Pressure Cooker Black Beans

Hello everyone! School is starting soon around here, that means a few things:

Lunch packing (Speaking of which, check out my very first lunch post from 2007 HERE.)

More blog posts because the kids are gone. :)

Less blog posts because of the school rush. ;)

We will wait and see how it goes huh? In the meantime I've been playing with my new toy quite a bit, my Instant Pot. I have mostly been using it with recipes on this blog, cooking simple things, just adapting what I cook. Not sure how much I'll be blogging about it, but I'll try to put up some recipes. So far I've done carnitas, "boiled" eggs, steel cut oats, rice, beans, Shepard's Pie, quinoa, spaghetti (no good), lots of soups- Pho, chicken noodle, sausage and kale. Stuff like that. Do you have an Instant Pot? OR use a pressure cooker? What are your favorite recipes?

Decked out my Instant Pot with Doctor Who goodies. 

This black bean recipe is great when I forget to soak beans overnight. Which is very often. It takes less than an hour, and they freeze so well, it's worth it to make them and freeze portions if we won't eat them all. Since this is so simple kids can certainly help, sorting the beans, mincing garlic, peeling the onion, etc. I still am nervous with cooking in the Instant Pot, so I check everything, and put the lid on myself.
This really is just a method, you can season them like below, make them plain, use ham hocks and jalapenos, make them vegan. Sky's the limit. These can be a side dish or a main dish. We recently had them with rice for a meal.

Refried Beans

Southwest Egg Rolls
Taco Seasoning
Fajita Seasonings

For more Instant Pot recipes, click HERE.

Pressure Cooker Black Beans

1 pound black beans, picked through and rinsed
3 cloves minced garlic
1 whole peeled onion
2-3 tablespoons bacon grease, or cooking oil
2-3 teaspoons Taco Seasoning (Optional)
Bay leaf
2 teaspoons whole black peppercorns
Unsalted Stock, broth, or water
Salt

1. Saute garlic in bacon grease until fragrant. Don't let it burn.
2. Place bay leaf and peppercorns in a spice ball, if not using peppercorns just place bay leaf in the pot.
3. Add black beans to the pot.
4. Cover with liquid to cover the beans by one and a half inches.
5. Nestle whole onion into the pot.
6. Put lid on the pressure cooker.
7. Set pressure cooker to 25 minutes on high pressure.
8. Once the cycle is complete on the pressure cooker, wait 20 minutes. Then release pressure and stir the beans.
9. Salt to taste.

IF the beans aren't tender, cook them for a few minutes more on HP. Though I haven't had to do that.

Adding hot liquid helps the pot come to pressure quicker, so I like to heat my liquids.

For refried beans you can drain the liquid, if there's too much. Then cook the beans mashing them on the saute function. 

You can also make plain black beans with just water and beans to season later. They freeze well.

Thanks for reading Give Peas A Chance!

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