or so.
Set aside in a bowl to cool.
Deglaze the bottom of the Instant Pot with a little of the stock.
Put in the trivet (because potatoes are heavy, they can cause a burn notice if they all slump and stick to the bottom, so having the trivet in the way makes this much more unlikely).
Peel and chop the potatoes into small chunks and add to the Instant Pot.
Blend the onions and garlic (optional - I did this so I didn't have to blend the soup as much at the end) and add on top of the potatoes.
Add the rosemary. To get the most flavour out of my dried rosemary, I like to grind it down in my pestle and mortar before adding it, but you can just add it whole if you prefer.
Add the can of coconut milk, the stock, and the salt and pepper (go easy on the seasoning, you can always add more at the end, but you can't take it out).
Close the lid of the Instant Pot and choose the Pressure/Manual option and cook for 15 mins.
When the cook time is done, release the pressure - this will take a while because the pot is pretty full.
Lift out the internal pot to the counter and take out the trivet using a fork. Give it a few minutes to begin to cool before either blending with the stick blender or blending in batches in a stand blender. It can splash when blending, so letting it cool is a good plan - I have a lovely burn from where I failed to do this when making pumpkin soup last week.
Optional - Pass the soup through the sieve into a large bowl, using the ladle to get it out of the instant pot and the silicon spatula to push it through. It shouldn't take long, but if you don't want to do this part, you can miss it out, I just hate little bits in a smooth soup that I didn't deliberately put there 😉.
Return the soup to the Instant Pot and check for seasoning, add more if necessary. It can be left on keep warm or simply reheated when it is needed.