The following recipe, prepared by Chef Francesca Montillo, appears on Lazy Italian Culinary Adventures.
Over the weekend, I decided to make apressure cooker soup. Iadmit that Italians aren’tgenerally big on pressure cookers but if the name of this blog is any indication, it surprises me that I haven’t discovered pressure cookers before. I mean, you plug it in, hit one button and on you go with your life. Do everything else that needs to be done while dinner is cooking on its own! No stirring, no standing by the stove, no thinking required. Press one button and that’s it. Now, if that’s not lazy, I don’t know what is! Today, we’re using theHarvest Direct, Cooper Tech Pressure Pro. This thing is beautiful, easy to use, (one button people!), large for family meals and just looks fancy smancy on my counter!
I run to my cupboards and fridge to see what I can throw in thepressure cookerto make a meal. Shall it be sauce, roast a chicken (yup, it really does that), a stew? I decide on bean soup because it requires little effort and I have some chicken sausages in the fridge that are eager to be turned into a meal. Plus, soup means plenty of leftovers for lunch over the next few days.
Here are the basic ingredients that will be turned into tonight’s dinner plus lunch for tomorrow and likely the next day. As with all soups, it always starts with carrots, celery, onion and parsley. When making soups with legumes, I always add garlic, they go very well together.
I’m using sodium-free flavoring today. I have been using bullion cubes for years in soups but they do tend to add a lot of sodium so I switched to the sodium free, which gives the flavors without the salt. I just add a teaspoon of salt to the soup, this gives me full sodium control. If sodium isn’t a concern for you, feel free to add a half of the regular bullion cube, chicken of vegetable will work wonderfully.
This is less a recipe and just a matter of adding ingredients together. Adept and change this as you see fit. Don’t have red beans, use cannellini, use chickpeas too, the food police is not looking. I use the precooked chicken sausages because, well, I really like these. I use these a lot actually for many dishes because they are healthy (reasonably), easy, quick and less messy than the raw pork sausages. But again, you can use whatever sausage you wish.
Add all the ingredients in the inner pot of the pressure cooker, add the water (or you can use vegetablestock) and off it goes. So far, the absolute best part of using a pressure cooker has been the cleanup. With soups, my stove gets a workout. OMG! Soups generally spill a bit on the stove and unless you clean it up immediately, that’s going to get hard and difficult to remove. With the pressure cooker, I just have to wash the inner pot! No spilling, no “is it boiling yet?” no, “did it spill?” no “should I remove the lid?” If you’re new to cooking, I highly recommend getting a pressure cooker!
Ingredients
- 1 small or half a medium onion, finely diced
- 1 garlic glove, minced
- 2 tablespoons chopped parsley
- 2 carrots, peeled and finely diced
- 2 celery stalks, diced
- 2 cans beans of your choice, drained and rinsed
- 1 8 oz. can tomato sauce
- 1 packed sodium free bullion packed or half regular bullion cube
- 3 tablespoons olive oil
- 3 – 4 sausages of your choice (cooked or uncooked, chicken or pork, sweet or hot)
- 1 teaspoon salt
Directions
1. Add all of the ingredients in the inner pot of the pressure cooker
2. Add enough water to cover all the ingredients, plus 1 – 2 inches above. (Be sure to not over fill, follow the directions on the instruction booklet)
3. Lock the lid and hit the “soup/stew” button on the pressure cooker
4. Cook for 25 minutes and serve immediately. Top with grated cheese, if desired.
Want to join Francesca on a tour of Italy? Explore the following travel dates:
- CALABRIA: August 31 – September 7, 2018Click here for more info
- PUGLIA: September 9 – 16, 2018Click here for more info
- BOLOGNA: October 1 – 8, 2018Click here for info
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