Instant Pot Black Beans

This simple method to cook Instant Pot black beans gives you perfect black beans each and every time! No soaking, the perfect texture, and so much more flavor than canned beans.

Prior to owning an Instant Pot, I considered beans to be one of those things that I just didn't have time to cook. But ever since the Instant Pot came into my life, I'm cooking Instant Pot Chickpeas and Instant Pot black beans from scratch, because they take just 5 minutes of prep time.

The Instant Pot makes cooking black beans easy for a few reasons, but the biggest one? No need to babysit a pot to make sure it doesn't boil over or over-reduce, just set it and go about your day!

The method I'm sharing today can get into the Instant Pot with under 5 minutes of effort and yields 6 cups of perfectly tender and delicious black beans. We often freeze our black beans for later, so I'll share how I do that as well.

Recipe Video

Want to see exactly how to cook black beans in a pressure cooker? Watch this 1-minute video! You can find more recipe videos on my YouTube channel.

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Let's talk ingredients

You'll need:

• 1 lb dried black beans
• 2 bay leaves
• salt
• water

These ingredients make a basic (but still very flavorful) batch of black beans that you can use up in a variety of meal prep recipes.

You can boost the flavors by adding additional spices:

• add ½ an onion and 4 garlic cloves to the cooking liquid
• try a squeeze of lime after cooking
• add 1 teaspoon of ground cumin and 1 teaspoon of ground coriander

How to prep your black beans

Before cooking, we will do a tiny bit of prep work to get them ready.

1. weigh out 1 lb of black beans (I highly recommend using a kitchen scale, but this works out to roughly 2 ¼ cups of dried black beans)
2. pick through and look for any stones, moldy beans or off-color beans
3. rinse- if your beans are old and dusty you might want to soak them in water for 2 minutes, but I generally rinse mine under the tap

How long to cook black beans in the Instant Pot?

35 minutes on high pressure followed by a 25 minute natural pressure release is the sweet spot for perfect black beans.

• If you have a 6 quart Instant Pot, this will be a full natural pressure release
• If you use the 8 quart Instant Pot, it might take longer than 25 minutes to fully release the pressure, and I recommend manually releasing any remaining pressure at the 25 minute mark

Do I need to soak my beans?

Some people swear by soaking their beans overnight and claim that it makes the beans easier to digest. Personally, I have never had an issue digesting un-soaked beans, so I skip this step (I was always forgetting to do it anyways!)

This cook time is for un-soaked black beans only. If you soak your beans overnight, this will significantly cut down on the cook time. I would recommend trying 9 minutes with a 25 minute natural pressure release.

How much water do I add?

For 1 lb of dry black beans, we are using 4 cups of water. This yields just enough liquid to cover the beans in jars if you plan to store for later.

How much does this recipe yield?

For 1 lb of black beans you will get roughly 6 cups of cooked beans + liquid. I divide this between three 2-cup Weck jars or three 1-pint mason jars.

Can I cook these on the stovetop?

Absolutely, please check my Perfect Black Beans post for stove top directions.

How to use up your black beans?

• black bean hummus
• refreshing quinoa black bean salad
• refried black beans
• Grilled Veggie and Black Bean Meal Prep Bowls
• Fudgy Black Bean Brownies
• One Pot Black Bean Fajita Pasta