This slow cooker butternut squash & pears soup is a little sweet and a little savory. You can also make this vegan soup recipe in the Instant Pot.
I already have a butternut squash recipe on this blog but I it contains bacon. I get asked all the time for vegan/vegetarian slow cooker or instant pot recipes so it was important to me that this one be not just paleo and whole30 but completely meatfree as well.
I recently found myself sitting on a 5+ pounds of butternut squash so to switch things up, I grabbed some pears too. This took a few tries to get right. The first two times, the soup was good but it just tasted like regular butternut squash soup. It wasn’t until I upped the pears to an almost 1:1 ratio with the squash that I finally felt like the pears had a place in the recipe. If you want your soup to have more of a squash taste, use less pear.
I suggest either bosc or bartlett pears for this recipe. If you want your soup to be thinner, add a 1/2 cup more broth. Don’t worry about chopping your squash, pears, and onion perfectly before adding them because everything is going to get blended down anyway.
PrintButternut Squash & Pear Soup
- Total Time: 4 hours 10 minutes
- Yield: 4 1x
Ingredients
- 2 lbs butternut squash, peeled & chopped
- 1 1/2 lbs pears peeled & chopped
- 1 small onion, chopped
- 1 garlic clove, minced
- 5 cups low-sodium vegetable broth
- 1 tsp sage
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1/4 tsp curry powder
- 1/4 tsp pepper
- 1 bay leaf
- 2 tsp oil (for IP)
Instructions
Slow Cooker
- Add all the ingredients to the slow cooker. Stir to mix well.
- Cook HIGH 2-3 hours or LOW 4-6.
- Using a blender or immersion blender, process until smooth.
Instant Pot
- Set Instant Pot to the high saute setting. Heat oil. Once hot, add oil onion and garlic and cook for a 2-3 minutes, stirring frequently.
- Add the broth and deglaze the bottom of the pressure cooker by scraping all the bits off with a wooden spoon.
- Add all remaining ingredients to the IP. Close lid and seal valve. Set high pressure and cook for 8 minutes.
- Natural release pressure for 5 minutes then manually the remaining pressure.
- Using a blender or immersion blender, process until smooth.
Notes
Cook time calculated for slow cooker.
When using the Instant Pot, make sure liquid is below the maximum line.
- Prep Time: 10 minutes
- Cook Time: 4 hours
Nutrition
- Serving Size:
- Calories: 161
- Sugar: 9.3 g
- Sodium: 369.8 mg
- Fat: 4.1 g
- Saturated Fat: 0.8 g
- Carbohydrates: 29.5 g
- Fiber: 5 g
- Protein: 6.7 g
- Cholesterol: 0 mg
After everything is done cooking, I like to use my Hamilton Beach 2-Speed Hand Blender immersion blender directly in the slow cooker or Instant pot base. It will blended it in a matter of minutes. You can also pour the entire contents of the slow cooker into a blender or food processor and process until smooth.
I used a 3.5-quart slow cooker for this recipe.
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Jordyn M
Monday 5th of November 2018
I just made this last night, and it's SO good! Just wondering, is this 4 servings total? It seems like a lot, so I'm wondering if your calorie/nutrition information is based on 4 large servings equaling the entire amount of soup?