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Cooking Beans in a Pressure Cooker

Cooking beans in a pressure cooker has never been easier! There’s NO soak beans become tender in your in a Ninja Foodi, pinto, kidney, black beans in pressure cooker Instant Pot or Crockpot Express.

Cooking-Beans-in-a-Pressure-Cooker

This is how cooking beans in a pressure cooker works to get them nice and tender. If you’ve never cooked dry beans before, you’re in for a treat. Then you can make homemade side dishes and meals more often. One of many tips in our Instant Pot section of The Typical Mom blog. (affiliate links present, originally published 1/20)

Instant Pot Dried Beans

To get started you should print out our free Instant Pot beans cook time sheet. This is a good starting point as far as how long each one will take to become tender. No matter which type you want for the recipe you want I have them all listed in that chart. I will explain some things to remember to put your mind at ease here too.

No matter what brand you’re using this timing will basically be the same. Crockpot Express and Ninja Foodi both have the pressure cook function which is what you’ll need.

FIRST – You should sign up for my free newsletter so you get new posts emailed to you twice a week and never miss out on anything! Now let’s start with a few basic tips:

For reference, this is the pressure cooker I have (a 6 quart) and use for all recipe creations.

star wars instant pot

Dry Beans in Ninja Foodi

As it states you’ll need plenty of water and a bit of time, followed by a natural release of steam. The reason for this last step is to get more and more tender, don’t skip it.

Variations in time will occur depending on how much you add and just how tender you want them. However, using this chart will be your first step in understanding how to cook beans in a pressure cooker.

You can enjoy them plain as a side dish with just salt and pepper or as a complete meal like our Instant Pot 15 Bean Soup here. We even share here how to cook red lentils Instant Pot style.

instant pot cooking times for beans

How do you Cook Beans in a Pressure Cooker

If you’re making 1 bag of dry beans (16 oz. is typical), this is what you do:

  1. First rinse your dry beans in a colander to get any debris off of them
  2. Pour them into your pressure cooker now
  3. Add your cooking liquid = 4 times the amount of beans (so 1 bag needs 8 cups of water or broth)
    1. do I need to soak beans before pressure cooking? NO, there is no need to soak your beans beforehand.
    2. how much water do you put in a pressure cooker for beans? It doesn’t matter whether you’re making kidney beans, black beans, or Northern beans
      1. you will always need at least a 1:4 ratio of beans to liquid
    3. do not fill past 3/4 line inside pot or it won’t reach pressure
  4. Look at Instant Pot cook chart above and determine your pressure cooking time
    1. remember if it finishes and you decide you want them more tender you can just put the lid on and cook for longer, NO problem with that
    2. 15 – 30 minutes is typical to get tender cups of cooked beans
  5. Close lid and steam valve and set to high pressure for the designated cook time. I suggest starting at the lowest time above if you like them a bit firmer.
  6. When done do not release the pressure!! This is called a natural release.
    1. That means you don’t touch the steam valve. Do not do a quick release when cooking beans in a pressure cooker.

How to cook beans in an electric pressure cooker

Cooking Beans in a Pressure Cooker

Do beans double in size when cooked?

Pretty much is the basic answer. Keep this in mind; 1 cup dry beans yields approximately 2 1/2 cups cooked beans so it’s like they double plus a bit. 😉

Instant Pot Bean Recipes

Let’s start with our Instant Pot ham and beans recipe. I begin here because this one is very simple, with few ingredients, and is really healthy.

Here are some Instant Pot pinto beans from scratch. I add lots of diced chiles to add a bunch of flavor. They’re a great side dish or addition to burritos or taco bowls.

instant pot Pinto Beans

Ninja Foodi Beans No Soak

Just remember the beans to water ratio pressure cooker directions and you really can create anything in your “magic pot”!

  • Beans don’t have to be made plain, we hardly ever do. Even if we’re using them as a side dish I still always amp them up with diced chiles and seasonings.
  • Add some chili powder for a bit of spice, dry Sriracha is another one of my favorite sources of heat.

What can I make with beans? Our favorite Instant Pot side dish is probably our homemade baked beans

  1. Red bean curry is pretty darn yummy
  2. Add them to stuffed zucchini boats
  3. Chill them and add to some Greek chopped salad
  4. Navy bean pesto
  5. Cold 3 bean salad is always a winner of a side dish
no soak instant pot baked beans 2

What is a serving size of beans?

Half cup of cooked beans is an average serving size for an adult. This goes for most legumes and grains. To put that in perspective; a can of beans contains about 1 and 3/4 cups which is over triple this serving size!

How much is a serving of dry beans?

As a general rule you should allow between 1/2 and 1 cup of dry beans person. So if you’re cooking 5 to 10 pounds of dried beans it would feed about 50 people.

  • A one-pound bag of dried beans provides 10 servings of 1/2 cup.
instant pot beef bean chili

How Long to Cook Dry Beans in an Instant Pot

Now we have a NEW Instant Pot beef bean chili to share with y’all. Here’s a look at it at the beginning. You know what is different about this?? ALL the ingredients are cooked together.

  • When you do it this way you don’t need quite as much liquid as you would with just water. Until you get the hang of the ratio method for something like this, I suggest following a recipe.

This is similar to our pressure cooker chili with dry beans however this was all cooked together.

It is a bit like baked beans but heartier since it has stew meat inside. Cooking it for 40 minutes means the beef comes out super tender, and the dry beans will too.

instant pot beef bean chili

Pressure Cooker Bean Beef Chili

Here’s what you do to prepare this pressure cooker bean beef chili

  1. Set pot to saute and add your olive oil, diced onions and stew meat. Brown meat on all sides, then turn pot off.
  2. Add a bit of your broth just so you can deglaze your pot properly.
  3. Then add all other ingredients and stir together.
  4. Close lid and steam valve and set to high pressure for 40 minutes
  5. Allow steam to naturally release steam completely before lifting lid off.
  6. Stir and serve. We like to serve this over white rice, and add some feta cheese on top too.

This is one of our newest January Instant Pot recipes you should try. You can cook with dry beans in your slow cooker too like with our Crockpot black eyed peas recipe but of course it will take all day.

Want to see a few of my favorite things that I am totally obsessed with?? Take a peek and see how many you might already have…twinsies!

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Cooking Beans in a Pressure Cooker

Cooking beans in a pressure cooker has never been easier! There's NO presoaking required for dry beans to become tender to make your favorite recipes.
Course Entree, Main Course
Cuisine American
Keyword crockpot express, instant pot, ninja foodi, pressure cooker
Prep Time 15 minutes
Cook Time 40 minutes
Servings 6
Calories 77kcal
Author The Typical Mom

Equipment

Ingredients

Instructions

  • Turn pressure cooker to saute mode and add olive oil, onions and beef.
  • Saute until beef outsides have browned, then turn pot off. Add a bit of your broth and scrape bottom of pot to remove all stuck on meat pcs.
  • Then add all other ingredients including remaining broth into your pot, stir.
  • Close pressure cooker lid and steam valve and set to high pressure for 40 minutes.
  • Allow a natural release for steam.
  • Stir, add more broth if you want it thinner.

Video

Nutrition Facts
Cooking Beans in a Pressure Cooker
Amount Per Serving (3 oz)
Calories 77 Calories from Fat 45
% Daily Value*
Fat 5g8%
Saturated Fat 1g6%
Sodium 1267mg55%
Potassium 274mg8%
Carbohydrates 5g2%
Fiber 1g4%
Sugar 2g2%
Protein 3g6%
Vitamin A 215IU4%
Vitamin C 7.8mg9%
Calcium 39mg4%
Iron 1.3mg7%
* Percent Daily Values are based on a 2000 calorie diet.
instant pot dried beans
Cooking Beans in a Pressure Cooker
Recipe Rating




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Jeff Strehlow

Sunday 13th of November 2022

You can cook beans in a pressure cooker with less water. They don't need to be coverred with water because the pressurized steam cooks them. I cook two pounds of dryed beans in two cups of water and they turn out fine. I soak the beans first. Because you are heating up less water, pressure builds up in the pot faster and you save energy.

Wayland

Thursday 18th of March 2021

I have cooked many batches of pinto, as well as great northern beans, in both electric pressure cookers and conventional stove top pressure cookers, and I have never cooked these beans in 30 minutes. I generally cook my beans in my Instant pot in 65-75 minutes, 50-55 minutes in my conventional cooker. Why the difference in cooking time?

Ashton Schloop

Tuesday 21st of December 2021

@Wayland,

Maybe you are overcooking your beans? Bean physics? Space aliens?

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