How To Make Fast, No-Soak Beans in the Pressure Cooker

How To Make Fast, No-Soak Beans in the Pressure Cooker

I think that a warm pot of beans whenever you want them is at least half the reason for owning a pressure cooker.

Forget pre-soaking. Forget hours of gentle simmering.

With a pressure cooker, you can go from opening a bag of dried legumes to plump, tender beans in under an hour. How’s that for a sales pitch?!

You’ll need a 6- to 8-quart pressure cooker to make a batch of beans. I use a 6-quart Instant Pot, but you can follow this basic method for other electric pressure cookers and stovetop pressure cookers as well.

I normally cook a pound of beans at a time in the pressure cooker. This makes about five cups of cooked beans, which is plenty to make several meals throughout the week. I also often freeze half of the batch for future meals if I don’t think I’ll use them up during the week.

And no, I don’t soak my beans ahead of time. I admit that my first forays into no-soak beans were entirely due to a lack of pre-planning on my part. (I so rarely manage to coordinate my desire and my readiness when it comes to beans.)

But then I found that I didn’t really need to. The beans cooked up just fine without the overnight soak. They are evenly cooked, tender and creamy, and well suited for everything from tacos to quick bean soup!

This said, you do make a few concessions when you skip the soak. The biggest one is the beans’ appearance: You tend to get more split skins and “blow-out” beans (the ones that burst like popcorn) when they’re not pre-soaked.

For my everyday cooking, I’m fine with beans that are a bit rough around the edges. If you’re preparing a bean dish for your in-laws or the Pope, however, you might want to plan ahead and set aside the time for a long, careful soak.

Secondly, some people feel that soaking their beans helps makes them easier to digest (though others disagree). Personally, I haven’t noticed a huge difference with my own digestion between soaked or un-soaked beans, but if you find soaking helpful in this regard, then by all means carry on.

If you’d like to soak your beans (and you’re better at pre-planning your bean cookery than I am), then go for it! The pressure cooking time is generally about half the time as unsoaked.

One last point to discuss: the pressure release. I think it’s worth it to let your pressure cooker release naturally, or at least for as long as possible before you open the pot. This helps offset some of the appearance problems, resulting in fewer blow-out beans — though you’ll still get some.

I usually let the pot release pressure naturally until the point when I need the beans, then I hit the pressure valve to release it the rest of the way.

Tips for Success

Add a tablespoon of oil: This helps reduce foaming as the beans cook, which can sometimes clog up the pressure valve and interfere with cooking.

Add a teaspoon or two of salt: This is your only opportunity to season the beans on the inside, so be sure to add some salt to the pot. Start with one teaspoon with your first batch and see how you like the flavor. I usually add two teaspoons to my beans.

Add flavoring ingredients! Flavorful add-ins like garlic, onions, and bay leaves make beans even tastier. Add them at the start of cooking along with the oil and salt.

Always use enough liquid to cover your beans by a few inches: Beans absorb a lot of liquid during cooking. For one pound of beans, eight cups of water is usually plenty. You can experiment with reducing the amount of liquid, if you like, but be careful of reducing it too much or your beans won’t cook properly.

Don’t fill the pot more than halfway full with liquid: This is a precaution against overflow due to foaming during cooking.

Adjust the cooking time as needed: Think of the cooking times I give below as a starting point, then adjust the time in subsequent batches to suit your particular taste. Try the lower end of the time range if you want firm beans for things like salads and tacos, or cook for more time if you want softer beans for things like hummus, refried beans, or soup.

Also, consult the manual that came with your pressure cooker. The times I give below are based on my testing with an Instant Pot (which I found to be consistent with the cooking times recommended in the Instant Pot manual); cooking times may be slightly different for your particular model.

Using beans in a recipe: One 15-ounce can of beans holds about 1 3/4 cups cooked beans, so substitute accordingly in your recipes. For reference, one pound of dried beans makes about five cups of cooked beans.

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