Instant Pot Refried Beans

Refried beans are easy to make in your Instant Pot, and so much healthier than canned. Make a large batch of Instant Pot Refried Beans and freeze some to use later.

Creamy refried beans made in your Instant Pot are delicious, good for you, and so much more economical and healthy than canned refried beans. With onions, garlic, and just a hint of cumin and chili powder, they’re so tasty, have no added fat, and are low in sodium.

Refried beans have an image problem. Quite often, they are a muddy-looking puddle of pinto bean paste on your plate, maybe topped with a little melted cheese. They aren’t glamorous looking, not sophisticated or fancy, but you do have to admit, they sure are good-tasting!

Just give these homemade refried beans a try! I’m sure you’ll agree that they are so much better than store bought. This recipe makes a big batch so you’ll be able to freeze some to eat later, too.

About this Recipe

Often served as a side dish, dip, or as part of an entrée in Mexican or Tex-Mex menus, frijoles refritos (refried beans) are pinto beans that have been cooked, mashed, and then fried with onions, garlic, and lard, bacon drippings, butter, or vegetable oil. As you can guess, this process takes awhile, especially if you start with dry pinto beans which usually have to be soaked overnight.

There are two big advantages to making refried beans in your Instant Pot.

• First, it’s fast and easy to make beans in a pressure cooker. You start with dry pinto beans (no soaking needed) and in an hour and a half (almost nearly all hands-off time), your refried beans are ready to eat. It’s almost magical.
• The second advantage is that no added fat is necessary to make these beans taste great. They are perfectly seasoned and so, so tasty.

I’ll show you how to make refried beans here and give you lots of helpful tips. As always, look for the printable recipe card near the end of the post. It has complete instructions, measurements, and nutrition information.

What you’ll need

• Dry Pinto Beans: You’ll need one and a half pounds of dry pinto beans. Generally, one pound of beans is about 2 cups. Other types of beans would work, particularly black beans, but refried beans are traditionally made with pinto beans.
• Onion: The recipe calls for a white onion but it’s fine to substitute a different type of onion, such as a red onion, yellow cooking onion, or sweet onion.
• Garlic: You’ll need two tablespoons of minced fresh garlic. That may seem like quite a bit but it’s flavoring a large pot of beans so you’ll find that it isn’t overpowering at all. Use fresh garlic for the best results.
• Kosher Salt: Some salt is necessary so the beans don’t taste flat. Add more or less according to your taste.
• Chili Powder: Use your favorite kind of chili powder. Chili powder blends usually have some added salt, too, so keep that in mind.
• Cumin: This is a warm tasting spice but it doesn’t add any heat. There’s really no substitute for cumin and you wouldn’t want to omit it. However, if you have an allergy or an intolerance, try adding some smoked paprika instead. It will change the taste but it will add great smoky flavor.
• Chicken or Vegetable Broth: Either type is fine. Chicken stock works too. Look for no-salt-added or reduced sodium. For vegetarian (vegan!) refried beans, choose the vegetable broth.
• Water: The beans need quite a lot of liquid to cook properly.

How to make This Recipe

Let’s get our “refried” beans started! I don’t know if we can really call them that because they aren’t fried at all. I vote that we go with that name because they really do taste like refried. That’s our goal today, to make really tasty refried beans in only one and a half hours.

Does one and a half hours sound like a lot of time to you? Most of the time you’ll be letting the Instant Pot do its thing: pressure cooking those hard dry pinto beans into submission. There’s really very little for the cook (you) to do.

If you want to make the cooking time shorter, the beans can be soaked overnight. I’ve included instructions for how to do that on the recipe card below.

First, you’ll want to rinse and sort the dry beans. Sometimes a stray pebble or other non-bean material slips into the package. Make sure you get the beans clean and pebble-free; drain the beans well after rinsing.

Chop up the onion and garlic. You don’t need to get too fancy with this. They’ll cook down into non-discernible bits.

Put the beans, onion, garlic, seasonings, broth and 4 cups of water.

Give everything a good stir, put the lid on, make sure it’s sealed, and set the Instant Pot for 50 minutes at HIGH pressure.

It will take about ten additional minutes for the cooker to come to full pressure. Once the timer goes off after 50 minutes, let the Instant Pot natural release pressure for 20 minutes. That means you don’t do anything, just wait 20 minutes before quick releasing any remaining pressure and remove the lid.

Test a bean or two to see if they are tender. Sometimes beans that have been in storage a long time will take a little longer to cook. If you feel that they aren’t tender yet, set your pressure cooker for Sauté and just simmer the beans a bit more.

With a ladle or measuring cup, remove about a cup of the excess liquid. Don’t discard it because you may want to add it back in to adjust the consistency of the beans.

Note: Before you mash all the beans, you may want to remove some of the cooked pinto beans to use whole. They are good in salads, chili, soup, or burritos.

Next, use a potato masher or immersion blender to mash the beans to the desired consistency. You don’t want them totally puréed into a paste; a few lumps are okay. Add more bean liquid as needed. Keep in mind that refried beans thicken up a bit as they cool.

Enjoy your refried beans!

FAQs

Make It Your Own

• To reduce cooking time: Soak the beans overnight, then drain. Reduce cooking time to 15 minutes, with 20 minutes natural release. Continue with recipe as directed.
• Don’t have a pressure cooker? Make slow cooker refried beans.
• Prefer plain cooked pinto beans? Try Instant Pot pinto beans. They are seasoned nicely but without garlic, chili powder, or cumin.
• While this recipe makes traditionally flavored refried beans, if you want to jazz things up a bit, add smoked paprika or chipotle powder. Add a chopped jalapeño pepper or bell pepper if you like.

More Tex-Mex Side Dishes

• Cilantro Lime Rice
• Easy Mexican Rice
• Mexican Corn Dip
• Mexicali Dip
• Baked Tortilla Chips or Air Fryer Tortilla Chips
• Southwestern Homemade Flour Tortillas
• Restaurant Style Salsa
• Salsa Verde

Make Ahead Ideas

This makes a big batch of beans! If you want, remove some of the beans before mashing the rest. Use the reserved beans to make a bean recipe like vegetarian chili, vegetarian stuffed peppers, or delicious taco salad. Add them to nachos, tacos, bowls, or burritos.

I like to freeze some of the refried beans for later use. Keep reading for more about that.

Storage Tips

• Store in an airtight container in the refrigerator for up to 5 days.
• Freeze in small portions in air tight containers or in zip lock bags up to 3 months.
• You can store these in cup size portions in the freezer, ready to thaw and use when you want.
• Spray containers that you will be using for freezing (even ziplock bags) with nonstick cooking spray or olive oil spray so the beans slide right out of the container when you’re ready to heat them up.