Instant Pot White Bean Soup is a creamy (vegan!) white bean soup scented with garlic and rosemary. This Instant Pot soup is made with dried white beans and just a few ingredients.
Featured Reviews
"Delish! thank you - easy and nutritious" - Alina
"Great and super easy. Added garlic salt, and added fresh lemon juice when finished cooking. Will definitely make again!" - El
Dried white beans, onion & garlic, olive oil and salt are really all you need to make this simple, affordable and lovely Instant Pot White Bean Soup.
Rosemary adds flavor and aroma, but you can choose to sub in another fresh herb like parsley, chives or oregano. Celery adds another layer of subtle flavor, but if you don't already have celery in your refrigerator, it's not absolutely necessary.
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Cooking Instructions
You can make this bean soup in just a few easy steps:
- Saute onion, garlic and celery
- Add dried beans, water/broth and rosemary
- Cook for 35 minutes at high pressure (natural release)
How Do You Thicken Broth in Bean Soup?
An easy to way to make vegan white bean soup creamy is pureeing the cooked ingredients. For this soup, I put a cup or two of cooked beans and broth into my blender and puree until silky smooth. You can also use an immersion blender.
You might choose to blend the entire soup, for a smooth, thick texture. I prefer to blend only part of the soup, so it has still has whole beans in the broth.
What to Serve with White Bean Soup
A crusty loaf of bread or garlic bread is a must with this soup! I also really like this simple soup with one or more sides or toppings. Such as:
- Pesto, to spoon into the soup
- Grated parmesan or Swiss cheese, to top each bowl of soup
- A squeeze of lemon juice
- Sausage (kielbasa, pre-cooked chicken sausage, vegetarian sausage, or whatever you like)
- Sauteed greens, like kale or Swiss chard
What if the Beans Don't Cook Evenly?
Cooking white beans for 35 minutes should be enough time for the beans to become very soft and tender. However, beans can be unpredictable. Sometimes, most of the beans will be perfectly cooked and others will be floating around all hard and wrinkled. This can happen due to old beans, or if acidic ingredients are added like vinegar, lemon or tomatoes.
The good news is that you can simply re-seal the pressure cooker and re-program it to cook for 5 more minutes (with natural release). If the beans still aren't completely cooked after that, just program the beans to cook for a few minutes more.
Can I Make This Recipe with Canned Beans?
Yes, you can. However, you don't need to cook it as long. Using canned beans, you only need to cook the soup for 5 minutes at high pressure. Make sure to drain the beans before adding them to the pot.
You could also try this recipe for Instant Pot White Bean, Cabbage and Tomato Soup.
More Bean Soup Recipes
- Slow Cooker 15 Bean Soup
- Crockpot Split Pea Soup
- Crockpot Lentil Soup
- Instant Pot Sausage and Lentil Soup
- Instant Pot Red Lentil Soup
Frequently Asked Questions About Instant Pot White Beans
For detailed instructions, read this recipe for Instant Pot White Beans.
For pressure cooker white beans, pre-soaking is optional. Pressure cookers do an excellent job of cooking beans even if they haven't been soaked.
However, pre-soaking beans helps the beans cook faster and more evenly. It reduces the odds that you'll have undercooked beans in your pot. If you can remember to soak the beans the night before, there's no reason not to.
To soak beans, cover completely with water in a big bowl and soak for 6 to 12 hours before cooking. Add 1 tablespoon salt to the soaking water for every pound of beans for more flavor. Drain and rinse the beans before cooking.
There are also methods for quick-soaking beans, like this hot water method.
No, you can use any variety of white bean that you like. I used Great Northern for this recipe. All varieties of white beans (Great Northern, Cannellini, Navy) usually take between 25 to 35 minutes to cook in a pressure cooker.
If the beans aren't soft enough for your liking after the cooking time and natural release have completed, just seal the lid back on the pressure cooker and cook the beans for 5 more minutes, with another natural release.
📖 Recipe
Instant Pot White Bean Soup
Instant Pot White Bean Soup is a creamy white bean soup scented with garlic and rosemary. It's made with dried white beans and just a few ingredients.
Serving bread for dipping in the soup is a must! For other serving suggestions, read the blog post above.
Total Instant Pot Cooking Time: 15 minutes to reach pressure + 35 minute cooking time + natural release
- Prep Time: 10
- Cook Time: 30
- Total Time: 40 minutes
- Yield: 6 servings 1x
- Category: Soup
- Method: Instant Pot
- Cuisine: American
- Diet: Vegan
Ingredients
- ¼ cup olive oil
- 1 small onion, finely chopped
- 4 to 6 garlic cloves, finely chopped
- 1 rib celery, finely chopped or thinly sliced
- 8 cups water or vegetable broth
- 1 pound dried white beans (a little over 2 cups)
- 2 sprigs rosemary (see notes below about rosemary amounts)
Ingredient Note: If you have a Parmesan rind with just a little bit of cheese left on it, throw the rind into the soup to add more flavor as it cooks
Instructions
- Heat the olive oil in the Instant Pot. Press the Saute button to heat the pot.
- Saute onion, celery and garlic for about 7 minutes, stirring occasionally, until onion is soft and lightly browned.
- Add water or broth, dried beans and rosemary. If using water, add 1 teaspoon salt. If using broth, wait to season the soup until after it’s cooked and you can taste it first.
- Cook for 35 minutes at high pressure, by pressing the Manual button to program the Instant Pot.
- Let the pressure release naturally when the cooking time is done.
- Puree some of the soup to make it creamy. Scoop out 1 to 2 cups of beans and 1 to 2 cups of broth and puree in the blender until very smooth (be careful - start at very low speed because hot liquid will rise up and splatter). Or, you can use an immersion blender to blend the soup to a consistency that you like.
- Add the pureed portion back to the soup. If you want the soup creamier, then puree even more beans and broth. It’s up to you!
- Adjust flavor with salt and pepper.
Notes
Rosemary - The amount of rosemary added to the soup should be determined by how much you like rosemary. Two sprigs that are 2 - 3 inches long will add strong rosemary flavor. If you just want a hint of rosemary, use only 1 small sprig.
If you don't care for rosemary, use another fresh herb like parsley, chives or oregano.
You can use all water or all broth for this soup, or a combination of water and broth.
If you've soaked the beans overnight before cooking this soup, then try a cooking time of 20 minutes for soaked beans.
This recipe was made in a 6-quart Instant Pot
Isabelle
This soup was perfect for a miserable rainy day, but a word of warning that the cook time on the recipe doesn’t include the time needed for the IP to come up to pressure and for the pressure to release at the end.
Dinner ended up being 30 mins later than planned, but it was worth it… and now that I know, I’ll give myself the extra buffer times when planning!
Page
I've been making this recipe since last summer. I make up a big batch and then freeze quart containers of it for other weeks. I tend to use broth, or sometimes half broth/half water. I add some tomato boullion sometimes, or thyme, or today I added some Black Truffle Herb. I usually throw in a couple of bay leaves (remove when cooked). I increase the celery to two stalks and add two sliced carrots, too (just to increase the micronutrients). Thank you so much for this classic base soup recipe to enjoy year around!
Jenny Meier
Thanks for letting us know, I'm so glad you enjoy it. Black truffle herb sounds amazing!
Marielle
Delicious soup! I used parsley because we didn’t have rosemary on hand, and added the Parmesan rind as suggested. I made a lower sodium version so that my baby could eat it as well. This will get added to our recipe book.
Connie
This was delicious. I used Better Than Bouillon Veg base, dried rosemary (half TBSP?) and pureed 2 c each of beans and broth.
Filling and comforting on a chilly rainy evening, I served with cream scones and a simple salad.
I'm at the end of a grocery cycle, didn't think I had enough ingredients in the house to make dinner, so glad I found your site. Will definitely make this soup again.
RD
Super easy to follow, excellent taste and all questions were answered in the recipe, I could not ask for more.
Theresa Reale
I have made this several times now. I added the parmesan rind as suggested. I had no celery this time but added a teaspoon of celery seed.
I used low sodium broth and sprinkled some grated parmesan on the soup for added flavour. Thanks for the recipe.
TONI
Really, really enjoyed this. Trying to eat a bit more healthy and cut out meat where we can, and still have something hot and nourishing. I'm feeling under the weather today, and this is EXACTLY what my body wanted. Thank you!!!!
Jenny
I'm so glad you enjoyed it, thanks for letting me know. Hope you feel better soon!
Julia
I found the recipe in its original version to be too watery and too bland. Like ideal for someone who is sick but I prefer a tichker, more flavorsome soup.
Next time I will cook it with only 6 or 5 cups of water. This time I used the instant pot sauté function to simmer the broth down for a good 10min afterwards which didn't really satisfy my consistency wishes. So I made a quick corn starch slurry (2tbsp of corn starch dissolved in 4tbsp of cold water and then put in the pot and cooked to further thicken).
When it was thick enough for my personal subjective taste, I added 4tbsp of nutritional yeast, the juice of 1 lemon, a good heaping of freshly ground pepper, a tsp of maple sirup, a tbsp vegan Worcestershire sauce and a tsp of mustard. Then I added 3 cups of fresh spinach and left in 2min before serving.
(The next day we added some gnocchi and had them cook in the soup for 3min until soft and delicious which was a great 2nd-day adjustment)
Jenny
Thanks for you honest review and helpful suggestions!
Floyd
Easy and delicious! Used water for cooking, had to cook beans for about 50 minutes. Added fresh lemon juice to every serving I ate. Froze leftovers and they reheated great. Will definitely be making this again soon!
El
Great and super easy. Added garlic salt, and added fresh lemon juice when finished cooking. Will definitely make again!
Kelly
Left out the celery, added lemon juice and salt and pepper. Really delicious!
Jenny
So glad you liked it!
Alina
Delicious Soup / beans.....i added rosemarey, parsley, sauteed garlic and onion in the Instant pot as you suggested. cooked about 35 mins, cooled and transferred to a pot for a 15 min stove cook to reduce a little of the brothiness. added 1 tbspn of tomatoe paste for colour, and 1/4 lemon. Delish! thank you - easy and nutritious.
Jenny
That sounds delicious! Thanks for letting me know.
Jen
An easy soup to make with really affordable white beans.