Instant Pot Tomato Soup is an easy peasy twist on a comfort food classic! The IP locks in flavor and gives this vegetarian soup a slow-simmered taste in a fraction of the time. Love it so!
Last week I tweaked my classic Fire-Roasted Tomato Soup a bit and tested it out in the Instant Pot.
The results were *delicious* and I loved that I could just toss the IP pot in the dish-washer when I was done. It was so easy and, after a quick little sauté of the onions for extra flavor, so hands off!
The leftovers can be frozen (WOOT!) and it’s a great make-ahead option for those of you who like to meal prep. It tastes fantastic the next day (and the day after that!) and is perfect “fast food” when you need to be warmed up on a chilly day. Snag a bowl to reheat at your desk at work or simply snuggle up at home after a long day with a speedy dinner.
serving suggestions
- topped with garlicky Crispy Roasted Parmesan Chickpeas or spicy Crispy Roasted Shawarma Chickpeas
- served alongside a leafy green salad or a side of roasted veggies.
- paired with a melty grilled cheese or veggie-packed panini for dunking
- or simply snag some buttery croutons and toss ’em on top
No Instant Pot? No problem! I’ll include stove-top instructions below the recipe card.
As written the soup is gloriously vegetarian, vegan, and gluten-free. It’s technically paleo and whole30 friendly too and can be made with chicken broth if preferred. Just ignore those melty grilled cheese photos, lol. The toppings and mix-ins are where you can have a little bit of fun based on diet and preferences (just choose what works for you!) so feel free to mix things up a bit and add what works for you!
If you’re jonesin’ for a creamy tomato soup, I’ll include a few dairy options for ya too. We’ve tried this scrumptious soup with cream and also with cream cheese and have basically swooned over the results!
Instant Pot Tomato Soup
This easy peasy Instant Pot Tomato Soup serves 4. The leftovers are amazing so feel free to incorporate this soup into your meal planning and meal-prep routine or even freeze a bowl for a rainy day!
Instant Pot Tomato Soup
Ingredients
- 1 Vidalia onion, diced
- 3 large carrots, chopped
- 2 cloves garlic minced
- 1 TBSP extra virgin olive oil
- 28 oz canned crushed or diced tomatoes
- 1 cup low-sodium vegetable broth or chicken broth
- 1-2 tsp sugar (optional)
- 1 TBSP tomato paste
- 1/4 cup chopped fresh basil or 1/2-1 TBSP dried basil plus extra to garnish
- 1/4 tsp dried oregano
- salt and pepper to taste
Instructions
- Switch your pressure cooker to the SAUTE function and sauté onion in 1 TBSP oil for 3-5 minutes, until edges are golden and tender. Add garlic at very end and cook 30 seconds more while stirring.
- To deglaze any browned bits of onion from the pot, add vegetable broth and scrape with spatula. (This adds flavor to the broth and helps prevent the IP's auto-shutoff "burn" feature.)
- Add chopped carrots, seasoning (salt, pepper, oregano, basil, and optional sugar) along with canned tomatoes and tomato paste.
- Set to HIGH pressure for 15 minutes and allow to come to pressure, allowing a natural pressure release for about 10 minutes.
- Use a hand held immersion blender to puree until fabulously smooth. You can also blend the soup, in two batches, in your blender or food processor.
- Lastly, give the soup a taste and adjust broth/tomato/seasoning to taste, adding any extra of whatever you prefer to get your ideal thickness and flavor. Additional broth can be added for a thinner soup and 3-4 ounces of cream cheese or heavy cream can be added (after cooking) for a creamy soup. Simply add extra spices to compensate for any additions and taste as you go. Easy peasy!
- Serve piping hot with a melty grilled cheese sandwich and enjoy!
Notes
- freshly grated parmesan cheese
- grilled cheese
- vegan grilled cheese
- croutons
- garlic parmesan roasted chickpeas
Nutrition
If you get a chance to try this easy peasy Instant Pot Tomato Soup, let me know! Leave some love in the comment form below or tag your photos with @peasandcrayons on Instagram so I can happy dance over your creation! I can’t wait to see what you whip up!
stove-top instructions
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Sauté onions and carrots in 1-2 TBSP olive oil until tender.
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Next add garlic and cook for an additional 30 sec until fragrant.
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Season with salt and pepper.
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Add tomato paste and cook until toasted, approx. 1 minute.
- Next, add tomatoes, broth, and bail and let simmer for 25 minutes, until the vegetables are tender and the flavors have melded together.
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Use a hand held immersion blender to puree until fabulously smooth. You can also blend the soup, in two batches, in your blender or food processor.
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Lastly, give the soup a taste and adjust broth/tomato/seasoning to taste, adding any extra of whatever you prefer to get your ideal thickness and flavor. Add the optional sugar to cut the acidity if needed. Additional broth can be added for a thinner soup and 3-4 ounces of cream cheese or heavy cream can be added for a creamy soup. Simply add extra spices to compensate for any additions and taste as you go. Easy peasy! Garnish with basil and dive in while it’s hot!
HUNGRY FOR MORE?
- NEW! Garlic Roasted Tomato Flatbread Pizza
- Vegan Grilled Cheese Sandwiches – Three Ways
- Brie Grilled Cheese – perfect for dunking in this tomato soup!
- Spaghetti Squash Parmesan
Finally a good tomato soup recipe for my instant pot!! This was a huge hit with me and my partner. I didn’t have fresh carrots so I used one 14oz can, and. We also added a little liquid aminos and sour cream after blending. It was sooo good. Thank you!
Thank you Casper! I’m so glad the soup was a hit – and flexible too! xoxo
Wow – this was delicious! I now wish I had made more as was a very tasty bowl of soup. The only slight tweaks I made were to include some celery (as I had loads in the fridge) for that classic sofritto vibe, and used red onions rather than the type suggested in the recipe. Also, I used mixed dried herbs instead of oregano and basil.
After trying many tomato soup recipes, this one is the perfect balance of easy and delicious! I love to make a batch for a week of lunches, and a few tweaks to the recipe (vegetable broth for chicken broth; leave out any creams) makes it Daniel Fast approved. However, I do have one question: since one batch is not quite enough for five days of lunches, can you double the recipe? I have a five-quart Instant Pot and while the ingredients would certainly fit, I am curious if you have any experience with doubling. Thanks for the great recipe!
My tweak was to add a couple TB of sour cream in addition to cream cheese. Also, serve with a shake or two of Louisiana hot sauce, or chipotle tobasco sauce. Yums!
ooooh Brad I love the sound of this! I’m going to sneak hot sauce into this soup when I make it tonight!
This is a delicious and easy tomato soup recipe. I had never made tomato soup before, and now I use this recipe to make it all the time! No need to wait for winter!
I will never buy shop bought soup again! Even my fussy kids demolished it! So tasty and quick!
So glad you enjoyed it! Thanks Parz!
I made your Instant Pot tomato soup for dinner … it’s a snowy day here in PA. Very tasty and really hit the spot!
Love hot soup on a cold snowy day! I’m glad you enjoyed the recipe Chuck — thank you!
Oh my goodness this was fantastic! I accidentally added extra tomato paste so I watered it down with an extra cup of veggie broth. I loved the carrots – I could taste them but it was a clever way to sneak them into my toddler’s diet. If I was to make it again I’d probably add a rib of celery, but I loved it the way it was too.
Good morning Jenn!
I want to make this today to serve as lunch tomorrow as tomato soup is my friend’s favorite! I have a half bag of matchstick carrots left, can I substitute them?
Many thanks for any advice you can give me.
Susan
This soup was so delicious, thank you!
So happy to hear it Jeanie — thank you!
I loved this recipe! And it was fast and easy!
I’m so excited for fall because it means I can eat soup every night
I just made this and I’m pretty disappointed after all the other amazing reviews! All I taste is carrot. It’s so heavily carrot flavor. I’ve added more tomatoes and some cream cheese but the carrot taste is kind of overpowering. I used baby carrots because that’s all I had, so perhaps I did too many? I don’t know. Not a fan of this, unfortunately.
Hi Gina! I’m also wondering if too many baby carrots is the culprit here as the soup should not taste of carrot. It should taste entirely like a tomato soup. The added carrots in the recipe is to cut the acidity of the tomato and add a balance to the soup. Many recipes call for sugar to cut this acidity but I’ve found carrots do an amazing job in place of sugar.
I am in the middle of a move and won’t have a kitchen for another month but I can try it out with baby carrots and see how it goes. Do you remember how many you added? Happy to help troubleshoot! xo
Loved the soup. I will make it often
Tried this last night. Grandson wanted tomato soup and grilled cheese for supper. This recipe was very easy and more importantly, very delicious. He loved it! Will definitely make this again.
I’m so glad y’all enjoyed it! Thanks Terri!
Very tasty! I have not eaten homemade tomato soup ever! This recipe is going in my cooking binder. Thank you for sharing!
This was delish and super easy! My 9 year old made her own lunch last night…..because she wanted this soup in it!
Love this soup!!! So easy to make and perfect with grilled cheese sandwiches. This is sooo much better than anything I’ve had from a can. In fact, it rivals my favourite pub’s tomato soup!!
Can I use chicken or beef broth instead of vegetable?
Hi Michelle! It works great with chicken broth so feel free to use it! Beef broth might possibly overpower or interfere with the flavors.
First off, we LOVED this recipe. But there were a couple of issues before complete satisfaction. This was a super thick mixture when following the amounts of ingredients to the letter. Good practice for me in understanding the dreaded “burn” message that populated. I released the steam, and did another stir of the liner bottom, and this time, the Instant Pot performed like a champ. When the soup was finished, for our taste, it was very very thick, as in a spoon standing straight up :). What I ended up doing was adding more chicken broth, and that was the entire answer to making this delicious soup. It was still plenty thick, but I estimate that I added about 2 more cups of broth. The above is no gripe whasoever. Thank you for sharing this.
Is the 15 minutes cook time correct? I’m looking around at instant pot tomato soup recipes and they’re all 5-7 minutes. One was 3. So just wondering if 15 is a typo.
Hi Jo! 15 minutes is correct. There is always a chance it can finish in less, but I like to ensure my tomatoes and carrots are really pulverized and soft so the soup is super creamy and luxe. For me it comes out perfect when I set the IP to 15 minutes so I’ve stuck with that number.
So you pressure cook for 15 and then depressurize for 10. In that case the numbers at the top of the recipe are off by 10 min. I’ve had my ingredients ready all day so I’m going to give it a try and see how it goes.
Hi Jo! So it will typically take about 5 minutes to build pressure, then will count down while cooking for 15 minutes. The 10 minutes at the end for natural pressure release aren’t for cooking. They’re to allow the pressure to come down naturally because the soup gets so molten hot in the IP. I choose that method mainly for safety and also to avoid the chance of any soup sputtering out the vent with a quick release right off the bat. I hope that makes sense! If you’re in a rush you could always test it a different way, I just try to be extra safe with writing up IP recipes, especially for anyone that may be using their Instant Pot for the first time. xoxo
Okay, I’ve decided that was a typo because I just noticed at the top of the recipe you have pressurize/ depressurize time 15 minutes total. So I will set the pressure cook time for 5.
Utterly delicious!
So easy and delicious. Perfect for a cold afternoon. I added some cream cheese then used the immersion blender. Creamy goodness!
Okay. I see that now. also I don’t have an immersion blender. can i use a regular blender?
Yes 100%! Soup expands when hot so work carefully in batches as needed to allow room for the hot soup to expand in the blender.
Hi there,
I do not have a instant pot. can i do this recipe over the stovetop?
Thanks!
Renee
Yes absolutely Renee! At the bottom of this blog post I’ve outlined the stove top instructions to go with this recipe. LMK if you have any other questions – happy to help! xo
A burn every time if I follow the instructions exactly. I increased the broth to 3 cups and it turned out much better.
Oh no, Suzette! This shouldn’t happen at all and I’m happy to help troubleshoot if you’d like. Were any ingredients swapped or adjusted? What size IP did you use? Keep me posted and we’ll get to the bottom of this. The recipe has been super reliable for family friends but the IP is sometimes picky when it comes to details.
Not enough liquid in the base recipe. Had to try to pressure cook twice. On the third try realizing there is not enough liquid had to add 1 1/2 more cup of water. 1 batch ruined.
Hi Steve! We make this soup once a month, sometimes more, and I’ve never had to adjust the liquid. I use a 6 quart Instant Pot and make it exactly as written here. Did you use any different ingredients or swaps used when you made this recipe? What size instant pot did you use? Happy to help troubleshoot as this recipe should work on the first time every time.
This was absolutely delicious one of my favourite instant pot recipes and so incredibly easy to make. Tasted like a dish I would eat at a restaurant!
This recipe is delicious and so quick and easy. I now am wondering whey I’ve been wasting all these years with my old tomato soup recipe!
This is my most-made and least-adjusted InstantPot recipe, so I just wanted to drop a note of appreciation! I’ve been banging my head against the wall trying to tweak a borscht recipe, and went back to this tomato soup for something reliably delicious. I’m experimenting with adding one chopped golden beet this time, so if we like that I might just give up on the proper borscht. 😂 I love how forgiving this recipe is. I’ve never accidentally crossed some too-much-seasoning or too-many-carrots threshold; it’s always good.
This recipe is so yummy! As I was cooking, my husband wandered downstairs to see what the good smell was. 🙂 we loved the thickness and flavour. Thanks for an amazing dish!
FINALLY a vegetarian blog that doesn’t include tofu as a main dish! With our family of 7 its hard to find goo recipes that we will all eat, I’m also from Europe and most of our traditional dishes include potatoes, sometimes a potato can get boring after a while. However, we absolutely love vegetables!! I would not consider us vegetarian (yet) but our plates usually burst with color like a peacock advertising mating season. Thank you for your website and I cant wait to try all of these!
I don’t even like tomato soup until I had extra basil and needed to use. I found this recipe and because my husband loves tomato soup for lunch, I decided to give a try. I have made 3 times doubling recipe each time. I love this soup.I mostly follow the recipe, just heavy on the herbs and extra sugar to cut acid, I also add heavy cream to thicken. This freezes great. Love this soup.
Hi Jenn, could I use freshly chopped tomatoes instead of canned ones? I’ve got a surplus of really nice red ripe tomatoes.
Hi Annamarie! Of course you can use fresh! The main difference here with the canned ones that I want you to look out for is liquid content. Crushed and diced canned tomatoes contribute some of the liquid that the IP needs to create steam and cook the soup so there’s a chance that a. the liquid will be released from the fresh tomatoes right away and eventing will go perfect or b. the burn notice will get set off and require a little bit more liquid to finish off the soup. (Instant Pots can be pesky sometimes) I honestly think the juices will release from the tomatoes pretty fast and it will be a-ok, but would need to test it first to know 100%. Keep me posted and I cannot wait for you to try this recipe! We simply adore this soup and I bet fresh tomatoes would be fantastic!
Delish!!! Will def make this again! It was nice and thick. The only change I will make to it is to make sure I use the 2 tsp on sugar (I only used 1) to cut the acidity. But the whole family loved it.
I’m so glad you enjoyed it Korey – thank you!
Made this in the IP with the 3 oz cream cheese added at the end. SO GOOD, and my husband agrees! This will be my forever tomato soup recipe, after trying quite a few others over many years. It was perfect with a homemade sourdough grilled cheese sandwich. Thanks so much for sharing!
Yay!!! So happy to hear it! Thank you Allison!
So easy and delicious!
This was AWESOME. Probably the best soup I’ve had and an incredibly easy recipe.
This was super easy, and delicious.
I was out of carrots but I had frozen sweet potatoes, so I used them in place of carrots. I made this in my instant pot. Thanks for the recipe! Will 100% make this again!
This was amazing and surprisingly easy to make… paired with grilled cheese it was perfect comfort food.
Thanks so much for this recipe! I’ve been working my way through various tomato-basil soup recipes on the internet and I pretty much stopped with this one. It is now my “go-to” for IP tomato soup. So good!
Made it and it was so good. My kids all loved it too. Thank you for sharing 🙂
First time making my favourite soup. This was perfect. Thank you.
Ps why is there no celery in the recipe.
So glad you loved the soup, Drew! I never add celery to my tomato soups but I’m willing to try the combo out! xo
So good! I added about 10 or 15 cherry tomatoes halved that were laying around, a splash more broth, a bay leaf, and stirred in sour cream at the end. Super good with grilled cheese tonight! A keeper!
This was excellent! I added a can of diced tomatoes with garlic along with the 28oz of crushed tomatoes. I also added 2 oz of cream cheese at the end. It was really good, especially with the grilled jalapeno cream cheese sandwiches I made to go with it.
REALLY excellent! Made with no changes in the recipe. This will now be the go-to.
I’m glad you enjoyed it Jan! Thank you!
This was deeelicious! This is a very thick soup and I will add more vegetable broth to thin it out. I didn’t add the cream since I have some family members who are vegan.
I tripled the recipe so that I can freeze it and eat it at a later time. I used the soup function on my Instant Pot and did a quick release after it was done.
Thanks for the great recipe!
Love having this soup tucked away in the freezer!
Great recipe for pizza sauce! Didn’t work as soup, but was a fantastic sauce for my pizza tonight
Mmmmmmmm!!! Literally just made this now because my daughter wanted tomato soup and grilled cheese for lunch and IT. IS. AMAZING! Now I did have to change certain bits due to necessity. No fresh onion in the house so I rehydrated dried onion I had in the pantry approximately equivalent to one large onion. Also I think my carrots were bigger than expected by the recipe so I thinned my soup down with V8 that I happened to have! SO TASTY!!! I feel healthier just tasting it! What a great, SIMPLE recipe!! It’s a keeper! Thanks!
Hello! This was an excellent tomato soup! Did you by chance have the caloric content and macro-nutrient profile of this soup?
Thanks in advance!
Hi Garry! Via MyFitnessPal.com nutrition estimate per serving: 159 calories, 4 grams fat (will vary based on oil used), 27 grams carbohydrates, 4.5 grams protein. That’s all the detail the calculator gave me but you can use your favorite app/calculator to get a more in-depth analysis too! xoxo
Cannot have cream so was thrilled to find a recipe that was so good without it, also like that I get to use my immersion blender that I now know why I had to have. This will be a fall/winter staple in my house.
Could fresh tomatoes be used in place of canned?
As long as the IP has enough liquid (they can be a little finicky) you should be good to go with fresh tomatoes! Let me know if you get a chance to experiment! xoxo
I just made this soup tonight. It was fantastic. Super easy to make. I made a giant mess while blending, but it still tasted great off of my arm. Haha! Husband and kid approved, too. I loved the hidden carrot, as we struggle to get enough veggies into all of our tummies. I didn’t add in the cream cheese or heavy cream, as we thought it was PERFECT as is. 🙂 Thanks for making awesome recipes I can always rely on!
We had this soup for dinner tonight and it was EXCELLENT! I have been searching for a great tomato soup recipe and the search is now over. This will be a regular on our menu.
This soup is so delicious, seriously. Perfect texture, nice and creamy, and all I added was salt. And what makes it even more amazing is that it really is as easy as throwing it all in the instant pot and letting it do its thing.
It has officially hit the regular rotation list!!
This is an excellent tomato soup and very easy!
Thanks so much Rachel! xo
Oh Jenn! This was absolutely delicious! I’ll be making this often.
Just wanted to say how awesome it is that you included the Vegan option. That is how I’m going to make it today. Thanks so much!!
Hope you adore it Melanie!! xoxo
This is delicious! Nice and thick, even with adding additional vegetable broth. The few ounces of heavy cream was a nice touch too.
I froze individual containers to take to work for lunch ?
WOOT! Thank you Debbie! Super happy to hear it!
This is so delicious and quick. Loved making it and will try again soon.
So so glad you enjoyed it Molly – thanks!
Tomato soup is a favorite this time of year! Great recipe!
I could seriously eat it daily right now with this cold gloomy weather!