This is the best Instant Pot Lentil Soup full of tender lentils and veggies that hold well during pressure cooking! With only 5 minutes of prep, no sautéing, or pre-soaking, this is the easiest healthy Instant Pot soup recipe perfect for busy weeknights!
The Ukrainian in me loves making complete meal soups for dinner like this one and chicken and lentil soup. They last for days, are cheap and kids love them!
Table of Contents
This Instant Pot lentil soup is a cross between my stovetop lentil spinach soup and slow cooker lentil soup. You couldn’t ask for an easier or healthier soup recipe that makes enough food to feed your family for a week!
Why You’ll Love This Recipe
- Delicious: No matter what benefits my Instant Pot recipes have, one thing they have in common is they always taste good!
- Healthy: Naturally gluten-free, loaded with vegetables to the brim, and made with simple, wholesome fresh ingredients.
- Lots of leftovers: This lentil soup tastes better even the next day and the recipe makes a lot! Especially if you’re making a monster batch in the 8 quart Instant Pot.
- Budget-friendly: No fussy ingredients. Most of them you probably already have in your kitchen and if not, none of them will break the bank.
- Easy to make: There is no sautéing beforehand and no pre-soaking the lentils. With just 5 minutes of prep, the pressure cooker does the work. It really doesn’t get easier than this!
Ingredients for Instant Pot Lentil Soup
- Lentils: Use french green lentils or brown lentils, whichever you have. Both will hold their shape under pressure and don’t become mushy. Make sure to rinse and drain them, however no pre-soaking needed.
- Vegetables: Carrots, celery, spinach or kale, low sodium diced or crushed tomatoes. You can play around with the amount and type of vegetables you use, depending on your preferences.
- Aromatics: Onion, garlic cloves, bay leaves all work together to give this soup amazing flavor.
- Seasonings: Cumin, oregano, salt and pepper are all this recipe calls for in terms of herbs and spices. Simple seasoning that goes a long way!
- Broth: You can use bouillon cubes and 10 cups of water or 10 cups of low sodium vegetable broth or stock. I highly recommend to buy organic bouillon cubes available at many grocery stores. You can also do half broth and half water to cut back on cost.
How to Make Lentil Soup in Instant Pot
This Instant Pot lentil soup recipe is true dump and go meal because you don’t have to saute any veggies. Here is how to make it, full recipe card is located down below:
- Add vegetables: To the Instant Pot or any other electric pressure cooker, add carrots, celery and onion.
- Add everything else: Then add green lentils, diced tomatoes, cumin, oregano, bay leaves, salt, pepper and bouillon cubes and water or vegetable broth.
- Pressure cook: Close the lid, set pressure valve to Sealing and press Pressure Cook on High pressure or Manual button for 18 minutes.
Recipe Tip
Does yours say “pressure cook” or “manual”? Not all pressure cookers are made exactly the same. Depending on the model of your pot, your button might say “manual” or “pressure cook.” Not to worry, they mean the exact same thing!
- Release the pressure: You can release the pressure by doing a Natural Release which takes just under an hour. This means leaving it alone and doing nothing with it until the pin drops. Or, you can do a Quick Release by turning the valve to Venting and releasing the pressure in about 3-4 minutes.
- Add the greens: Remove the lid and now is the time to add spinach or kale.
- Grate fresh garlic: Nothing brightens up a soup like fresh garlic, says Ukrainian me. There is a huge difference between cooked and fresh garlic flavor. Huge! You have to trust me on this one.
- Parmesan cheese: Stir and serve soup hot garnished with Parmesan cheese. If you are strict vegan, you’ll probably skip Parmesan cheese, unless you find vegetarian Parmesan.
Grab a spoon, slip on some cozy sweats and enjoy all those warm layers of healthy, delicious flavors!
Tips for Best Results
- Not low sodium cans: Add less salt if using not low sodium diced tomatoes and broth.
- For 3 quart Instant Pot: Cut 6 quart recipe ingredients in half and keep the same cooking time. Your pot always should be no more than 2/3 full when making soup in a pressure cooker (read more).
- Make sure pot isn’t more than 2/3 full: If your inner pot doesn’t have 2/3 full marking, it is very important to fill the pot only 2/3 full when pressure cooking. Ignore the cups, L and near the edge Max markers.
- To avoid splatters during quick pressure release:Wait about 10 minutes for soup to stop boiling vigorously. Also not having Keep Warm function will slow down boiling sooner.
- Steam diverter: I love my Henry steam diverter! It not only helps keep your kitchen counters clean during the pressure release, it can also prevent steam from damaging the kitchen cabinet doors above.
- To make on the stovetop: Here is a delicious similar lentil spinach soup recipe for you!
- Buy spinach on sale: If you see an organic box of baby spinach on sale, buy it and freeze for later. Then use it to make things like green smoothie or spinach dip.
Variations
- Red lentils: Reduce pressure cooking time to 12 minutes because red lentils do not hold their shape as well as green or brown lentils.
- Diced ham or sausage: Just add it along with other ingredients. No other changes to the recipe are necessary.
- Fresh or frozen chicken: Throw in a few chicken breasts, thighs or drumsticks with other ingredients to make Instant Pot version of chicken lentil soup. No changes to the recipe.
- Spice it up: If you like a little heat, toss in some red pepper flakes or cayenne pepper, or just serve with a drizzle of hot sauce at the end.
- Fire roasted diced tomatoes: If you can find them, fire roasted tomatoes would add a great smoky taste to your lentil soup made in Instant Pot.
- Chicken broth: If you’re not concerned about keeping this a vegetarian soup and you’d rather use chicken broth or Instant Pot chicken broth, do that instead. It will add a delicious yet slightly different flavor.
I told you this Instant Pot lentil soup is amazing!
Serving Recommendations
This soup is loaded with good stuff, including protein. Even without any extra meat! Really, it’s a complete meal on its own, but there are days when I like to use it as a starter or have a little something extra on the side.
- Serving it with a side of crusty bread like baguette or sourdough for sopping up that liquid is a given. To add more protein to your meal, serve with Greek yogurt bread or cottage cheese bread.
- As a starter to something easy like air fryer chicken wings or chicken lettuce wraps.
- On its own: Grab a handful of Parmesan cheese, maybe some fresh parsley, or a drizzle of hot sauce and maybe a glass of wine and you’re all set!
How to Make a Freezer Meal
- Instant Pot: Add all ingredients in the order listed in the recipe minus the water, spinach, and garlic. Freeze uncooked in a gallon size Ziploc bag for up to 3 months. Cook from frozen with 10 cups of water or broth if using a 6 quart Instant Pot or 14 cups if using an 8 quart Instant Pot. The instructions for cooking from frozen are to cook for 18-20 minutes with a Quick Release at the end.
- Slow cooker: Add all ingredients in the order listed in the recipe minus water, spinach and garlic and freeze uncooked in a gallon size Ziploc bag for up to 3 months. Cook from frozen with 10 cups of water or broth on Low for 10 hours or on High for 5 hours.
- After cooking: Add the spinach and garlic. Stir and serve hot garnished with Parmesan cheese and fresh parsley, if desired.
Check out my full list of 20 healthy freezer meals. I’m obsessed with meal prep and batch cooking. Especially during hockey season!
How to Store and Reheat
Storing: Keep leftovers in the refrigerator for up to 5 days and enjoy a bowl or 2 every day of the week!
Freezing: Lentils freeze beautifully and there are no tender vegetables in this lentil soup either, which means nothing will turn to mush. Well, except the spinach, but we already froze, thawed and cooked it, so its vibrant color is gone anyway.
Freeze cooled down soup leftovers in an airtight container for up to 3 months.
Defrosting and reheating: Thaw on a counter overnight before reheating. For quick thawing and reheating, place frozen soup into a pot and simmer on low covered, stirring occasionally. It takes a bit of extra time but “shoot, forgot to take it out of the freezer” happens to the best of us! Or reheat in a microwave.
FAQs
Because I truly believe that food cooked under pressure is more flavorful than the same ingredients cooked on the stove top. If I have to do the same amount of work, what is the point of a $100 appliance?! So, I don’t bother to saute the veggies.
However, if you want to, you can do so by pressing Saute button and doing so before proceeding with the recipe.
It depends how much time you have. When 18 minutes are up, your soup is ready but Instant Pot needs time to release the pressure before you can open it. You can let it do on its own which will take less than an hour by doing nothing and waiting for the pin to drop.
Or you can turn valve to Venting right away. Just know there will be some splatters on a counter, so maybe just wait 15 minutes for soup to stop boiling vigorously.
Chopped fresh parsley or a squeeze of lemon would be delicious. Add with garlic at the very end.
If you skip the Parmesan for garnish, this soup is meat free and vegan friendly! You could alternately top it with vegan Parmesan cheese or sprinkle of nutritional yeast.
If you would like to make this soup even thicker than it is, you could make a cornstarch slurry (just cornstarch and cold water) or add some cooked Instant Pot brown rice or Instant Pot quinoa to give it more bulk. Alternatively, you could use an immersion blender and blend some of the soup.
More Lentil Recipes to Try
More Instant Pot Recipes
- Instant Pot dal
- Instant Pot ham and bean soup
- Instant Pot 15 bean soup
- Instant Pot vegetable soup
- Instant Pot cabbage soup
- Instant Pot minestrone soup
Looking for more easy soup ideas? Check out my most popular collection of 45 healthy Instant Pot recipes.
Instant Pot Lentil Soup
Equipment
Ingredients
6 Quart Instant Pot
- 1 medium onion chopped
- 2 large carrots chopped
- 2 small celery chopped
- 2 cups green or brown lentils rinsed & drained (uncooked)
- 28 oz can diced or crushed tomatoes low sodium
- 2 tsp cumin
- 2 tsp oregano
- 1 tsp salt
- Ground black pepper to taste
- 2 bay leaves
- 2 bouillon cubes + 10 cups water or 10 cups veggie stock low sodium
- 11 oz box of spinach or kale
- 1 large garlic clove grated
- Parmesan cheese for serving
8 Quart Instant Pot
- 1 large onion chopped
- 3 large carrots chopped
- 2 small celery chopped
- 3 cups green lentils rinsed & drained
- 28 oz can diced or crushed tomatoes low sodium
- 1 tbsp cumin
- 1 tbsp oregano
- 1 1/2 tsp salt
- Ground black pepper to taste
- 3 bay leaves
- 3 bouillon cubes + 14 cups water or 14 cups veggie stock low sodium
- 11 oz box of spinach
- 1 large garlic clove grated
- Parmesan cheese for serving
Instructions
- In Instant Pot, add onion, carrot and celery.
- Add lentils, tomatoes, cumin, oregano, salt, pepper, bay leaves and bouillon cubes. Add bouillon cubes and water enough to fill up to 2/3 full line or approximately 10 cups.***
- Close the lid, set pressure vent to Sealing and press Pressure Cook on High pressure for 18 minutes. Display will say ON, Instant Pot will take about 30 minutes to come to pressure, you will see a bit of steam coming out from a valve, then float valve will rise and countdown from 18 minutes will begin.
- Lentil soup is ready but your Instant Pot needs to bring pressure down before you can open it, which will be indicated by a dropped down float valve. You can let it do it on its own which will take less than an hour – Natural Release. OR you can do Quick Release by turning pressure valve to Venting position, which takes 3-4 minutes.
- Open the lid, add spinach and stir. Grate fresh garlic over soup and stir.
- Serve hot garnished with Parmesan cheese.
Video
Notes
- Make ahead: Refrigerate chopped veggies with spices in an airtight container for up to 3 days and mix with the rest when ready to cook.
- Store: Refrigerate in an airtight container or inner Instant Pot pot with a fitting glass lid for up to 5 days.
- Freeze: Freeze cooled down soup in an airtight container in the freezer for up to 3 months.
- Instant Pot: Add all ingredients in the order listed in the recipe minus water, spinach and garlic and freeze uncooked in a gallon size Ziploc bag for up to 3 months. Cook from frozen with 10 (6 quart Instant Pot) or 14 cups (8 quart Instant Pot) of water/broth for 20 minutes, after do Quick Release.
- Slow cooker: Add all ingredients in the order listed in the recipe minus water, spinach and garlic and freeze uncooked in a gallon size Ziploc bag for up to 3 months. Cook from frozen with water/broth on Low for 10 hours or on High for 5 hours.
- After cooking: Add spinach and garlic. Stir and serve hot garnished with Parmesan cheese.
What are the heavy duty plastic bags that you use to freeze items for your freezer?
These silicone reusable ones https://amzn.to/2RhNVXC
I was originally going to make ham & pea soup but found i only had lentils; so i googled for lentil soup and found yours. Delicious! I made a broth with my ham bone first, then removed the bone, cut up the ham and added the rest of your ingredients. I’m looking forward to trying more of your recipies.
Thanks for your comment Heather! Please don’t be shy to leave comments and star reviews on any of my recipes!
Really tasty! Family really liked it and adding a little cumin gave it the perfect flavoring!
Hi Jean! Glad you liked the soup recipe. Cumin is an excellent match with lentils!
On repeat! We love this one (kids 5 and 10, me and my husband). Made exactly as described in 6qt instant pot.
Anna! Your feedback made my day! Love that my recipe is on repeat at your house!
First of all, you had me at “no sauteing”. The less work the better. Always a plus in my book ๐
Secondly, I have a couple of questions.
1. There’s celery on the list of ingredients, but you said not to use celery in IP because it gives a strange smell or taste in one of your other recipes – either for chicken soup or bone broth, I believe. I also found it to be true when I tried to make IP bone broth. Does it not have the same effect in this recipe? I love celery in soups.
2. I do not have diced or crushed tomatoes, but I do have tomato sauce. If I use tomato sauce, what changes should I make?
3. If I want to add some red lentils to green/brown ones & using tomato sauce, what should I change? I know red ones will be mushier. I’m ok with that.
thank you.
1. True but with soup I found it doesn’t because celery doesn’t get pressure cooked for 2 hours like with bone broth.
2. No changes. Just use tomato sauce as much as you like.
3. Just sub equal amount of green for red or add not more than 1/2 cup extra. They fall apart and become more part of a broth thickening it. Enjoy!:)
Really like the sound of the soup, canโt wait to try it! Thank you so much for the comment regarding red lentils. These are all that I have right now so I will try it and will cut the cooking time down to 12 minutes. I Give this recipe five stars even though I havenโt tried it yet, so sorry if I did not complete the rating correctly, I am using a screen reading software package due to a visual disability and the package does not read exactly what I am Selecting. Please be assured I think itโs a five-star recipe by the sound of it.
This recipe, shows the minutes (18) but does not indicate what to put the pressure on, eg., low, high. Also, the measurement for spices is more in 6 quart than 8 quart-,2 tsp. Cumin , 2 tsp. Oregano in 6 quart and 1 tsp. Cumin, 1 tsp.oregano in8 quart !
The soup is very tasty! Yum!
I will add high pressure. Thanks, Yvette. It is 1 tbsp in 8 quart and not 1 tsp. Glad you enjoyed the soup!
Made this last night and it was delicious! Just two of us, so plenty of leftovers. I used a cup each of onion, celery & carrots since I was using up things that were in the fridge (baby carrots, sliced celery & remains of a large onion). Didn’t have enough spinach, so used what I had in our bowls and will shop for more and add to leftovers later. It wasn’t quite as thick as I expected, but I think it will thicken up in the fridge. Great way to eat healthy and use our new Instant Pot! For “release” after cooking: I let it go 15 min, then vented it for the approx 3 min per recipe inside with oven/stove vent on high. Directions are very thorough, but read carefully. I forgot about how long it takes to get to pressure (which WAS mentioned), so our meal was later than I planned.
Thank you for this recipe, it was super easy to make! I have an 8qt instant pot but used the 6qt recipe. I found that 10 cups of water seemed to be too much water, even using the 2/3 full method so the soup ended up very watery and not much flavour. What did I do wrong? I added more s&p at the end to help but very thin in general. Should it be this way? I didn’t quite have 2 cups of lentils, maybe just over 1 cup. I definitely want to try this again as I’ve never had an IP recipe fail:(
I think you have answered your question, Natalie. You were short almost a cup of lentils. They absorb a lot of liquid. Should work next time.
I have not made this recipe yet, but was wondering, doesn’t a natural release of pressure (over the course of about an hour) dramatically extend the cook time over a quick release, which only takes a few minutes)? Other instapot recipes I’ve tried have made adjustments to time or pressure level, depending on whether you employ natural or quick pressure release. This recipe seems to suggest the pressure and cook time remain the same, regardless of the pressure release method.
That’s correct. For lentil soup and many other soups it doesn’t matter. As many soups get only better with time. Just like fine wine. ๐ Enjoy!
This soup is AMAZING! Low salt, super healthy ingredients and a TON of flavor! We topped ours with cilantro and jalapenos
So happy to hear, Cathi!!!