Nothing satisfies my deepest cold weather food cravings like a big bowl of piping hot pho. Unless you have a favorite Vietnamese spot nearby, however, it can be difficult to get your hands on a bowl. Which is why I developed and posted a full pho recipe on The Woks of Life back in 2015. For those looking for a quick an easy option, I also posted a quick 20-Minute Chicken Pho recipe.
It’s hard to beat the flavor of a beef-based pho broth, however. But alas, it can take at least 6 hours to make, or much longer if you simmer the broth overnight as some Vietnamese families do! Enter: The Instant Pot. Our new favorite kitchen toy, this programmable electric pressure cooker has been in use more and more these days, whether it was to whip up a quick dinner for a crowd over the holidays or to make wintry soups and stews in enough time for a weeknight dinner.
This Instant Pot pho has the satisfying flavor a long-simmered broth, but it can be made in less than half the time of pho broth simmered traditionally on the stove.
A Quick Note On Instant Pot Size
Now, tools like the Instant Pot (or its opposite, the slow cooker) aren’t necessarily always practical for making soup stocks and broths because size is a limiting factor. We have one of the larger Instant Pot models.
That said, if you’d like to use a smaller Instant Pot for this and just make soup for 1-3 people, you can cut the recipe in half or by a third. Simply reduce all the quantities accordingly. For large single ingredients like the cinnamon stick, simply break it into a smaller piece.
Pressure Cooker Broth: The Color is Different!
You’ll also notice that my broth looks darker than a traditional pho broth, which is generally clearer and lighter, while still being full of flavor. Pho broth is traditionally simmered very slowly, at a very light bubble (if bubbling at all).
With the pressure cooker, however, the broth is cooked much faster. But I do believe that the flavor of the broth is still rich and delicious, and you can be slurping away at a bowl of noodles in much less time, which isn’t a bad thing!
If you’d rather go with the low and slow method, visit my original tried and true stovetop Pho recipe. But if you’d like to take your Instant Pot out for a spin and get the job done faster, then you’re going to love this version!
Instant Pot Pho Recipe Instructions
Start by charring your ginger and onions. Use tongs to hold the ginger and onions over an open flame, or place directly on an electric burner. Turn until they’re lightly blackened and fragrant about 3 minutes. Rinse away the blackened skins and set aside.
Place the bones and beef chuck in large stockpot and add water to cover. Bring to a boil and boil for 5 minutes. Drain in a colander and rinse. This process will give you a much cleaner broth.
Set aside your beef chuck in the refrigerator for use later. Transfer the bones to your Instant Pot, along with the charred/cleaned ginger and onions. Add the scallions, fish sauce, sugar, and salt.
Now toast the spices (star anise, cloves, cinnamon stick, black cardamom, fennel seeds, and coriander seeds) in a dry pan over medium low heat for about 3 minutes, until fragrant.
Use kitchen string to tie up the spices in a piece of cheesecloth, and add it to the pot.
Cover everything with 3 ½ quarts of water.
Seal the Instant Pot and place on the manual high pressure setting for 120 minutes. Allow the pressure to release naturally (15-30 minutes). Add the beef chuck and put back on the meat/stew setting for 30 minutes.
Use the Quick Pressure Release, and when the Instant Pot is once again safe to open, skim the broth for excess fat and impurities. Adjust seasoning by adding more salt, rock sugar, and/or fish sauce to taste.
To serve, boil the rice noodles according to package instructions. Add to a bowl. Place some slices/shreds of the beef chuck on the noodles. Cover with broth, and garnish with sliced onion, bean sprouts, and Thai basil, and be sure to squeeze some fresh lime juice over the top! You can also add some cooked beef balls or thinly sliced eye round if you like.
Instant Pot Pho
Ingredients
For the broth:
- 2 3-inch pieces ginger, cut in half lengthwise
- 2 medium onions (peeled)
- 4 pounds beef marrow and/or knuckle bones
- 1 1/2 pounds beef chuck
- 3 scallions (cut into 4-inch lengths)
- ⅓ cup fish sauce
- 2 ounces rock sugar (or 3 tablespoons granulated sugar)
- 2 teaspoons salt
- 3 star anise
- 5 cloves
- 1 small cinnamon stick
- 1 black cardamom pod
- 2 teaspoons fennel seeds
- 2 teaspoons coriander seeds
- 3 1/2 quarts water
To assemble your pho:
- Dried pho rice noodles
- Thinly sliced onion
- Mung bean sprouts
- Thai basil
- Lime wedges
- Cooked beef balls (thinly sliced eye round, optional)
Instructions
- Start by charring your ginger and onions. Use tongs to hold the ginger and onions over an open flame, or place directly on an electric burner. Turn until they’re lightly blackened and fragrant about 3 minutes. Rinse away the blackened skins and set aside.
- Place the bones and beef chuck in large stockpot and add water to cover. Bring to a boil and boil for 5 minutes. Drain in a colander and rinse. This process will give you a much cleaner broth.
- Set aside your beef chuck in the refrigerator for use later. Transfer the bones to your Instant Pot, along with the charred/cleaned ginger and onions. Add the scallions, fish sauce, sugar, and salt.
- Now toast the spices (star anise, cloves, cinnamon stick, black cardamom, fennel seeds, and coriander seeds) in a dry pan over medium low heat for about 3 minutes, until fragrant. Use kitchen string to tie up the spices in a piece of cheesecloth, and add it to the pot. Cover everything with 3 ½ quarts of water.
- Seal the Instant Pot and place on the manual high pressure setting for 120 minutes. Allow the pressure to release naturally (15-30 minutes). Add the beef chuck and put back on the meat/stew setting for 30 minutes.
- Use the Quick Pressure Release, and when the Instant Pot is once again safe to open, skim the broth for excess fat and impurities. Adjust seasoning by adding more salt, sugar, and/or fish sauce to taste.
- To serve, boil the noodles according to package instructions. Add to a bowl. Place some slices/shreds of the beef chuck on the noodles. Cover with broth, and garnish with sliced onion, bean sprouts, and Thai basil, and be sure to squeeze some fresh lime juice over the top! You can also add some cooked beef balls or thinly sliced eye round if you like.
I don’t have a black cardamom pod on hand, but I do have ground Cardamom seed. Could I use that? I also have ground coriander but not coriander seeds, could I also use that?
Hi DF, black cardamom, or tsaoko, is different from the most common cardamom you see ground—green cardamom. You can just omit it. As for the coriander, I’m not sure if the powdered version would yield the same flavor, but you could try it.
Lockdown and moving back in with my parents has meant that there is nowhere within delivery radius to order Pho from :( SO glad to find this recipe, the broth turned out amazingly flavourful and the instructions were super manageable. Will definitely be adding this to our regular rotation, thank you!!
You’re very welcome, Orla!
Hi Sarah! Thanks for the recipe, it was amazing. I have one recurring problem with making pho. It seems that regardless of how long I am boiling the broth, as soon as I scoop it onto my (usually room-temperature) noodles and then add the rest of the toppings, the temperature of the broth doesn’t seem very hot anymore. I am not sure if it cooled down once it hit the noodles, or whether it was never hot enough in the first place. This happens everytime, even when the broth has been boiling for a long time. Do you have any thoughts about this? Thanks in advance!
Hi Donia, I would say to make sure the broth is at a simmer right before you pour it into your bowl. I would also say that you can make smaller bowls, and just keep adding hot broth to keep it hot, because it does cool down quite a bit as you’re eating.
This recipe sounds wonderful but I haven’t tried yet.
I would like to comment on the soups’ temperature. This is a common complaint I have had with soups in general.
I have solved it to my satisfaction. I only use deep, narrow stoneware bowls that I have filled with boiling water from my teakettle before serving the soup.
Pour out the hot water right before filling them with the soup and enjoy a piping hot bowl of soup!
Thanks for that, Kelly!
Since I’m not Asian I have adjusted the way Pho is made. Instead of parboiling the meat and bones and then discarding the water, I roast them till thoroughly browned or brown them in the stockpot then I add HOT water and simmer about a half hour allowing for any impurities to rise to be skimmed off but because the meat and bones are no longer raw there is very little to be skimmed off. I then add the aromatic spices and simmer for hours creating a nutritious tasty bone broth. I remove the meat once it’s tender ,discard the bones and spice bag and shred the meat and I cook the noodles IN the broth thus flavoring them and keeping them hot. I then add the shredded meat , heat till all is HOT then pour into soup bowls and add basil and anything else I want.
In step 6, there are no mentions of removing the onion, ginger, and meat. AFter you remove all these, do you add additional water since the water level will be much lower after removing the onions, ginger, and meat?
Hi Bobby, no additional water would be added, to maintain the rich flavor of the finished broth.
Amazing. No boxed flavors and yet it’s the best broth I’ve had.
Thank you so much for the review and feedback!