Soup Beans Instant Pot Recipe

Soup beans are country food. When I was a kid growing up in South Carolina, one day each week, the school cafeteria served beans, greens and cornbread. I hated it. The beans were thick, the greens were bitter and the cornbread unremarkable. I’m not sure what I would have liked instead, but I do remember intensely disliking this meal. Today, beans and greens and cornbread is one of my favorite meals. I think my taste buds just needed to grow up.

Some cooks call these brothy pinto beans “soup beans.” I make them in the Instant Pot electric pressure cooker, using a method I read about in Sheri Castle’s cookbook, “Instantly Southern: 85 Southern Favorites for Your Pressure Cooker, Multicooker, and Instant Pot® : A Cookbook” (Clarkson Potter, 2018). It’s a simple recipe with a handful of ingredients that always yields a tasty dish.

I’m pretty sure you won’t convince any grade schoolers to eat beans and greens. But that’s ok, that just leaves more for you.

Soup Beans Instant Pot Recipe

Recipe adapted from “Instantly Southern” by Sheri Castle.

Ingredients:

2 slices bacon, diced
1 onion, diced
1 pound dried pinto beans, picked over and rinsed
Salt and pepper
Bay leaf

Green onion, chopped, for garnish

Instructions:

1. Heat your pressure cooker and add olive oil and fry the bacon pieces until crispy. Remove the bacon to a paper towel-lined plate.
2. Saute onion in bacon fat until soft, about 3 minutes.
3. Add dried beans, a little bit of salt (like a 1/4 teaspoon), freshly ground pepper and a bay leaf. Add water to cover by two inches.
4. Stir mixture, place the lid and lock. Cook over medium heat for 30 minutes high pressure, natural release.
5. Check beans for doneness and seasoning. If beans are not done, cook on high pressure, natural release for five more minutes. Remove bay leaf. Garnish servings with green onion and bacon bits.
6. Refrigerate leftovers in a covered container for up to a week.

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