Easy Pressure Cooker Pinto Beans

Homemade pressure cooker pinto beans make a great side dish for Cinco de Mayo or any time of year. Use charro beans inside burrito bowls for a great meal! Great way of how to cook beans in your pressure cooker, Instant Pot, Crockpot Express or Ninja Foodi.

Ninja Foodi Pinto Beans

• We’ve added it into our list of Ninja Foodi recipes too because that’s our new favorite appliance!

If you want to know how to cook dried pinto beans in Instant Pot or other brand of high pressure machine we have instructions for you! Then add them to your taco Tuesday buffet or just make some quick burritos for dinner.

Instant Pot Pinto Beans

Talk about a great side dish or make burrito bowls with these pressure cooker pinto beans for a delicious dinner.

The possibilities are endless once you understand how to pressure cook dry beans. Bagged they are super cheap, you can make a ton at a time, and they feed a crowd for next to nothing. Keep them whole or mash to change their texture and consistency.

Then enjoy as you wish. You can even make a great bean soup with them once they’re as tender as you’d like them to be.

This way you can control the sodium levels too which is nice. Especially if you have high blood pressure you might be interested in learning how to do that. Canned foods can be quite high in salt for sure.

Ninja Foodi Pinto Beans Recipe

I never need to pre soak the beans ever again now that I have an Instant Pot and Ninja Foodi pressure cooker!

We have made a few recipes using dry beans so far like:

1. These pressure cooker refried beans
2. No soak Instant Pot baked beans have raving reviews
3. Instant Pot black beans is a great bean recipe used as a side dish to many Mexican recipes.
4. Our Instant Pot split pea soup recipe takes just 17 minutes start to finish

Now we’re ready with homemade pinto beans. You can call them charro beans too.

Cooking dry pinto beans in a pressure cooker

Always wash your dry beans to remove any dirt or debris (small rocks may be hidden).

1. Timing depends on how soft you want your beans to be and how many you want to cook (I tend to stick with 2 c. dry beans at a time)
2. Twice as much water is needed for the amt. of dry beans you’re cooking
3. Use this Ninja Foodi cooking times sheet or Instant Pot cooking times for beans printable charts to determine cook time (they’re very similar)
4. Use high pressure
5. Allow pot to naturally release steam
   1. Check beans, if you’d like them softer you can easily add a bit more water and set it for another 10 min. or so to soften even more

Drain beans and eat or doctor up (like we did here) and continue cooking a dish like these pressure cooker pinto beans

Instant Pot Pinto Beans No Soak

Homemade Pressure Cooker Pinto Beans

We do have instructions on how to make a Pinto Beans in Crockpot Recipe so they are tender as well. Those take a night to soak + 8 to 10 hours to get tender. MUCH longer than this method but they both work depending on what your time frame looks like that day.

• 2 cups of pinto beans
  • pressure cooking time below is for this amount
  • find pounds of beans in the rice aisle at the grocery store or online
• Cups of water or vegetable broth could be used
• Beef broth
• Diced chiles
• Onions and garlic
• Spices
• Bacon bits are optional

If you use other spices to make charro cooked beans by all means add them in there too in the 2nd cooking step after the quick release. If you use more than 2 cups of dry beans you may want to increase 2nd pressure cook time to 30 minutes to 45 minutes.

How to cook beans in a pressure cooker without soaking

There is no need to soak beforehand. Of course if you have a strong aversion to not doing so then go ahead, that will decrease cook time by maybe 5 minutes depending on how tender you want them at the end. Easy to do, cheap, and always a hit at any get together.

• Rinse your dry beans (to remove debris and dirt), put them into your pressure cooker.
  • Add your water (or broth if you wish to add more flavor). Close pressure cooker lid (one not attached on the Ninja Foodi), close steam valve.
• Set mode to pressure high for 60 minutes. Do a quick release.
• Drain beans and put beans back into your pot.
• Add all other ingredients and stir together.
• Close your pressure cooker lid again and set to high pressure for 20 minutes. Allow to naturally release steam for 10 minutes, then release remaining.
  • If you want more liquid in your beans before serving add a bit more broth

• Timing is subjective because some like them much softer than others.

To transition these into baked beans you would need another 25 minutes or so to cook in the sauce once they are tender. A bit more time but so worth it for sure. Then make our pressure cooker Mexican rice with these and enjoy!