Instant Pot Busy Day Soup—most soups require chopping, sautéing and quite a bit of upfront time. This meatball, macaroni and veggie soup is a fast and easy dump and go recipe that only has 5 ingredients and takes about 5 minutes to get going with only a 1 minute pressure cooking time. It tastes amazing with a little spoonful of parmesan cheese on top.
Note: slow cooker instructions are listed in the recipe card below
Instant Pot Busy Day Soup
Who is feeling the pressure of the holidays 🙋? I know I have about 100 things on my to do list and Christmas is coming up way too fast. This recipe is the perfect recipe for one of those busy days. It takes less time to make this soup than it would be to go through a drive-thru!
With only 5 ingredients and a 1 minute pressure cooking time you can be eating in no time. And guess what? It tastes realllly good. I was surprised at how many times I kept going back to the pot to get more. I liked it just as much as pasta fagioli.
Meatballs: I used frozen turkey meatballs because that’s what I had on hand. But try out any of your favorite frozen meatballs. Costco Italian meatballs are a good option. If you’d rather you can brown up a pound of ground beef or ground Italian sausage and use that in the place of meatballs.
Onion soup mix: I keep onion soup mix on hand for convenience recipes like this one. But if you can’t find onion soup mix you can make your own.
Pasta: You can use elbow macaroni like I did or shells, ditalini, rotini or ziti. Lots of different pastas will work for this recipe!
Why only 1 minute? The pot will take a while to come to pressure and the whole time it is pressurizing the pasta and veggies will be cooking. They are plenty done by the time all the pressure is released.
More Soup Recipes You’ll Love…
Instant Pot Sausage Tortellini Soup
Instant Pot Italian Sausage and Spinach Soup
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Instant Pot Busy Day Soup
- Prep Time: 10 minutes
- Cook Time: 1 minute (plus 10 minute NPR)
- Total Time: 11 minutes
- Yield: 6–8 servings 1x
Description
Meatball, macaroni and veggie soup made in just a few minutes!
Ingredients
- 5 cups water
- 1 packet onion soup mix
- 1 (12 oz) package frozen meatballs (I used turkey meatballs)
- 1 (28 oz) can crushed tomatoes
- 1 cup dry macaroni
- 1 (12 oz) package frozen mixed veggies
- Salt and pepper, to taste
- Parmesan cheese, for topping
Instructions
For the Instant Pot:
- Turn Instant Pot to sauté setting so that it can start heating up. Add in the water, onion soup mix, meatballs, tomatoes, macaroni and frozen veggies. Turn off sauté setting.
- Cover Instant Pot and secure the lid. Make sure valve is set to sealing. Set the manual/pressure cook button to 1 minute. When time is up let the pot sit for 10 minutes and then move the valve to venting. Remove the lid.
- Stir and salt and pepper to taste. Ladle into bowls. Serve with a spoonful of parmesan cheese on top.
For the slow cooker:
- Add water, onion soup mix, meatballs, tomatoes, macaroni and mixed veggies into slow cooker.
- Cover and cook on low for 3-4 hours, or until pasta is cooked through.
- Stir and salt and pepper to taste. Ladle into bowls. Serve with a spoonful of parmesan cheese on top.
Notes
I used my 6 quart Instant Pot Duo 60 7 in 1*. You can also use the 8 quart pot with no changes.
- Category: Soup
- Method: Instant Pot or Slow Cooker
*Karen Petersen is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to amazon.com.
Can I use chicken stock instead of water? I am using ground chicken as the meat
yes!
It was good. I added a bay leaf, basil, parsley and garlic powder for more flavor.
★★★★★
Good call!
Added some fresh spinach at the end and topped each serving with parmesan cheese.
★★★★★
I have made this several times but today I added 2 more cups of water and one cup of quick barley and bow ties and cooked two minutes. It turned out real good.
Awesome ideas! Glad you liked it!
My eight-year-old daughter made this for the family for supper, everyone wanted seconds! What a wonderful recipe.
★★★★★
wow! I am impressed!
This recipe is so easy to make! I wanted to share a handful of tweaks I made this last time that just elevated it so much (I had to race my partner to get a bowl!)
1-20oz Bag of frozen meatballs
Used Crushed tomatoes with basil
2 cups Macaroni (used Medium Shells)
2-10oz Bags of frozen vegetables
1 tsp Kosher Salt
1 tsp Black pepper
Now its not just easy, its hearty and oh so delicious!!!
★★★★★
I know, it’s so good and so easy! I love it when that happens.
Love this idea for soup. I know that recipes are the foundation to cooking, but I always add in different ingredients for veggies. My kids used to think I made magic soups all the time. Same soup recipe, just different meats and veggies.
Love that!
This was very good. I would like to add another cup of pasta. How much water should I use?
I’d add another 1.5 cups of water
This turned out tasty but not enough water. Next time I will add 2.5 cups of water for the extra cup of pasta
★★★★★
Ok sounds like a plan!
Made a couple of small changes—used beef broth (made with Better Than Broth) and Beefy Onion Soup Mix. My hubby and neighbors raved about the flavor! So easy—will try sausage or ground beef to switch it up a little. Definitely will make often. Thanks so much for additional info on cooked vs non cooked meatballs.
★★★★★
Is there a note about using the onion soup mix? It says to see note after this ingredient, but not seeing it.
no there isn’t…don’t know why I wrote that lol…I corrected.
I know I will love this soup. I am not a fan of store bought meatballs. I like to make my own. For soup I like to make them smaller than the average size. If I make a pound of meatballs (smaller) should I keep the same cooking time. Love your book, and just ordered another one for my daughter. All of your recipes that I have tried, which is many, have always been a hit. Thanks for making me not afraid of the IP.
★★★★★
If the meatballs aren’t pre-cooked I would pressure cook for 5 minutes instead of 1 minutes.
Thank you Karen for getting back to me so fast. Looking forward to having this meatball, macaroni soup. Love all your recipes. I ordered your book and then ordered another one for my daughter. Keep those good recipes coming.
★★★★★
Thanks Gail!
Absurdly easy! We had some for dinner, but my husband said he’d eat it for lunch every day – and he did. He’s working at home (pandemic) and this is an easy meal to heat up along with a salad for a lunch break. I like it without the meatballs so he eats those, and next time I’lll add some beans and maybe some frozen corn, other times some precooked chicken Andouille sausage, just mix it up. One of those everything-but-the-kitchen sink soup/stews. Thank you!
★★★★★
YES! Love hearing success stories like this!
Karen, could I use Freeze Dried meatballs? Would you post some IP recipes using storage foods, please?
The recipe sounds so good and easy. Thanks for posting it.
I have never heard of freeze dried meatballs. I am not sure how it would go. I assume it would be fine!
This looks so easy and delicious. Making it tonight. I might put in some frozen zucchini.
That sounds tasty!
It is a busy day for me so I just made this soup, with some changes using what I had on hand and it is wonderful! I used diced Italian style tomatoes and some breaded chicken breasts and it’s great. Thanks for this recipe just when I needed it most!
Those changes are good ideas! Thanks for sharing 🙂
Ha! Karen, second time you’ve ESP’d for me! Not 30 minutes ago I wondered out loud to my husband how in the world we ended up with nine 28-oz cans of crushed tomatoes, and said I better find recipes that use them. So thank you! lol
If using ground turkey instead of meatballs could you just sauté in the IP and then add the rest of ingredients? Thanks!
Yes and I would add in some seasonings to up the flavor!
Hi Karen for the busy day soup what other ingredients would be good rather then pasta? Barley?
Barley is good! It would take a longer cooking time though. Probably 22 minutes.