Instant Pot Pinto Beans -no soaking needed

These Instant Pot Pinto Beans are so incredibly easy and so delicious! Perfect on all your favorite Mexican dishes and there is no need to even soak them!

These vegan beans are a perfect source of high quality protein and fiber for vegetarians and vegans.

A personal confession. I have never had good luck cooking dry beans in a Dutch oven. No matter how long I soaked and hot long I cooked the beans, they never got evenly tender. Even after soaking, I can never get the beans an even tenderness.

I have had luck cooking dry beans in the slow cooker, which turn out beautifully but never in a Dutch oven on the stovetop.

Why should you try this recipe?

• Uses only a few ingredients.
• Incredibly easy.
• No soaking of the beans is required, saving many hours.
• Can be made in 30 minutes.
• Great source of protein and fiber.
• Can be made vegan.

Should beans be soaked first?

Although this recipe will teach you how to make the beans without soaking first, you can soak the beans, if you prefer.

Soak beans for at least 8 hours (or overnight). After soaking, drain the beans and use clean water to proceed with the recipe. Some folks claim that soaking the beans first may make them easier to digest.

If you soak the beans first, they will only require 15 minutes of cooking time.

What you need

• dried pinto beans
• onion
• mild chili pepper (like poblano)
• generous amount of salt
• black pepper
• bay leaf
• water or any kind of broth

How to make them

1. Chop vegetables.
2. Clean beans removing any stones or foreign substances.
3. Add beans, vegetables, spices to Instant pot. Add a generous amount of salt. If you don’t add salt at the beginning the beans will be bland. Adding salt after they cook is not adequate.
4. Add water, vegetable stock or chicken or beef stock, if not making the recipe vegan.
5. Set Instant pot to pressure cook, high pressure. Set timer to 30 minutes. When cycle is done, allow the pressure cooker to do a natural release (leave it alone for about 10 minutes.) Once the float valve goes down, release remaining pressure manually.

NOTE: Instant pot will take approximately 10 minutes to pressurize and 10 minutes to depressurize.

How to serve beans

Beans can be enjoyed with the broth, or drain liquid and serve as a side.

Use the beans to make vegan or vegetarian tacos, tostadas, burritos, enchiladas or taquitos.

Add the beans to your favorite meat tacos for some added high protein, no cholesterol addition.

Use an immersion blender or potato masher to mash the beans into “refried beans”. Drain most of the cooking liquid. Adding some of the cooking liquid back to the beans. I like to leave some of the beans whole to add to the texture of the dish.

Traditional refried beans, frijoles refritos are made by adding the cooked beans to a frying pan with a bit of fat (traditionally lard). Then mashed with a potato masher. Add some of the cooking liquid back to the beans, as needed. They are delicious either way.

Suggested toppings

• thinly slice green onion
• diced hot peppers
• grated cheese
• chopped cilantro or parsley
• sour cream or creme fraiche
• crumbled cotija or queso fresco cheese