If you have leftover chicken already prepared, throw it in after pressure cooking the rest of the ingredients.
I am not typically fussy about what gets thrown into a soup. However, you’ll want to stick to the 3/4 cup of rice on this one. If you add more than that, the rice will suck up most of the liquid in the pot and become a giant blob. Some grains of rice soak up more liquid that others. If the rice-blob thing happens, just add more broth and you are good to go.
The other name for this soup is Avgolemono.
Instant Pot Lemon Chicken Soup with Feta
Ingredients
- 1 tbsp butter or olive oil
- 1 onion, chopped
- 6 cups chicken broth plus a little extra
- 4 carrots, sliced
- 6 sticks celery, sliced
- 1 tsp salt
- lemon zest (around half a lemon's worth) optional
- 3/4 cup white rice
- 2.5 lbs chicken (breasts, thighs) cut chicken breasts in half
- 2 tbsp butter, room temperature
- 2 tbsp flour
- 2 eggs
- 1-2 lemons
- feta cheese
- thinly sliced lemons and/or fresh parsley (optional garnish)
Instructions
- Set the instant pot to sauté.
- Sauté the onion in the oil until the onion softens and becomes fragrant.
- Add the carrots and celery. Cook for 30 seconds.
- Add the chicken to the pot and stir.
- Add the rice, salt, broth and lemon zest to the pot. Turn off the sauté function.
- Place the lid on the pot and set the valve to sealing. Pressure cook for 5 minutes on high pressure.
- Natural Release for 10 minutes (don't open the valve or the lid after it beeps). After 10 minutes, quick release.
- If the rice soaked up more of the broth than you were expecting, just add more chicken stock to the pot.
- Remove the chicken from the instant pot and break it up with two forks.
- In a small bowl, mix the flour and butter. Add it gradually to the hot soup. Stir, and allow the soup to thicken.
- Whisk the eggs in a medium bowl. Add juice of one lemon.
- Scoop out around 1/2 cup of soup from the pot, and pour it SLOWLY into the egg/lemon mixture, whisking the entire time to prevent the eggs from scrambling. Repeat so you now have around 1 cup of soup mixed with the egg/lemon. Add this mixture back to the pot.
- Add the chicken back to the pot.
- Season the soup with salt and add more lemon juice if desired.
- To serve, sprinkle with feta. If you don't love feta, then goat cheese or Parmesan cheese works nicely as well.
Notes
Nutrition info is for 1/6 of the recipe
401 calories – 17 fat – 21 carbs – 41 protein