Hi, I'm Becky Striepe from Glue & Glitter,
and today we are going to make Instant Pot
Vegan Potato Leek Soup.
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Y'all, this soup is velvety smooth,
it's rich and creamy,
and you are not going to believe how easy it is to make.
Before we start adding our ingredients to the Instant Pot,
there are two important things that you need to do.
The cashew cream is what we're using
to get that velvety-smooth creamy texture without any dairy,
and it takes only about 15, 20 minutes to make,
and most of that time,
you can be working on the rest of the soup.
So first thing, you wanna get your cashews soaking.
You can use raw cashews or roasted cashews,
it doesn't matter.
Either way, soak them in hot water for 10 to 15 minutes
until they're nice and soft.
Transfer your soaked cashews to a blender,
and add a half a cup of water,
and then puree until it's nice and perfectly smooth.
You can do this in either a high-speed blender,
or a regular blender.
A high-speed blender
is just gonna do it a little bit faster.
So, if you're using a regular blender,
just make sure that you stop
and scrape down the sides of the blender,
and give that motor a rest.
You don't want the motor to burn out
because you're blending for a prolonged period of time.
Once your cashew cream is ready, set that aside,
and it's time to start making the rest of the soup.
So, the second piece of prep that takes a few minutes to do
is preparing the leeks.
If you've never cooked with leeks before,
don't worry, it's not difficult,
but you do need to know that leeks are really sandy.
Leeks are related to onions,
and if you've every cut an onion,
you know that inside are the concentric circles, right?
Well, in the leeks, they're a little bit loose,
and they're also open,
and since they grow so close to the ground,
they get filled with, like, dirt and grit.
Before you cook with leeks,
it's really important that you clean them properly
because if you don't get that grit out,
you're going to have grit in your finished dish,
and that is not gonna work at all.
To clean the leeks, first slice them into rounds,
and then place those rounds into a large bowl.
You want a pretty oversized bowl
because you're gonna add water to it,
and you're gonna be agitating those leek pieces
with your hands.
Use your fingers to push the circles apart.
You can see me doing this in the video.
You can see that they'll separate easily
if you just kinda push your finger through.
Separate all the pieces,
and then get in there with your hands
and just, kind of, scrub the leeks
until the dirt is all loosened and separated.
After this step, I like to transfer them to a colander,
and give them one more rinse
because I'd rather take that extra step
than have grit in my finished soup
because that's a real bummer.
Now that you've got the cashew cream going,
and your leeks are nice and cleaned,
it is time to make your soup.
So, grab your Instant Pot, and add four cups of water,
and four broth cubes.
You can also use vegetable broth
instead of the water plus the broth cubes.
I just like to use the cubes because they're smaller,
it's easier to just keep those around
for anytime I need broth.
You know, those big boxes of broth
just take up a lot of pantry real estate.
It's totally up to you.
Next, you're going to add four cups
of cubed yellow potatoes.
Usually two large potatoes will do the trick.
The great thing about using yellow potatoes for this recipe
is that because the skin is so thin,
you don't even need to bother peeling them.
Just place them right into the pot unpeeled.
Next, you'll add those sliced leeks that you cleaned,
and a teaspoon of fresh thyme.
Now that everything is in the pot,
just put the lid on, and set it to Sealing,
and then cook for five minutes at high pressure,
and then let it do a 10 minute natural release.
When those 10 minutes are up, you can switch to Venting,
and let off the rest of the pressure
so you can open the Instant Pot,
and then you've got options.
If you have an immersion blender,
this is my preferred option.
You can just stick the immersion blender right into the pot
and blend the soup right in there.
If you don't have an immersion blender, though,
you can let the soup cool,
and then transfer it to an upright blender,
and puree it until it's smooth in batches.
If you pureed it separately, after you're done,
you're gonna put it back in the pot,
and you can hit the saute button
just to warm the soup back up since you let it cool down.
Now it's time to add that cashew cream that you made.
So, just pour the cashew cream right into the pot.
It's pretty thick, so you might need to use a spoon
to scrape it out of the blender.
And then, just take a spoon, and stir it into the soup
until it dissolves completely.
Now it's time to season with salt and pepper, and serve.
I like to serve this
with a few extra sprigs of thyme for garnish.
I hope that this video has answered all of your questions
about how to make Vegan Potato Leek Soup
in your Instant Pot.
If there are any questions
that I didn't address in this video,
feel free to drop a comment below, I'm happy to help.
And, don't forget to rate and subscribe!
Happy cooking!
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