Instant Pot Paella Soup is my favourite seafood leftover soup. Loaded with leftover mixed paella and an amazing fish stock, you will want to binge on this forever.
Instant Pot Paella Soup
Are you ready for the taste sensation that is Instant Pot Paella Soup? A delicious creamy soup made up of your leftovers from either paella or any other Spanish or Mexican rice dish.
Its hands free, because you place all your leftover rice in the Instant Pot, add a few extra ingredients and then cook it in the Instant Pot.
It is what the simplicity of the Instant Pot is all about!
We live less than 2 hours’ drive from Spain. If we wanted to do something different, we could get in the car, go on a road trip and be eating paella in Spain 2 hours from now.
Spain is famed for its beautiful Mediterranean beaches, its beautiful blue sky and its amazing art galleries. But that’s not what I go to Spain for as I can get that at home in Portugal, I go to Spain for the food.
You can guarantee on each trip our car will be loaded with alioli, poultry seasoning, saffron and of course the best tasting fish stock you have ever tried.
Instant Pot Paella Leftovers
If you have been a member of Recipe This for a while, you will know that I get excited over leftover meals and come over all queasy at the thought of wasting food. I love to use up every bit of food and there is no reason why you should be spending a small fortune on food, when you don’t need to.
Our grocery bill is around $275 a month and for that we feed a family of 5. When I think of what leftovers we have in our freezer, it is no surprise. We also don’t have the same amount of yellow sticker clearance food like they do in England and still manage to save.
If you want to save money, I recommend that you make your family a big batch of my Instant Pot Paella. It is not an expensive Spanish rice dish to make and you can reduce the cost by using less seafood and more cheap meat.
Then afterwards you will find yourself lots leftover like we did:
Then fridge it overnight and freeze what you don’t want, or in this case today, load what you have left into the Instant Pot and make a delicious paella soup.
If you take a closer look at the image above, you will see 2 freezer containers and 1 big blue bowl. After our Instant Pot Paella was made and eaten this is what we had left. The 2 freezer containers went into the freezer and the blue dish made soup the next day.
You can then have your choice for how you plan to eat it in the future, whether it is paella or as paella soup.
My Paella Stock From Spain
One of the biggest reasons for making the paella soup right now, is that I had some leftover stock and when food gets close to its use by date, I get in a mad hurry to use it up.
Here is the paella stock that we had:
It was a big 1 litre carton (we had 2 of them) and we used it for a few recipes, including todays paella soup and last weeks Instant Pot Paella.
Of course, you probably don’t have the luxury of being able to go over the border and grab some paella stock, in which case any container of seafood/fish stock will work great.
And how about a look through your own pantry, to see what you have that needs using up and making it into a wow dish?
Can You Freeze Paella?
That leads me to the biggest question in the paella world and that is whether it is safe to freeze paella.
The answer is YES, it is safe to freeze paella. Just make sure the paella is cool before the lid is added and before it enters the freezer.
However, remember FOOD SAFETY rice can cause food poisoning if it is not reheated properly. Just to be safe, I would avoid having our Instant Pot Paella Soup if you are pregnant. That is because the rice is a bigger risk to you and so is seafood.
By reheating rice and turning it into paella soup, makes it safer. That is because it is getting thoroughly heated in the Instant Pot and it has the chance to properly bubble away without you losing flavour or without the rice becoming dry.
As rice when frozen can lose its moisture and not taste as nice.
Instant Pot Paella Soup
This Instant Pot Paella Soup that we made is loaded with your favourite paella ingredients including:
- Chorizo
- Mussels
- Prawns
- Chicken
- Squid
- Rice
- Peas
- Peppers
You can of course use your own leftovers or follow our Instant Pot Paella recipe, that we have on the blog and then increase the liquid to turn it into a creamy soup.
Paella Vs Mexican Rice
I am sure you want to know what differs between paella and Mexican rice. Well Mexican rice tends to use medium grains of rice rather than short grains. The seasonings are different too with Mexican rice containing chillis and Paella containing saffron.
The Mexican rice dishes tend to carry more liquid and be more like a risotto than a paella.
Both paella and Mexican rice are PERFECT for serving up for dinner with meat or seafood.
Cooking Paella Soup In The Instant Pot
One of my favourite uses for the Instant Pot, is its quick ability to reheat food without much effort.
I can throw the ingredients in for my Instant Pot Paella Soup and it will reheat them fast with a ZERO-minute cooking time.
I then have piping hot soup ready to serve to my family.
You don’t need any extra Instant Pot Accessories, just your Instant Pot and plenty of leftovers.
The Instant Pot we have, that we used to make our paella soup in, is the Instant Pot Duo and you can order it here or read our Instant Pot Review.
MORE Instant Pot Soup Recipes
We have a thing for soup in the Instant Pot Pressure Cooker. We don’t want to eat boring soup that is aimed at the cabbage soup diet, but real hearty soups.
Here are a few more of our favourite Instant Pot Soup Recipes:
- Instant Pot Potato Corn Chowder
- Instant Pot Carrot Ginger Soup
- Instant Pot Ham Bone & Bean Soup
- Instant Pot Loaded Potato Soup
Instant Pot Paella Soup
Ingredients
Kitchen Gadgets:
Recipe Ingredients:
- 400 g Leftover Paella
- 1 Small Onion
- 1 Tbsp Garlic Puree
- 30 g Sliced Chorizo
- 1 Tbsp Olive Oil
- 1 Medium Can Tinned Tomatoes
- 100 ml White Wine
- 100 ml Paella Stock
- 1 Tbsp Parsley
- Salt & Pepper
Instructions
- Put your Instant Pot on the sauté setting and let it warm up.
- Peel and thinly dice your onion and place it into the Instant Pot along with your garlic puree and olive oil.
- Sauté the garlic and onion with the olive oil until the onions have softened.
- Add in the white wine and the paella stock and use it to deglaze the inner pot.
- Cancel the sauté setting.
- Add in the rest of the ingredients, stir and place the lid on the Instant Pot.
- Set the valve to sealing and cook for 0 minutes and use QPR (quick pressure release). Stir and serve with warm crusty bread.
Notes
Nutrition
Can’t make it now? Then pin it for later!
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