The Best Soup Makers for a Warm and Cozy Meal (2024)

Beyond its many, many other functions, the Instant Pot electric pressure cooker is perfect for making soup. You can make homemade stock and even sear ingredients or keep everything toasty warm (without further cooking) until it’s time to eat. You can choose between cooking your soup quickly with the pressure-cook function or slow cooking it over a longer time.

We tested popular pressure cookers, and this Instant Pot was our favorite of the bunch, thanks to the precise temperature controls, easy-to-read interface, and ability to remember previous settings. When it came to making soup, the Instant Pot Duo created deliciously tender ham hock and beans in a hot broth in just four hours. The dedicated soup preset brings the ingredients to pressure slowly so the resulting soup is nice and clear.

The Duo is one of the more affordable Instant Pot models, yet it has a lot of useful functions, including presets for making broths or stews, cooking rice, and sautéing. While it does come in a 3-quart capacity, it is also offered in 6 and 8 quarts, allowing you to cook for a small, medium, or large household.

Capacity: 3, 6, or 8 quarts | Presets: 9 | Power: 1,000 watts | Dimensions: 13.4 x 12.2 x 12.5 inches

Designed specifically for making soup, this handy gadget is great for making broccoli cheddar soup, butternut squash soup, and more—about two dinner-sized servings or four appetizer-sized servings per batch. It offers several preset cycles: puree soup, chunky soup, cold soup, milk-based soup, compote, and smoothies, the latter function similar to that of a basic countertop blender. There's also a manual blending option.

With this, soup is ready in as little as 18 minutes, but it’s better for vegetable-based soups and soups made with pre-cooked ingredients; it can’t cook large chunks of raw meat into a hearty stew. It also requires careful washing by hand since the electric components can’t be immersed in water.

Capacity: 1.2 liters | Presets: 6 | Power: 1,000 watts | Dimensions: 9.1 x 13.6 x 9.1 inches

KitchenAid, best known for its beloved stand mixers, makes this stylish, retro-looking multi-cooker, which features a digital display and 10 preset functions not only for soups and stews but also risotto, rice, saute, simmer, boil/steam, slow-cook (high and low), and yogurt. There's also a sear function (for browning soup ingredients before adding liquids) and a 24-hour keep-warm function. The 4-quart pot has a nonstick ceramic coating and is dishwasher-safe, allowing for the easiest cleanup. It comes with a steamer basket/roasting rack and a clear glass lid designed for easy pouring and straining.

This cooker has a 4-quart capacity, making it a great choice for singles and couples or side dishes.

Capacity: 4 quarts | Presets: 10+ | Power: 1,000 watts | Dimensions: 12.2 x 14.8 x 11.9 inches

This affordable electric cooking pot with a temperature-control dial is great for simmering simple soups and casseroles, but it can also function as a deep fryer and steamer and comes with a removable frying/steaming basket. This has a generous 6-quart capacity and a “warm” setting to keep food at the optimal temperature on a buffet or at the dining table. The clear glass lid lets you monitor cooking, and the pot itself features nonstick coating. For convenient cleanup, this item is dishwasher-safe.

Note that we tested this in our Lab based on its deep-frying function only, and it did not impress, so if that feature is super important to you, there are better options. This product's soup-making ability will be included in a future test.

Capacity: 5 quarts | Presets: None | Power: 1,200 watts | Dimensions: 6 x 8 x 6 inches

The humble blender is a versatile kitchen tool. That said, this Vitamix blender is anything but humble. The Pro Series 750 Blender is a multi-functional appliance with a number of wonderful features. Not only does it have five preset programs (including one for hot soup!), but it also has 10 speed levels for optimal control. The generously sized blender jar holds 64 ounces and comes with a tamper to press ingredients down if needed, even while the blades are running.

Thanks to the 1,200-watt motor, the machine can heat ingredients via blade friction while blending them together. In fact, in our test, the blender created silky, steaming asparagus soup in just minutes. Of course, it does much more than that: We pulverized nuts into nut butter, blended beautiful smoothies, made rice flour, and whipped cream (and then turned that whipped cream into butter). Not only is this our favorite Vitamix blender, but it's also our favorite blender, period.

Capacity: 64 ounces | Presets: 5 | Power: 1,200 watts | Dimensions: 8.5 x 17.25 x 8.5 inches

If you want to cook a big batch of soup, but the capacity of a standard blender doesn’t cut it, bust out your biggest pot and use a handheld immersion blender to get your mix on. The Cuisinart Smart Stick Variable Speed Hand Blender is a small appliance with big potential. Not only does it have multiple speeds, but it also comes with multiple attachments, including the blender, chopper, grinder, and chef whisk.

We put this immersion blender to the test with a number of kitchen tasks, including whipping cream, chopping onions, grinding nuts, emulsifying salad dressing, making apple sauce, and more. The blender excelled for the most part, though we did have to cut up some bigger ingredients before fitting it into the chopper attachment. It’s easy to hold, use, store, and switch out attachments—an all-around handy device.

Presets: None | Power: 300 watts | Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.6 x 13 inches

Final Verdict

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