This pressure cooker Italian chicken soup has incredible depth of flavour, is both hearty and healthy and will soon become a family favourite. An excellent recipe for those new to pressure cooking. I have used a 6-quart (litre) Instant Pot in this recipe.
Add the roughly chopped tomato, celery, carrots, onion, garlic cloves, peppercorns and bay leaf in the pressure cooker.
Slowly pour in the water, taking care not to go above the maximum line indicated in the inside of the pot. Stir in the salt.
Make sure the steam valve is in the 'sealing' position. Cook for 25 minutes on high pressure.
At this point you can let the pressure release naturally or, if you are in a hurry, leave it for 15 minutes then release manually. Since this has a lot of liquid there will also be a lot of steam released.
Open the pressure cooker and use a large slotted spoon to transfer the chicken onto a platter. Be careful as it will be falling off the bone.
Strain the broth from the pot into a large bowl then return to the pressure cooker.
Pick out the carrots, dice them and add them to the pot. Discard the other vegetables.
Once the chicken is cool enough to handle, discard the skin and shred the meat. Add the meat to the pressure cooker.
Stir in the diced tomatoes, a quarter of the chopped herbs and the pasta (see notes).
Make sure the valve is set to sealing again. Cover and cook for 4 minutes on high pressure.
Manually release the pressure.
Taste the soup for seasoning and add the lemon juice and remaining herbs.
Serve garnished with croutons with a little sprinkling on Parmesan, if you like.
Notes
The pasta is best cooked separately and then added to the soup. This way you will avoid it becoming overcooked. The pressure cooker will need to build pressure before starting to cook, therefore there's some inactive time which is not accounted in the cooking time.