Ready to use in your favorite Mexican style recipe, or to just eat plain, these Instant Pot pinto beans are a game changer, with no soaking and a much quicker cook time.
I’m just in love with my Instant Pot! All right, maybe that’s a little over the top, but every day I find new things to love about cooking with my pressure cooker.
Mostly, I love the speediness. When you can take something like dry, hard beans and have them ready to eat in about an hour, I find that truly kind of amazing, don’t you?
And it’s all pretty much hands-off time, so you can be working on other aspects of your dinner, or just taking a break with a cup of coffee and a good book (my preference, for sure!).
The ultimate question is: How do pinto beans taste when they’ve been pressure cooked in an Instant Pot? Delicious! Much more tasty and economical than canned beans.
About these Instant Pot Pinto Beans
An important thing to remember is that dry beans absorb a lot of water. I use 6 cups of water with 1 pound of pinto beans. The beans don’t absorb all 6 cups of the water. You’ll have lots of nice bean broth, which you can eat with the beans. I like to let the beans sit in the cooking liquid while they cool a bit so they can absorb a little more of that delicious broth.
Season the beans liberally with chopped onion, a bay leaf or two, salt and pepper. Put the lid on securely, select Pressure Cook, set the cooking time for 50 minutes, and let the pinto beans cook. When the cooking time is up, natural release for 15 minutes, then quick release any remaining pressure. That’s it! In just over an hour, you have perfectly cooked pinto beans, firm but not crunchy.
I like to use these cooked pinto beans in a variety of recipes. You can make them into refried beans, add them to your favorite chili with ground beef or turkey, make soup or vegetarian stuffed peppers (coming soon!), or use them in a taco salad. One of my favorite pinto bean dishes is frijoles borrachos, or “drunken beans”.
Instant Pot pinto beans are delicious just plain, too. I had a bowl of cooked pinto beans on the counter cooling and my mom and I kept sneaking a taste because they’re kind of addicting.
As I mention above, you don’t need to presoak the beans. However, if you pre-soak the beans for 4-6 hours in water (4 times the volume of the beans), the cooking time will be reduced.
If you have time to presoak the beans, as you can see, the cooking time is cut drastically. Soak or no soak? Decide which way works best in your schedule.
Or maybe slow cooking works best for you, I get that! Check out how to make slow cooker pinto beans.
How do you cook dried beans in an Instant Pot?
You can cook any type of dried beans in your Instant Pot pressure cooker. Water and beans are all you need, seasoning is optional. Check the cookbook that comes with your Instant Pot for guidelines on how long to cook each type of bean. Easy, easy, easy! I love to make Black Bean Soup in my Instant Pot.
How to make this recipe your own
- Add seasonings, like garlic, chili powder, cumin, paprika, and/or cayenne.
- Spice it up a little with a can of green chiles.
- Make them plain. I would definitely add a little salt though.
- Add chopped bacon to the Instant Pot and cook it with the beans.
- Try different varieties of beans.
Reheating and Storage Tips
Cooked pinto beans will keep in the refrigerator for 3-5 days, ready to use in the recipe of your choosing.
For longer storage, freeze pinto beans in freezer containers with their juice, or in freezer bags if they’re drained, for up to 6 months. If you’re adding beans to chili or soups, you can toss them in without thawing. If you’re adding the pinto beans to salads, thaw overnight in the refrigerator for best results.
More Instant Pot Basics
Do you really love your Instant Pot? If you’re still on the fence, try some of these game changing basic recipes, and watch out! You may find yourself falling in love.
- Instant Pot Mashed Potatoes (this recipe tipped my mom into the love category)
- Instant Pot Applesauce (or maybe it was this one!)
- Instant Pot Brown Rice
- Instant Pot Shredded Chicken (perfect for meal prep)
- Instant Pot Boiled Eggs (easy to peel every time!)
- Instant Pot Pulled Pork
- Instant Pot Quinoa (plain or cilantro lime)
Instant Pot Pinto Beans Recipe
Ingredients
- 1 pound dry pinto beans (about 2 cups)
- 6 cups water
- 1 small yellow onion, diced (about ½ cup)
- 1 bay leaf
- 1 teaspoon kosher salt
- 1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper
Instructions
- Rinse beans and pick out any stones, pebbles, or non-bean materials. If desired, soak in water overnight to reduce cook time, but this is not necessary.
- Put beans into Instant Pot. Add water, onion, bay leaf, salt and pepper. Stir. Secure lid, turn valve to seal.
- Set pressure cooker to "pressure cook" or "manual" (depending on model), high pressure, for 50 minutes for dry beans (15 minutes for soaked beans). Let pressure release naturally (in other words, leave it alone) for 15 minutes.
- Quick release any remaining pressure by turning valve to “vent.” Remove lid.
- Carefully remove bay leaf. Beans can be drained, or you can scoop beans out with a slotted spoon, or enjoy them with the cooking broth. It’s delicious!
- Serve, garnished with chopped cilantro, if desired.
Notes
- Makes about 5 cups after liquid is drained.
- Want to keep it basic? This recipe will work just fine with water and beans, but I recommend adding salt at the very least.
- Want to kick it up a notch? Try cooking with chicken broth instead of water, and/or adding 1 teaspoon garlic powder, 1 teaspoon chili powder, 3/4 teaspoon ground cumin, and 1/8 teaspoon cayenne pepper.
- For another twist, try adding a can of diced green chiles.
- To use as “refried” beans: Drain beans, reserving liquid. Blend with an immersion blender or a potato masher, adding liquid as needed.
Video
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
Did You Make This?Share a comment and rating below! I love hearing what you think!
Best ever. I also added some bell pepper and diced tomatoes I’ll never cook them on the stove again.
So glad you liked them!
Super good and easy. I had some embarrassingly old pinto beans. They did fine. I always add salt post cooking. I added some fresh garlic with the onion and 1 tsp cumin. Excellent.
So glad you liked them! I’ve been in that “embarrassingly old pinto bean” situation myself.
Don’t add salt before cooking, it keeps the beans from softening! There are a lot of comments about hard beans and that is the reason I suspect. Certain specific varieties of beans can take salt during cooking but many cannot. This is advice from working as a chef for nearly a decade. I made this recipe as directed, but salted the beans after cooking and gave them about an hour to absorb the salt. They were delicious, soft and savory!
These pinto beans are the BEST I’ve ever made! I did make one substitution. I used chicken broth instead of water. I also added green and red bell peppers. Thanks SO much for sharing this DELICIOUS recipe. The beans were both tasty and tender!
So glad you liked them! This is one of my favorite recipes, too. Next time I’m going to add peppers, yum!
I recently got an Instant Pot Duo plus 6qt v3, 9 in 1 off of eBay and it does not have a “manual” button nor a “keep warm” button. The how manual of instructions was missing from the box but I persevered via the internet offer of manuals and was able to run my 1st time owning an instant pot test with just water, but to shut the keep warm function off I just shut the unit off after 10 mins…..all this to say I followed your bean recipe due to the almost 5 star rating and they came out perfectly and flavored just right. Found two recipes before yours and the time to cook was incorrect. Thank you for having trustworthy recipes.
Thank you so much for this review! “Trustworthy recipes” means everything to me so I’m so glad you find them to be that way. We work really hard to ensure they are!
I have made this recipe about 30 times. If by accident they are a bit hard when you open it. Deal it up and cook it for 10 more min. Great taste and I never have leftovers. Thank you!
Oh wow, I’m so glad you like it that much! Thank you for leaving a review!
I kept forgetting to soak the beans so I could have ham and beans. I saw your recipe. I don’t have pressure cook button on my instant Pot but had a button for beans and chili. I used that. 6 cups of water, some chopped onion, salt and some of my saved bacon fat and my chopped ham. I was impressed. There were a couple of beans not exactly soft but not crunchy either, but most were softer, like I like. I just kept them on warm until I made my Jiffy corn bread. Very good! Thanks for the short cut. I forgot to take a picture. I did have broth too!
So glad you liked them! Thank you for leaving a review!
I have to amend my previous post. Sadly about halfway through my bowl, the beans were no longer fork tender. Hope I don’t get sick or even more digestive issues. I think it may be my IP. The beans are still in date, bought within the past 30 days. Everything I read indicates they should be fork tender within an hour at high pressure so must be my IP, right?
It could be your IP wasn’t sealing correctly.
Didn’t work maybe because I’m in the northeast? The beans were still very firm after 50 minutes on high with a 15 minute natural release and sitting about 10 more minutes. I used beef bouillon to make broth and added the garlic, chili powder, cumin and chilies and substituted thyme for bay leaf (no salt since bouillon has a ton) and they taste and smell divine. 10 more minutes and another 5 minute natural release softened them to our liking.
It could be related to the age of your beans, sometimes if your beans are older, they take longer to cook.
We love this recipe. My mom used to make beans in an old school pressure cooker that sat on the stove, rattling around like it was going to go off like a bomb. I bought an Instant Pot specifically to cook beans, but in a less scary way! I found your recipe and it works wonderfully. I adapted it a bit to match the flavor from mom’s beans – added garlic and cumin – and it’s perfect.
Hahah yeahhhh it’s definitely less scary! I’m so glad you like them! I often add garlic and cumin as well. I also LOVE adding smoked paprika.