Instant Pot Chicken Noodle Soup

Instant Pot Chicken Noodle Soup Recipe is a hands-off method to cook this classic comfort food. Tender chicken, veggies and egg noodles are cooked in a flavorful broth in fraction of the time.

We keeps soups on regular rotation here! Instant Pot chicken rice soup and Instant Pot chicken tortilla soup are just a few of our favorites.

Instant Pot chicken noodle soup is the chicken soup recipe you don’t have to babysit. Full of juicy chicken pieces, tender noodles and flavorful clear broth. Sign me up!

I have adapted my grandma’s recipe first to the stovetop chicken noodle soup, then I made her chicken noodle soup in crock pot and now I made it in Instant Pot.

Pressure cooking is a hands off method to make chicken noodle soup from scratch. It involves a few steps but all of them are “dump and go”. It’s ready in 1.5 hours, but tastes like it simmered all day!

I just love Instant Pot recipes!

Ingredients You Will Need

To make Instant Pot chicken noodle soup recipe, you will need just a few simple ingredients.

• Chicken: Any type of chicken works. If using boneless skinless chicken breasts, be sure to use chicken broth with them. When using dark meat like chicken thighs, I like to remove their skin and you can add water then because broth will come out flavorful.
• Chicken broth: Low sodium chicken broth or chicken stock. You can use store-bought or homemade chicken broth or Instant Pot chicken broth.
• Fresh vegetables: Onion for aromatic taste and carrots for sweetness. While celery is a common chicken soup ingredient, I found that it added a peculiar strong taste and turned out mushy when added to delicate Instant Pot chicken noodle soup.
• Pasta: White pasta, whole wheat pasta, whole wheat egg noodle, gluten-free egg noodles or regular egg noodles work.
• Simple spices: Dried oregano, garlic powder, peppercorns, and bay leaves add rich flavor.
• Salt and pepper: Just a small amount to season and taste. Adjust sodium accordingly if your chicken broth is not low sodium.
• Fresh herbs: Dill or parsley, for garnish.

How to Make Instant Pot Chicken Noodle Soup

Here is a quick step by step overview in photos how to make chicken noodle soup in Instant Pot. There is a full recipe card below.

• Cook chicken with spices. To the bottom of Instant Pot, add chicken, carrots, whole peeled onion, bay leaves, peppercorns and chicken broth to make flavorful base. Turn pressure valve to Sealing position, cook on High Pressure for 30 minutes and then do Quick Pressure Release.
• Strain the broth. With a small mesh strainer remove and discard onion, bay leaves, peppercorns, foam and any floating pieces. Do it gently without disturbing broth too much. Chicken broth will be clear as things settle.
• Separate chicken into pieces. At this point chicken is so cooked, you can easily break it into pieces with a long utensil right inside the Instant Pot. No need to remove the chicken. If your chicken has bones, remove large pieces. If using chicken breasts, remove on a plate and shred with 2 forks.
• Add seasonings and noodles. Add salt, oregano, basil, garlic powder and uncooked noodles. Stir everything, close the lid, turn on Keep Warm and let pasta “cook” to al dente for 10-15 minutes.

Variations

This Instant Pot chicken noodle soup recipe is very forgiving. Here are a few tips to make it your own based on what you have on hand.

• Whole chicken: My favorite meat to use when making chicken noodle soup. I remove half or all skin and trim the fat. And if I have time, first I make one batch of Instant Pot chicken broth. Then I dilute half of the broth with water, add it back to Instant Pot with chicken and cook again for soup. The other half of broth I dilute with water too, cool and freeze. I just find it produces a very concentrated broth.
• Frozen vegetables: Add peas and corn to bulk up the chicken soup after cooking.
• Root vegetables: Some readers have added parsnip with the carrots for a different twist. You may also like this chicken noodle with vegetable soup recipe.
• Seasonings: Use Italian seasoning instead of oregano, add dried thyme or minced fresh thyme, if you wish.
• Pop of heat: Add a pinch of red pepper flakes.
• Squirt of lemon juice: At the end brightens overall flavor of the soup.
• Other noodles: While egg noodles are preferred for Instapot chicken noodle soup, any pasta like macaroni, ditalini, rotini will work. Just note that some noodles will cook faster than others!

Tips for Best Results

Here are my top tips for the best chicken noodle soup recipe made in Instant Pot ever!

• Onion: Keep the onion whole and don’t trim off “the hairy end”. It will be easy to discard. Treat half of large onion the same way. The onion is just meant to add flavor, leave the skin on if you would like the broth to have a golden hue. 
• No celery: Adding celery almost ruined this soup for me, personally. Its flavor was way too strong and texture mushy.
• Add pasta later: Do not add noodles with chicken.
• Speed up coming to pressure: If you add boiling water in the beginning, your pressure cooker will take less time to come to pressure.
• Fresh herbs: Add fresh herbs to the pot right before serving. Otherwise, they will “cook”.

Serving Instant Pot Chicken Noodle Soup

While I love to keep it simple and serve soup with a loaf of whole grain bread or almond flour bread, here are some other topping ideas:

• Crackers: Oyster crackers, saltine crackers, whole grain crackers or even gluten free crackers.
• Croutons: Add delicious crunch and taste.
• Parmesan: Always a lovely addition to topping off any soup.
• Hot sauce: Love things with heat? Add a dash of hot sauce on top!

And if you are feeding hungry teenagers, here are some additional sides for Instant Pot chicken noodle soup:

• Soup and sandwich: Grilled cheese or healthy tuna melt.
• Soup and salad: Spinach salad or lemon kale salad.
• Soup and appetizers: Healthy spinach artichoke dip.

How to Store, Freeze and Reheat

Storing: Instant Pot chicken noodle soup leftovers will last in the fridge for a few days but keep in mind with each day noodles “swell up”. Therefore, 2 days is maximum recommended storage time.

But good thing is, pasta soups like this one and chicken noodle vegetable soup is gone fast in our house. If it’s not the case for you, I recommend to cook pasta separately and add before serving to the bowls.

Freezing: If you plan on freezing soup, do not add pasta. Set aside the amount of soup you plan on freezing before you add pasta. Either cook noodles separately and add to each bowl, or scoop out pasta before freezing.

Reheating: Always reheat only the amount you will eat at that time. Do not heat entire pot multiple times, it spoils the food. Simmer desired amount on low for 5 minutes or so.

FAQs

More Instant Pot Chicken Recipes

• Instant Pot chicken wild rice soup 
• Instant Pot Thai chicken soup
• Instant Pot chicken breast
• Instant Pot whole chicken
• Frozen chicken in Instant Pot
• Instant Pot white chicken lasagna soup

You may also like to browse through these 52 favorite soup recipes!