Instant Pot Black Beans From Dry: Cheaper and Better

I used to buy black beans eight cans at a time. They showed up in our tacos, burrito bowls, soup and quesadillas so often that Mike joked we should buy stock in the company. Then my sister handed down her pressure cooker when she upgraded, and I started cooking beans from dry. I haven't bought a can since spring.

A 1-pound bag of dry black beans costs me $1.49 at Aldi. It makes about 6 cups of cooked beans, which is roughly four cans' worth. Even with the onion, garlic and seasoning, a batch costs about $2.30, or around 58 cents per can-equivalent, compared to the 79 to 95 cents I was paying. That's not life-changing money on its own, but we go through a lot of beans, and the flavor difference is real. Home-cooked beans taste like something. Canned beans mostly taste like the can.

The recipe

Ingredients

• 1 lb dry black beans - $1.49
• 1 onion, peeled and cut in half - about $0.40
• 4 garlic cloves, smashed - about $0.20
• 2 bay leaves - about $0.10
• 1 teaspoon ground cumin - about $0.10
• 2 teaspoons salt - about $0.02
• 7 cups water
• 1 tablespoon oil (optional, helps with foam)

Total: about $2.31 for roughly 6 cups cooked beans.

Steps

1. Sort and rinse. Pour the beans onto a sheet pan and look them over for tiny stones or shriveled beans. I've found a pebble exactly twice, and it's enough to make me keep checking. Rinse well.
2. Load the pot. Add the beans, onion halves, garlic, bay leaves, cumin, salt, oil and water. Don't fill past the halfway line, because beans foam up as they cook.
3. Cook. Lock the lid, set the valve to sealing, and cook on high pressure for 35 minutes. No soaking needed.
4. Let the pressure come down on its own. Leave it alone for at least 20 minutes of natural release, then carefully release what's left. Doing a quick release right away can make the beans split and spray starchy liquid out of the valve. Ask me how I know.
5. Test. Taste a few beans from different spots. They should be creamy all the way through. If some are still firm, lock the lid again and cook another 5 to 10 minutes.
6. Finish. Fish out the onion and bay leaves. Let the beans cool right in their cooking liquid, which keeps them from drying out and gives them more flavor.

Freezing them like cans

This is what finally made dry beans work for us. Once they're cool, I portion them into quart freezer bags, 1 1/2 cups of beans with a splash of liquid in each. That's about what's in a drained can, so I can grab a bag for any recipe without doing math. I lay the bags flat on a sheet pan to freeze, then stand them up in a bin in the freezer like files.

To use them, I run the bag under warm water for a minute or toss the frozen block straight into soup or chili. For tacos, a few minutes in a skillet does the job.

Notes and troubleshooting

• Old beans stay hard. If a bag has been sitting in the back of the pantry for a couple of years, the beans may never soften all the way, no matter how long you cook them. Buy from a store that sells a lot of them, and use them within a year.
• Salt is fine. I'd heard salt makes beans tough. In my kitchen, salting at the start gives better-seasoned beans with no toughness. Your mileage may vary, but I wouldn't worry about it.
• Soaked beans cook faster. If you remember to soak them overnight, cut the cook time to about 10 minutes. I almost never remember.
• No pressure cooker? Soak the beans overnight, then simmer them on the stove with the same seasonings for 1 1/2 to 2 hours, adding water as needed. It takes longer but it's mostly hands-off.
• The cooking liquid is good. Save it. A splash thickens soup, and I stir some into rice for the kids' burrito bowls.

How we use a batch

With school back in session and everybody running in different directions, a freezer full of beans means a fast dinner is always ten minutes away. One batch usually becomes:

• A pot of black bean soup with a can of tomatoes and some frozen corn
• Burrito bowls with rice, salsa and whatever cheese is in the fridge
• Quesadillas for a Friday night, which Owen calls "cheese sandwiches but better"
• A bag stirred into chili to stretch a pound of ground beef further

Rosie picks the beans out of everything, still. But she'll eat them plain with a little salt, straight out of the pot, which feels like a win I'm not going to question. Next up, I'm trying pinto beans for refried beans the same way.