Instant Pot Chicken Gnocchi Soup Recipe | Savory Nothings (2024)

This Instant Pot Chicken Gnocchi Soup is a satisfying comfort food dinner made in just 30 minutes. The creamy soup is so nice with the healthy vegetables and the shredded chicken – a quick, easy and delicious Olive Garden copycat recipe!

Copycat Chicken Gnocchi Soup

I know, not another copycat recipe… But hear me out: This isn’t just an OG recipe. It’s an actually delicious, creamy, hearty family meal. A soup my entire family eats without complaining.

I also make it in the slow cooker when I get to think ahead, but the instant pot is for when I need dinner on the table in 30 minutes. So here it is, very quick and easy to whip up – a total backpocket dinner for me.

Ingredients you’ll need

Here is a visual overview of the ingredients in the recipe. Scroll down to the printable recipe card at the bottom of this post for quantities!

Ingredient notes

• Milk: I either use whole milk or evaporated milk, because that’s what we always have on hand. I usually don’t want to add 2 cups of expensive heavy cream to a soup, and it makes it too heavy to me. You can use anything you like though! Milk, half-and-half, cream, evaporated milk or a mix of them. Be careful with skim milk though, it splits more easily.
• Chicken: Feel free to use boneless, skinless chicken thighs in place of the chicken breast. The soup will need to cook 5 minutes longer with the chicken thighs.
• Gnocchi: I use refrigerated gnocchi for this recipe, not frozen. If using frozen, I would recommend to either defrost them first or to cook them separately before adding them to the soup. Otherwise, they need to simmer too long in the soup and the other ingredients will end up overcooked.
• Butter: Feel free to use oil in place of the butter if you prefer.
• Spinach: I use pre-washed, bagged baby spinach. If you’re using mature spinach, you’ll want to chop off any large stems and then tear or chop the leaves a little. I have also added frozen, defrosted spinach before. It works, just make sure you get leaf spinach and not chopped spinach – chopped spinach turns the soup into a mess.

How to make Chicken Gnocchi Soup in the Instant Pot

Start by sautéing the onion, garlic and celery in the instant pot. You do this on the sauté setting which is pretty self-explanatory, but I thought I’d mention it.

Then you add the seasoning and chicken broth and submerge the raw chicken breasts in the liquid. Pressure cook with a 5 minute natural release, then release any remaining pressure manually before opening the instant pot lid.

Then you need to shred the chicken and add it back to the soup along with your milky liquid of choice (stir in your cornstarch before adding it to the soup!), the carrots and the gnocchi. You’ll want to switch the instant pot to sauté again at this point.

Once the gnocchi are done, stir in the spinach and let it wilt for just a minute. Then serve the soup with your favorite crusty bread (this is my favorite)!

Recipe tips

• The chicken cooks fastest if it’s fully defrosted and the chicken breasts are on the smaller side. But the beauty of an instant pot is that you don’t need a lot of additional cooking time if you just happened to forget to defrost some chicken! Simply add around 5 minutes to the pressure cooking time. Each of my chicken breasts weighed around 4 ounces, so they were definitely thinner/smaller. If your chicken breasts are large (6-8 ounces each), you’ll want to cook the soup for 8-10 minutes and not the 6 minutes the recipe calls for.
• Pressure release: Do not skip the natural pressure release, otherwise your chicken will come out too chewy.
• Do not overcook the gnocchi: Most ready-made, refrigerated gnocchi varieties cook in 2-3 minutes. Make sure you watch them closely, or they’ll overcook and start disintegrating in the soup.

Watch the recipe video

Really. Make this. Even if you secretly love cake more than soup?? Yes, even then.

PSIf you try this recipe, please leavea review in the comment section and add a star rating in the recipe card – I appreciate your feedback! Follow along onPinterest,FacebookorInstagram.

Printable recipe

Recipe first published on 01/04/2018. Updated with better recipe, new photos, new video and new text on 03/04/2021.

More soup recipes

More instant pot