Instant Pot: Butternut Squash & Apple Soup

How often do you make soup? I’ve found myself making soup more often due to the cold temps where we are. It’s a great way to sneak in more vegetables into our diet. Usually when I have family and friends over for dinner, I’ll have salad as a first course. But with the cold weather, soup seemed more appropriate. Now I feel like I’ve overlooked how great soup is as a starter, if not a meal in itself. The most recent soup I made was this Butternut Squash & Apple Soup. Who knew making this was as simple as combining butternut squash puree, apple slices, chicken broth and some aromatics, then giving it all a good whiz with an immersion blender?…

The weather warrants a steaming bowl of this delicious warmth. This was a perfectly balanced soup with both the sweet and savory notes throughout. You could blend the soup as smooth as you’d like but I left some small bits of apple for additional texture. The original recipe called for blending the soup with the creme fraiche but I opted to dollop each serving with some so that folks could swirl it in as they ate. It also offered a nice color contrast and presentation to have the creme fraiche unblended. If you have difficult finding creme fraiche in your area, no worries – substitute it with some sour cream or even Greek yogurt.