Want to know if you can cook dry beans in an Instant Pot? Would you like to learn how to cook dry beans in the Instant Pot? Read on!

One of my favorite uses of my Instant Pot is to cook dry beans in it. In the past, I would buy a bag of dry beans with visions of myself as a smart, frugal, from-scratch cook. I was going to take those beans home and I was going to pre-soak them overnight, then I was going to let them simmer for hours until they were tender, and then I was going to season them and cook them some more with my choice of meats, vegetables, herbs and whatnot until I had a super delicious meal that made me all kinds of proud of myself.

…three years later, I would pull that bag of beans out of the pantry and do just that.

Because while I do think of myself as a good cook, and I’m a frugal person, and I have a firm grasp on what’s nutritious, I’m simply not that great at thinking ahead when it comes to meals. (I’m working on it.)

Every day at three o’clock I would realize that dinner needs to be made yet again. People eat every day! Why would this simple fact not occur to me the night before, when I was eating dinner and had time to throw some beans in a pot of water to soak??

I don’t know either. You’d think it would be easy.

Now that I have an Instant Pot, it IS easy.

If it’s three o’clock in the afternoon and I suddenly remember that someone has to make supper or we won’t eat, I can pull out that bag of beans and have dinner on the table by five or six.

This is true for all kinds of beans – pinto, black beans, kidney beans, white beans, Great Northern beans, etc. You can cook them from dry to done in around an hour or so. You don’t have to pre-soak them and you don’t have to stand over them to make sure they’re boiling when they’re supposed to boil or simmering when they’re supposed to simmer.

All you need to do is rinse them, put them into the Instant Pot with the right amount of water, and set the timer for the right amount of time. The Instant Pot will come up to pressure, cook the beans, and then gradually release the pressure while you do something else – like cut up vegetables or read a book or do some online shopping.

Different beans do require different cooking times, and you’ll also want to adjust the time depending on how firm you want your beans. For example, if you want to make want black beans to top a southwestern taco salad or a bowl of chicken tortilla soup, you might cook them less than if you’re doing
refried black beans.

But the process is the same for every type of dry bean I’ve cooked in my Instant Pot. And it couldn’t be simpler. I just love it.

There are how-to instructions below.