Instant Pot Baked Beans

These Instant Pot Baked Beans are sweet, tangy, and flavorful, but best of all they can cook from dried beans in just 40 minutes in the Instant Pot.

These beans are the perfect summer BBQ side dish. It has become a recipe that my family expects me to make every time, and why not? Cooking them in the Instant Pot is so easy. Take these baked beans to your next BBQ and see what I mean.

Why You’ll Love It

• Making baked beans from scratch in the Instant Pot cuts the time cooking time down to just under an hour, when using dried beans. If you use canned beans, it takes just 10 minutes, plus the time needed to come up to pressure. These black beans cook the same way, no need to soak.
• It can take hours to cook dried beans on the stove or in the slow cooker, and that’s after you’ve soaked them for hours beforehand. When you cook them in the IP, you don’t even need to pre-soak them.
• These sweet yet savory baked beans are the perfect side dish any time of year, not just at your cookout or barbecue. They are a hearty, comforting dish for fall and winter, too.

Diana Reis says: These are the perfect side dish for summer barbecues. My kids call these sweet beans and just gobble them up.

Brianna says: Yum! Making baked beans in the Instant Pot was so easy and the flavor was amazing!

Ingredients You’ll Need

For the beans:

• Dried pinto beans – I like to use pinto beans for this recipe but you could use navy beans also.
• Broth or water – The Instant Pot uses liquid to build steam and help the pressurizing process. Use broth to impart more flavor to the beans while cooking.
• Salt & ground black pepper

For the baked beans:

• Cooking oil – Use your favorite oil to sauté the onions, garlic, and bacon.
• Bacon – Chopped. Bacon is a great ingredient for building flavor.
• Onion – Diced
• Garlic – Minced
• Brown sugar – I usually use light brown sugar in all of my cooking. You could us dark brown sugar just as easily. It has a deeper flavor that would do really well with the BBQ sauce and liquid smoke.
• Ketchup – This is the base for building the baked bean sauce.
• BBQ sauce – Use your favorite BBQ sauce. If you want to try making it at home use this recipe.
• Worcestershire sauce – This sauce has a very unique flavor and is used to give a little boost of savory, saltiness to many dishes such as stews and soups.
• Liquid smoke – Made from actual smoke this liquid has a condensed smoke flavor. If you don’t have liquid smoke on hand try using some smoked paprika.
• Dried ground mustard – Made from ground mustard seeds it adds a depth of flavor to any sauce.
• Smoked paprika -You can use smoked paprika or regular sweet paprika.

Helpful Tips

• If you thought the beans were not tender enough for you when you finished cooking them earlier, you can set the cooking time to 15 or 20 minutes to allow for extra tenderizing of the beans.
• You can use canned beans if you want. Skip step one if you are using canned beans.
• Like a little spice? Try adding some diced jalapeno peppers.

Stovetop Directions

Don’t have an Instant Pot? No problem!

If using dried beans, soak them overnight. You can also use canned beans to save time.

Add 1 tsp cooking oil to a large stock pot. Add the bacon and the onion and allow them to sauté for about 3-4 minutes, stirring occasionally so it doesn’t burn. Add the garlic. Cook for 1 more minute.

Add the cooked beans to the pot with the rest of the ingredients. Stir to combine. Put on the lid and simmer for 1 hour. Check the tenderness of the beans.

Serve with green onions and/or fried onions on top, if desired.

How to Make Instant Pot Baked Beans

Step One: Cook the beans

The first step is to cook the beans in the Instant Pot. It’s necessary to do this before adding the other ingredients because the addition of salt or acid can slow down the cooking of the beans. So those elements must be added after the beans have cooked.

It takes 30 minutes to cook the beans, and 30 minutes to allow the pressure to release naturally from the Instant Pot. When the beans are done, remove them and drain off the cooking water.

» Did you know: The process of cooking these beans is the same as for cooking other beans, like chickpeas, in the Instant Pot.

Step 2: Sauté the onions and bacon

The next step is to use the Instant Pot’s sauté setting to prepare the onions and bacon. Set the Instant Pot to Sauté and allow it to heat up.

Add the cooking oil, the onion and the bacon. Sauté (stirring regularly) for 3 to 4 minutes. Add the garlic and sauté another 1 minute before turning off the Instant Pot. Add the rest of the ingredients into the Instant Pot with the onions and bacon. Stir it to combine everything.

Step 3: Cook the bean mixture

Once everything is combined, you need to cook the mixture for 10 minutes on high pressure. When the time is up, allow the Instant Pot to naturally release pressure for 10 minutes, then carefully let the remain pressure out manually.

Note: if you thought the beans were not tender enough for you when you finished cooking them earlier, you can set the cooking time to 15 or 20 minutes to allow for extra tenderizing of the beans.

What Type of Beans Should I Use?

I use pinto beans for this recipe. However, you can choose from many other beans. If you like navy beans better, you can substitute with those. Really, most beans will work in this recipe.

If you want to forgo the cook time of just the beans at the beginning you can also use canned beans to make the recipe even faster. This can seriously be whipped up in thirty minutes if need be!

How to Store & Reheat

Store leftover baked beans in an airtight container in the refrigerator for 3-5 days or in the freezer for 3 months.

To reheat on the stove top add the leftovers to a saucepan and heat on medium until desired temperature. You can also reheat them in the Instant Pot on sauté mode.

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