Learn how to make Instant Pot buffalo chicken soup - a favorite appetizer and finger food turned into a zesty and comforting pressure cooker main dish. Made with vegetables, chicken, hot sauce, and cream cheese amongst other yummy things, this chicken soup is spicy and super flavorful, however, you can mellow it out to your taste.
When it comes to soups, we love making comforting and hearty dishes with chicken. Instant Pot is fantastic for making things like the classic chicken noodle soup or something more exotic like a Greek avgolemono lemon chicken version. So of course, when we wanted to experiment with new flavors for a soupy pressure cooker creation, the popular buffalo chicken recipe came to mind.
Using that bold hot sauce mellowed out by cream cheese and half-n-half can give your chicken soup a lot of flavor AND beautiful color. Adding vegetables of your liking completes the soup and it can be served with all those classic sides of crumbled blue cheese and celery sticks (and maybe a breadstick or two).
HOW TO MAKE INSTANT POT BUFFALO CHICKEN SOUP
You will find the full list of ingredients, instructions and nutritional breakdown for this buffalo chicken soup in the recipe card below. Here are simple steps and process photos to guide you along.
Step 1. Begin by preparing all the required ingredients. To save time, you can also start by dicing all the vegetables and getting those to start cooking while you diced the chicken and get the stock, spices, and hot sauce ready.
Step 2. Using the Saute function of the Instant Pot, melt the butter and saute the vegetables for a few minutes. Then stir in the spices and cook for a couple of minutes.
Step 3. Add the diced chicken, hot sauce, most of the stock and Half & Half and stir through. Once it comes to a simmer, turn the Saute function off and stir in the flour dissolved in the remaining stock (kind of like a slurry). This flour mixture will thicken our liquid.
Step 4. Secure the lid and press Manual/Pressure Cook button and set the timer to 10 minutes on HIGH pressure. The Instant Pot will take about 10 minutes to come to pressure (maybe even less) and the timer will commence. Once the timer finishes, allow the pressure to release naturally for 10 minutes (simply leave the IP alone for a while). Then use the steam releasing handle/button on the top to let off the remaining pressure.
Step 5. Open the lid and stir in the cream cheese while the soup is very hot. Let it melt into the broth. If needed, turn the Saute on again to heat up the soup again.
HOW TO SERVE BUFFALO CHICKEN SOUP
Once the soup is ready, have a taste for seasoning and heat. You can add a little more salt and to mellow out the heat, you can add extra sour cream, half and half/heavy cream, ranch dressing or plant yogurt.
The soup can be served with a lashing of ranch dressing or sour cream and some crumbled blue cheese. If blue cheese isn't your thing, some regular grated cheese might also be nice.
You can add croutons or serve bread or rolls on the side. Diced bell peppers and celery are also lovely and add extra crunch to the soup.
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Instant Pot Buffalo Chicken Soup
Ingredients
- 8 tablespoons butter about 1 stick
- 1 medium onion finely diced
- 3 cups carrots baby carrots, diced into cubes or sliced
- 3 cups celery celery
- 1 teaspoon garlic powder or 2 cloves garlic, diced
- 1 teaspoon dried thyme
- ½ teaspoon red pepper flakes/chili
- 4 cups chicken breast or thigh, diced
- 1 cup hot sauce you can add more if you like more heat
- 1 cup half and half
- 8 cups chicken stock 64 oz.
- ½ cup all-purpose flour
- 16 oz cream cheese or light cream cheese, 450 g
- 4 tablespoons ranch dressing powder or sour cream/yogurt (if you prefer a milder soup), optional
Serving garnishes:
- ½ cup blue cheese crumbled
- Celery sticks toasted bread or croutons, diced bell peppers.
Instructions
- Turn the Instant Pot on and press the Saute button. Melt the butter in the bottom.
- Once the butter has melted add the onions, celery and carrots. Sauté until they begin to soften.
- Add the garlic powder, thyme and red pepper flakes. Cook for approximately 2 minutes on Saute.
- Add the diced chicken, hot sauce, half and half and most of the chicken stock (reserve about 1 cup of the stock in a bowl). Let the soup come to a boil. In the meantime, whisk the flour in the reserved cup of chicken stock until dissolved and smooth. Stir into the soup (this will thicken the liquid).
- Put the lid on, secure and make sure the steam releasing handle is pointing to Sealing (not on newer models). Press Manual/Pressure Cook button and set the timer to 10 minutes, on HIGH pressure. After a few seconds, the ON notification will come on and the pressure will start to begin, which will take about 10 minutes. Then the cooking timer will comment.
- Once the timer is done, let the Instant Pot rest and release pressure naturally for 10 minutes. Then use the top release handle (point to Venting) to quickly release the remaining pressure manually. Let instant pot release naturally for 10 minutes and then release manually.
- Take the lid off and add the cream cheese into the hot soup. Stir until combined and melted into the soup. You can also press the Saute function back on to bring the soup to a simmer if the cream isn't melting in.
- Taste the soup for heat, salt and pepper. Season further if you like. You can also add some plain yoghurt/sour cream or ranch dressing at this point to mellow down the heat further.
- Serve with diced bell peppers, celery sticks, fluffy or crusty bread or croutons and of course some blue cheese if you wish.
Notes
- For a smaller batch (4 servings), simply halve the ingredients, but keep the cooking times the same.
- For a gluten-free version, replace all-purpose flour tapioca flour, arrowroot or gluten-free flour blend.
- For a keto/low-carb version, reduce the stock by about a cup to keep it thicker without adding the flour. You can also reduce the flour to just 1 tablespoon.
Nutrition
MORE INSTANT POT SOUP RECIPES YOU MIGHT LIKE
- Instant Pot Steak & Potato Soup (Step-By-Step)
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- Chicken Tortilla Soup
- Tomato Basil Tortellini Soup
- The Best Instant Pot Soup Recipes EVER
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