Hearty but not heavy, this Instant Pot Dairy Free Mushroom and Wild Rice Soup is full of flavor and couldn’t be easier to whip up!
This past weekend, my family tried to lay low and recover from the end of school year festivities (parents, you know what I’m talking about with this madness) and spent the entire day Saturday lounging. By the time dinner rolled around, however, everyone was a wee bit grumpy and restless so I thought we either needed to have ice cream for dinner [3] (bad mom) or go out and eat our weight in steak (less bad mom?).
We ended up at a steakhouse in a little town near ours that my husband had been combination laughing and raving about. He kept talking about how great their homemade ranch dressing was (I 100% am willing to eat dairy out these days, especially for a solid homemade ranch) and their homemade soups on the salad bar (also a sucker for these).
Full disclosure, I had 3 bowls of the wild rice and mushroom soup and am not entirely sure it was gluten free looking back. But fortunately I don’t have acute responses to gluten and just as fortunately, I also did not have a delayed reaction. Party on Wayne.
That dern soup was so good though I knew I needed to make it at home and with likely much cleaner ingredients. I let that 3rd bowl linger a little while so I could try to capture all the flavors I needed to get in there. I also knew I wanted to make it in the Instant Pot, because duh.
A quick word on rice before I share the recipe. Rice in my opinion is the most innocuous grain out there. It’s still a grain so if you need/want to be super strict paleo, it might not be the best fit. You could possibly sub cauli rice though you’ll want to cook for much less time than the recommended 30 since it will become mush. If you can tolerate rice here and there, which I personally can, this is great prepared as is. If you want you can even soak the rice for up to 24 hours to help with the phytic acid and arsenic reduction.
Instant Pot Dairy Free Mushroom and Wild Rice Soup
Ingredients
- 1 cup carrots, diced
- 1/4 cup ghee
- 1 cup onion, diced
- 1 cup celery, diced
- 8 ounces button mushrooms, diced
- 3 cloves garlic, minced
- 1 cup wild and brown rice blend
- 4 cups chicken broth or vegetable broth (for vegan option)
- 1 teaspoon onion powder
- 1/2 teaspoon black pepper
- 1/2 teaspoon thyme
- 1/3 cup lactose free cream cheese OR dairy free cream cheese like the one in Yiddish Kitchen [4] (vegan option) OR dairy free milk (if using dairy free milk, you’ll also need a few tablespoons of cassava flour or tapioca to thicken)
- 1 teaspoon sea salt
Instructions
- Combine the ghee and vegetables in the stainless steel bowl of your Instant Pot
- Press the Saute button and shift your veggies around for about 8-10 minutes or until they soften and most of the water has cooked out of the mushrooms
- Add in all the remaining ingredients except for the cream cheese or dairy free milk and give them a quick stir
- Secure the lid, press the Keep Warm/Cancel button and then press the Pressure Cook/Manual button, adjusting the time with the +/- buttons until 30 minutes is displayed
- Allow the cooking cycle to complete and then quick release the pressure valve and remove the lid once safe to do so
- Now spoon in your dairy free cream cheese OR lactose free cream cheese, stir and serve
- If you are choosing the dairy free milk option, you’ll want to first make a slurry with the dairy free milk and a few tablespoons of either tapioca starch or cassava flour before stirring it into the soup to thicken – then serve once you’ve met the desired consistency
- READ NOTE BELOW
Notes
This soup will thicken as it sits so if you allow it to be warmed using the warming feature on your Instant Pot, it will definitely transition from soup-like to risotto-like over time. If you choose to let it warm, you could serve it like a side dish or add in more broth as needed if it thickens beyond your desired consistency.
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