[Instant Pot] Vegan Vegetable Soup

[theinfamousj]

Let's talk about No Scrap Left Behind, which is one of my frequented subreddits. It is a movement all about taking the scraps from one recipe and using them in a different recipe. Since I'm a vegetarian, my scraps are almost always vegetables. And so, I make soup. In my Instant Pot. And so can you!



Ingredients

• 2 tbsp oil or fat; any kind
• 2+ tbsp vegetable aromatics, diced or minced
• the rest of the vegetable scraps
• 2 tsp spice aromatics that compliment one another
• 2 tsp salt
• 1/4 tsp pepper
• 6 cups liquid (water, natch, but also can use scrap stock)

First Things First: The Sautéing

Put the oil (2 tbsp) into the bottom of the Instant Pot and set it to sauté mode over high heat. When it says it is hot, add the aromatics (most recently I added both half a medium onion scrap AND 2 tbsp of minced garlic) and stir that until it is properly soft/wilted/whatever it is your aromatics do when cooked.

Once you reach that point, press cancel and add the spices (2 tsp; + 2 tsp salt + 1/4 tsp pepper). For my most recent soup I added an Italian seasoning blend along with the requisite salt and pepper. Stir it around on the residual heat for 1 minute.

Second Things Second: Everything Else

Now add your liquid (6 cups) and then into that liquid, put your cut up vegetables and/or scraps. If using onion and garlic skins, I find it helpful to first put them into some sort of nut milk bag or coffee filter poultice for easy removal (unless you plan to puree the entire contents of the soup pot; more on that later). For all other scraps including vegetable greens, cut into bite size pieces and toss in the pot.

Not put the lid on and lock it for pressure. Set the Instant Pot to cook at pressure for 8 minutes. And go do nothing while it comes to pressure, cooks for 8 minutes, and naturally releases. Your soup is done.

Third Things Third: The Optional Step

If you have an immersion blender, now is the time to whip that sucker out and homogenize the contents of the Instant Pot so that you don't have people getting finicky about eating carrot greens or whatever. Remember, no scrap left behind! ... but unfortunately some people have learned disgust reactions to perfectly edible and nutritious food so it helps to hide it from them.

If you are using onion and garlic skins, you can blend them in this way rather than removing them in the spice poultice. Same with rosemary. I like my immersion blender. But this is totally optional.

Last Things Last: Eat

Ladle the soup into bowls and grab a spoon and start eating your nutritious, delicious soup that you made out of scraps of a completely different recipe. No scrap left behind!