Instant Pot Velvet Beet Soup
This was a recipe that when I first found it, I knew that I had to give it a try and make a batch of it. It sounds so good with its earthy beets and the unami from the miso blended or pureed into a velvety soup. The color of the soup in the pictures of the original recipe really made me salivate for it.
When i went to the store to get all the ingredients for this the red beets at Safeway were looking a little on the ‘sad’ side, but the golden beets looked awesome. So I made the command decision and grabbed the golden beets. In hind sight, I feel like I should have gone with the red beets. The soup did come out well. But it was reddish-yellow color that looked more like baby food then the mouth watering deep red soup I originally envisioned eating.
So needless to say, I’m going to give it another try sometime in the near future. There will be pictures next time….
Instant Pot [Red] Velvet Beet Soup
Equipment
- Instant Pot, 6qt or larger
Ingredients
- 1 tablespoon toasted sesame oil
- 1 medium red onion chopped, about 1 cup
- 6 cups vegetable broth or water
- 1 cup red lentils rinsed and drained
- 2 carrots chopped
- 3 or 4 beets well-scrubbed, ends and root hairs trimmed, chopped (about 2 cups chopped)
- 3 bay leaves
- 1 sprig fresh thyme optional
- 2 tablespoons red miso
- 1 ½ tablespoons chopped parsley for garnish
Instructions
- Heat the oil in the Instant Pot on Sauté. Once heated, stir in the onion, sauté for 5 minutes, until the onion is translucent.
- Next add the vegetable broth, lentils, carrots, beets, bay leaves and thyme.
- On the Instant Pot, manually set the time to 6 minutes. Once done, do a quick release using the top vent.
- Remove the bay leaves and thyme sprig.
- Remove the bay leaves and thyme sprig. (see note!) Puree the soup until smooth and velvety. Puree right in the cookpot, or of you don’t have an immersion blender, puree the soup in a blender. (Do this in 3 batches, as to not make a huge mess.)
- Put the miso in a small bowl. Add ½ cup of the pureed soup and stir to dissolve the miso well. Stir the miso mixture back into the pot. Heat gently but do not boil. *Boiling destroys some of the nutrition of the miso, and changes the flavor.
- Serve simply, garnished with chopped parsley.