This is an easy homemade Instant Pot pinto bean soup recipe packed with flavor. Like our other pressure cooker bean soup, it can be vegetarian loaded with vegetables and there’s no soak required to start from scratch. Use dry pinto beans to make this healthy one pot meal.
If you’re looking for an easy and healthy pressure cooker soup this flavorful Instant Pot pinto bean soup should be on the menu this week! One of our favorite Instant Pot recipes. Perfect for any time of year. NO soaking beans required! (affiliate links present)
Table of Contents
- Instant Pot Bean Soup
- Instant Pot Pinto Bean Soup
- Ninja Foodi Pinto Bean Soup Recipe
- Is it better to soak dry beans before cooking in an Instant Pot?
- How much water do you need to cook beans in Instant Pot?
- Instant Pot Bean Soup Ingredients
- What is the best way to cook dry pinto beans?
- Instant Pot Pinto Bean Soup Recipe
Instant Pot Bean Soup
This is just one of our favorite Instant Pot beans recipes that’s super cheap to make. Starting with a bag of legumes, either one type of a 15 bean mix is fun too. This one is specifically using pintos so the cook time in the recipe card below will reflect that.
You can use dry or canned like we did with our Instant Pot black bean soup actually, the timing would be much shorter with a can. It doesn’t matter what brand of pot you have, as long as it is electric with high pressure it will work.
If you are new to pressure cooking we have a lot of easy one pot meal recipes for you here. To begin with let’s start with a few basic tips:
- Make sure to Bookmark our InstaPot recipes page. We add new ones each week!
- Then PRINT this —–> Instant Pot cooking times cheat sheet that will help you understand how long meat, vegetables and beans take to cook in your pressure cooker.
- I HIGHLY recommend you buy this non stick pot.
- You should know how to deglaze a pressure cooker after sautéing but it won’t have as many issues with this better liner.
For reference, this is the model I have (a 6 quart) and use for all recipe creations.
Instant Pot Pinto Bean Soup
Seriously, I really just made this up on the fly. Ended up being thrilled that it came out so yummy the first time around!! You see I found some bags of dry pinto beans at the Dollar Store and I figured I could make something out of them for dinner.
I saw I had celery, carrots, onions, garlic and chicken stock. So I went from there. My family loved it so much I made it in my Crock Pot Express the following week too. Pinto soup was served to me at a restaurant before but had never made it myself.
Pressure cooking soups are game changers. I made this pressure cooker bean soup earlier this month using Northern Beans. Amazing is all I have to. It is similar to this recipe though I packed it with more veggies and of course used pinto beans.
Ninja Foodi Pinto Bean Soup Recipe
You can make a pot of beans in your Instant Pot, Ninja Foodi or Crock Pot Express in about 50 minutes. Just throw them in with some water, add salt, include a ham hock if you want, and lock the lid. I love the fact that there is no soaking required.
Is it better to soak dry beans before cooking in an Instant Pot?
You can do both actually but most people still recommend that you soak. The difference is the timing and also you can digest them better if you soak overnight to begin with. I have a whole list of different legumes listed on this Instant Pot cooking times for beans printable here.
How much water do you need to cook beans in Instant Pot?
Water to bean ratio is 3 to 1, you do not want to run out of liquid or disaster will occur. If so the dreaded burn notice will show up on the front screen and cooking will stop entirely. When done, natural release is best at least for 5 minutes or they will likely break and not stay whole.
Instant Pot Bean Soup Ingredients
We used the same bag to make our No soak Instant Pot baked beans from scratch in 40 minutes. Here is what you need. Of course you could really amp up the amount of vegetables you include too. The more the marrier.
- Instant Pot, Ninja Foodi or Crock Pot Express – I have them all
- Pinto beans
- dry in the bag
- or use a mix like we did with our Pressure cooker chili with dry beans
- and you’ll need water for the initial cooking of the beans
- Chicken broth – or vegetable broth
- Carrots
- Celery
- Canned diced chiles
- Diced tomatoes – I like petite diced
- Could add bacon bits or saute some diced bacon and add in
If you’re making this pinto bean soup in your Crock Pot Express the only real difference is that you use the brown button instead of saute. The rest are the same buttons and work perfect. Once you try this Instant Pot soup you’ve gotta’ try some of our other under 20 minutes electric pressure cooker recipes.
Instant Pot split pea soup recipe takes about 25 minutes total using dry beans, add a ham hock for added flavor. Note: Cook time for beans will vary just slightly depending on how tender you like them. We find this timing to be best for us.
What is the best way to cook dry pinto beans?
I highly suggest that you do it this way. You first get them tender and then the second step is to make the soup itself. You cannot do it all at the same time or the other ingredients will become mushy. Once you get the hang of how it is done you can repeat the first cooking step and make something else with them from there.
Time needed: 7 minutes
Instant Pot White Bean Soup
- Soften dry beans
Put water and dry beans in your Instant Pot or Crock Pot Express pot, or Ninja Foodi. Close steam valve, and push the bean button and set time to 60 minutes. Allow to naturally release for 5-10 minutes and then drain water, put beans aside.
- Canned beans
If you’d rather use canned beans you can skip the 60 minute step above. Rather, just drain and rinse beans in the can and move on to step 3. This will cut cook time from over an hour to closer to 15 minutes.
- Saute
Push the saute button on your Instant Pot or brown button on your CPE and melt your butter. Then add your diced onions and spices and cook until onions start to soften. Turn pot off.
- Cook
Add all other ingredients into your pot, stir, and put lid back on.
Close steam valve and push the soup button, high setting for 7 minutes followed by a quick release. Serve!! I like it with some parmesan cheese on top too.
Instant Pot Pinto Bean Soup
Equipment
- 1 pressure cooker
Ingredients
- 2 c pinto beans, dry, 16 oz.
- 1 onion, diced
- 2 stalks celery, or more, diced
- 2 carrots, or more, sliced
- 1 tbsp butter
- 32 oz chicken broth
- 1/2 tsp chili powder
- 1/2 tsp garlic salt
- 4 oz chiles, diced
- 1 can diced tomatoes, 14.5 oz
- 6 c water
Instructions
- Put water and dry beans in your Instant Pot or Crock Pot Express pot, close steam valve, and push the bean button and set time to 60 minutes.
- Allow to naturally release for 5-10 minutes and then drain water, put beans aside.
- Push the saute button on your Instant Pot or brown button on your CPE and melt your butter, then add your diced onions and spices and cook until onions start to soften. Turn pot off.
- Add all other ingredients into your pot, stir, and put lid back on.
- Close steam valve and push the soup button, high setting for 7 minutes.
- Serve!! I like it with some parmesan cheese on top too.
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
Dee-licious recipe, it worked the first time I tried it, I finished it with cumin and cilantro. I served it with store-bought tamales, tortilla chips, and guacamole. I’ve been making soups this winter in my instapot and I plan to add this pinto bean soup into my rotation of carrot soup, chicken rice soup, and black bean soup.
I cook dry beans in my IP one or 2 times a week. Mostly black beans but sometimes garbanzos or black eyed peas. I followed this recipe exactly (ratio wise) but after 60 minutes, plus 10 minutes natural release my pinto beans were still super hard. I drained them them added the rest of the ingredients then cooked them another 7 minu. The beans were still rock hard. After another 12 minutes of cooking plus natural release they were more palatable but still hard.
I loved this recipe. I was craving a good bean soup, and this hit the spot. The only thing I did differently, I added some potatoes because I needed to use then up. It’s so good with potatoes! I’ll be making this again.
This recipe was a wow for me. I do a lot of cooking and I loved this! I followed the recipe with a few minor adjustments (I cooked the beans but ran out of time to finish the soup for dinner that night so I covered the beans in the instant pot over night and stuck them in the fridge) the next day I took it straight out of the fridge and added everything else. I didn’t sauté the onion first because I didn’t feel like taking the beans out (sautéing always adds flavor but this was awesome anyways). My diced tomatoes had garlic flavoring to them. Everything else was the same. This may be one of my new favorite soup recipes.
OH good!
I think this recipe is missing something. The water is used in step 1. But I think you also really need to add water for step 4. But possibly the recipe has omitted how much water to use for step 1, as it generally appears to list the ingredients in the order they are used.
Did you forget the 32 ounces of broth?
@Andrew, the 4 cups of broth is the liquid for the soup- replacing the water drained out with the beans.
@Medmom, No after the beans were par cooked it said add the rest of the ingredients
I have never cooked dry beans in my instant pot so I thought this might be a good recipe to try out that bean function. Wow, this soup is delicious especially the second day. I plan on making it again for some friends who both have bronchitis. Thank you for the wonderful recipe!!
So glad it was a hit
My instant pot doesn’t have a bean button, tried manual but won’t go past 22 minutes, what can I do to get more time?
Try soaking them over night. It will reduce cooking time to half.
When you say add all other ingredients into pot, do you add the pinto beans back in at that time?
What about in a crockpot?
What about in a regular crockpot?