Instant Pot Beans
Baked goods are a popular side dish for summer barbecues. Dried white beans are cooked under pressure until tender and topped with a classic sticky sauce made from molasses, tomato sauce and seasonings
.
Cecilia, a reader of Pressure Cooking Today, asked me if I would publish a recipe for baked beans in pressure cookers. Although you can make great baked beans with canned beans, cooking the dried beans from scratch in the pressure cooker is easier, cheaper, and better tasting.
Update: I’ve updated this post with new photos and helpful tips on how to soak and cook perfect baked beans in the instant pot.
What are baked beans?
Baked beans look as old as barbecues. I don’t remember not having them at family barbecues growing up.
Despite the “baked
” in their name, most baked bean recipes are actually simmered white beans. Many stove recipes have you simmer soaked beans for 90 minutes to 3 hours!
But by “baking” them in the pressure cooker, you can have perfect white beans with just 35 minutes at high pressure and a natural release of 10 minutes.
Makebaked beans in a pressure cooker
in an instant pot
This baked bean recipe will work on any brand of electric pressure cooker, including the instant cooker, Ninja Foodi or Power Pressure Cooker XL.
Better Homes and Gardens has a good tutorial on how to cook baked beans from scratch. I adapted his recipe for the pressure cooker to make it even easier and faster.
Baked beans have a great traditional flavor. I really like bacon in my baked beans, so I doubled the bacon.
The video shows an overnight soak, but I often use the quick soak method discussed below.
How
to soak beans overnight An overnight soak
is the best way to make sure your baked beans cook evenly and look more even.
To perform an overnight soak: Cover your beans in the pressure cooker (off) with 8 cups of water and a tablespoon of salt. Let the beans sit overnight at room temperature.
The next day, drain the beans and rinse thoroughly. Now you’re ready to proceed with the instant baked bean recipe as written.
Quick soakingmethod for beans If you don’t have time for an overnight soak
, you can get many of the same benefits with a
quick soak. To use the
quick soaking
method for
dry beans: Simply cover the beans with water in the pressure cooker, as you would for overnight soaking (including salt). Then cook under pressure over high heat for 1 minute.
Turn off the pressure cooker and let the beans soak for 1 hour. Then remove the lid, drain and rinse the beans, and discard the soaking water.
Proceed with the recipe as directed
.
Unsoaked baked
beans
Keep in mind that beans can cook unevenly if you skip a soak, so I don’t really recommend this method.
For baked beans without soaking: Choose your cooking time. Cooking on high pressure for 75 minutes you will have some perfectly cooked beans and others that are still a little hard. If you cook for 90 minutes, you will have some soft beans and broken ones and some a little hard.
It’s not perfect, but it works in a pinch.
Random data of baked beans While I’ve only cooked the traditional American version in a smoked sweet molasses sauce, apparently across the pond in the UK,
beans Baked goods
are a breakfast food: meatless, topped with a tomato sauce, and served on toast! And Canadian readers have confirmed making theirs with maple syrup. (Because of course!)
If you’re a trivia lover like me, check out The Guardian’s fabulous baked bean article. SO many big bean data! Beans were cooked by indigenous tribes and adopted by pilgrims! First canned in the 1860s!)
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