How To Cook Beans in an Electric Pressure Cooker

Cooking dried beans always seems like such a chore — you have to soak the beans and then cook them low and slow on the stovetop for hours. While this can be a nice project for a low-key Sunday, there are times when you need a pot of beans right now for a

quick weeknight meal

The electric pressure cooker is a bean-cooking dream. A “rapid soak” of just one minute at high pressure eliminates the overnight soak, and an average cook time of 10 minutes for most beans means that you can have a fresh pot in less than an hour. Here’s how to do it.

Dried beans vary widely from manufacturer to manufacturer, which is why they often have a reputation for taking forever to cook. Older beans will take longer to cook, but the age of the beans is hard to determine. As such, buying beans from a reputable grocer will help ensure bean-cooking success. Discard dried beans that have been sitting in your pantry for more than a year — or use them for blind baking.

Beans are an agricultural product and, like fruits and vegetables, should be double checked for debris and rinsed before cooking. Small rocks are not all that uncommon in bagged beans and can ruin even the best pot. Spread the beans into an even layer on a rimmed baking sheet to quickly remove any broken beans or small bits of debris.

If you have time to soak beans overnight, you should — the results will be creamier beans with fewer split specimens — but the beauty of the electric pressure cooker is that you can mimic a long overnight soak by quickly bringing the pot of beans to high pressure for just one minute. This same step will make a more consistent pot of beans (again creamier and few split beans).

The other benefit of this quick soak is it sort of hints toward the required cook time for your particular pot of beans. A really fresh bag of dried chickpeas was nearly cooked through with one minute at high pressure, so reducing the actual cook time by two minutes made a near-perfect pot of beans.

Ditto for the black beans that were still rock-hard after the quick soak — a few extra minutes of cook time rendered them tender and creamy during the longer cooking period.

Learning when to adjust the cook time may seem like time-consuming and earned intuition, but it will only take a few pots of beans to spot older beans that need a longer cook time.

These cook times are intended for electric pressure cookers. Electric pressure cookers have a lower PSI than their stovetop counterparts and therefore usually require a longer cook time.

• Black beans: 5 minutes
• Black-eyed peas: 5 minutes
• Chickpeas: 15 minutes
• Cannellini: 8 minutes
• Kidney beans: 8 minutes
• Pinto: 8 minutes

*These times are at High pressure for beans that have been “quick soaked” using the method above.

For stovetop directons: How To Cook Beans in a Stovetop Pressure Cooker

Pressure cookers have two methods for releasing their pressure: natural and rapid. Natural release means that once the cooker is set off, the cooker is left to release its pressure naturally over time; this is imperative for beans.

Rapid release is when you open the pressure valve completely and quickly release the pressure. Refer to your cooker manual for guidance on natural and rapid release.

Read more: What’s the Difference Between Natural Release and Rapid Release?

Dried beans can cook much quicker or much longer based on their age. Dried beans that have sat on the grocery shelf or in your pantry may take considerably longer than freshly packed beans, so some batches of the same types of beans may take longer to cook than others.

In our chart, we’ve erred on the side of undercooked beans and here is why: If after releasing the pressure from your cooker the beans are under done you can always return them to pressure with more time. There’s no going back once the beans are over cooked.

Start with 2 minutes of additional pressure on HIGH pressure with 5 minutes of natural release. The second option for trouble shooting undercooked beans is to turn the pot onto saute and bring the beans to a boil for a few minutes — this works especially well with beans that are just a little under done.