Our Instant Pot Chicken and Rice Soup is the ultimate allergy friendly comfort food! Our delicious soup recipe is gluten free, dairy free, and soy free. It’s perfect for chilly winter evenings and makes a big enough batch for leftovers.
I am so ready for spring, this winter weather is getting a bit old.
The snow isn’t too bad (except when we get 5 foot drifts…), but the wind really gets to me. We had a really windy blizzard here the other day, and school was canceled yesterday in our town.
If you’re busy digging yourself out of snow drifts, then this is the perfect dinner recipe to warm you up: Instant Pot Chicken and Rice Soup.
Our chicken rice soup is so creamy and comforting, you won’t even know this Instant Pot soup is dairy free and gluten free!
I’ve included a second option for making this recipe, keep reading below for our cooking tips!
How to make dairy free Instant Pot Chicken and Rice Soup
Our chicken rice soup will work in just about any pressure cooker. I own a CrockPot Express pressure cooker, but this will work in the Instant Pot brand cooker as well as others with a similar soup setting.
Here are the steps for making this recipe. You’ll note that I cook the rice and chicken separately, I explain that more a bit later.
- Prepare your chosen rice according to package directions.
- Optional: brown your chicken first before cooking. This is completely optional, I browned the chicken in my first batch and didn’t brown it in my second batch and they both turned out great, so you can skip this step if you want to save time.
- Place your trimmed chicken, carrots, garlic, seasonings, and chicken broth into the Instant Pot/pressure cooker.
- Cook in the pot on the “soup” setting for 8 minutes.
- Allow natural pressure release for 25-30 minutes.
- Remove the lid, turn on the brown/cook feature and add the dairy free half-and-half and cornstarch and cook until thickened to your liking.
- Allow to cool a few minutes, then serve.
I tried this recipe both with browning the chicken before cooking it in the Instant Pot and not browning/searing it before cooking it. I didn’t feel that there was much of a difference in the flavor or texture of the resulting recipe.
Since there didn’t seem to be a lot of difference in flavor with browning the chicken before cooking, I decided to skip that step to make this recipe faster and easier.
If you’d like to try browning your chicken before cooking it in the pressure cooker, you can try it if you want to add a little extra time to the recipe. Browning your chicken before cooking will add an additional 10-15 minutes of prep time to this recipe.
Can I cook the rice with the chicken in the pressure cooker?
For my third test batch of this recipe, I cooked the rice with the chicken and carrots in the Instant Pot. This made a really thick soup that didn’t need the corn starch at the end, but the rice was quite soft and broke up a lot and turned into the texture of porridge once the soup was stirred several times.
So it’s up to you if you want to cook the rice with the chicken. On one hand it’s much easier and will save you a couple steps, and it’s nice and thick without cornstarch.
But on the other hand the rice will be very soft and almost mushy because the chicken and the carrots cook at different times and it soaks in the liquid more during natural pressure release.
I recommend not cooking the rice with the chicken for the best texture.
But if you still want to cook everything in one pot and not cook the rice separate, you can follow these steps:
- Add 1/2 cup of uncooked white rice to the bottom of the pressure cooker.
- Pour 5 cups of chicken broth over the rice and stir in the seasonings (this is 1 cup more broth than the regular recipe).
- Add the carrots and trimmed chicken.
- Lock the lid, and cook for 7 minutes on soup setting on high.
- Once done cooking, turn off the “keep warm” feature if your machine has it, then allow natural pressure release for 30-40 minutes (longer than the regular recipe).
- Manually release the rest of the pressure and open the pressure cooker.
- Pour the dairy free half and half into the coup and stir the soup, shred the chicken while you stir (this will be quite easy, the chicken falls apart).
- Allow to cool a few minutes before serving.
Our photos for this recipe were taken with the rice added after cooking the chicken in the Instant Pot. The rice holds its shape much better that way.
Serve our chicken and rice soup with these allergy friendly side dishes:
Instant Pot Chicken and Rice Soup (Gluten Free)
Ingredients
- 1 ½ pounds boneless, skinless, chicken thighs, trimmed of excess fat
- 3 cups sliced fresh peeled carrots (sliced about 1/8th to 1/4 inch thick)
- 4 cups chicken broth
- 1 clove garlic minced or pressed
- 1 teaspoon dried thyme
- 1 teaspoon dried marjoram
- 1 teaspoon rubbed sage
- 1 teaspoon onion powder
- 1 teaspoon garlic powder
- 1 teaspoon all purpose cajun spice (we use this on everything!)
- Black pepper and smoked salt, to taste (or regular salt)
- 2 cups cooked white or brown rice (whichever you prefer)
- 1 cup Silk dairy free half-and-half OR canned coconut milk
- 2-3 Tablespoons corn starch (depending on how thick you'd like your soup)
Equipment
Instructions
- Prepare your rice according to package directions.
- In an Instant Pot or other pressure cooker, place the chicken in the bottom of the Instant Pot and add the sliced carrots on top of the chicken.
- Add the garlic to the pot along with all the seasonings (the thyme, marjoram, sage, onion powder, garlic powder, cajun spice, black pepper, and salt).
- Pour the chicken broth over everything in the pot.
- Cook on "soup" setting on high for 8-9 minutes.
- As soon as you get your Instant Pot started, cook your white or brown rice according to package directions on your chosen rice. You'll need 2 cups for this soup, so you'll want to cook at least 1 cup of dry rice to make 2 cups of cooked rice for the soup.
- Once the cooking is done, turn off the "keep warm" feature (if it comes on automatically) and allow the pressure to release naturally for 25-30 minutes.
- Quick release the rest of the pressure, then open the pressure cooker and stir everything, then shred the chicken (this will be quite easy since it will fall apart).
- Add your rice to the soup and stir to mix.
- Whisk together the Silk half-and-half and the corn starch.
- With the lid off your pressure cooker, turn on the brown/heat setting and add the dairy free half-and-half and cornstarch mixture to the heating soup and stir regularly until it thickens to your desired thickness.
- Dish into bowls, allow the soup to cool a few minutes before serving topped with sliced fresh chives.
- Store leftovers in an airtight container for up to 4 days in the fridge.
Notes
Nutrition
Sarah Jane Parker is the founder, recipe creator, and photographer behind The Fit Cookie. She’s a food allergy mom and healthy living blogger based in Wyoming. Sarah is also an ACSM Certified Personal Trainer, ACE Certified Health Coach, Revolution Running certified running coach, and an ACE Certified Fitness Nutrition Specialist
Very yummy meal! I made this to give to a friend and was pleased with how it turned out! I don’t make many gluten free dairy free meals since I don’t have those allergies, but I’m grateful for simple recipes like this since I don’t have many specialty ingredients on hand for such things. Thank you!
Thank you Jessenia!
These recipe was fingerlickin good. Glad to try this..
Thanks Mary!
Really love it yummy!!!
Thanks Chris!
This was so delicious! It was the first time I had made soup in my instant pot and it couldn’t have come out better. I’m making it again this week and it will be a go-to for sure!
Thank you Anna! ❤️
Thank you so much for sharing your recipes! I tried the dairy free butter cream the other day and OMG was it ever good. I cannot wait to try this new recipe out (love using my instapot!) and see what other yummy recipes you come out with in the future 😀
Thanks Elizabeth!