How to Cook Beans, Legumes and Lentils in the Instant Pot

One of the best purchases we ever made in our house was an Instant Pot. So much so that we bought a second one for our farm so we can use it while we’re there. There are no shortage of recipes that I use on this site that take advantage of it from my Taco Soup to my Curry-in-a-Hurry. So here’s my guide for how to cook beans, legumes and lentils in the instant pot.

There’s absolutely nothing wrong with using canned beans. We always keep some just for quick meals, but it doesn’t take much extra planning to make them yourself. The beauty of all of these items is that they are shelf stable so you can buy them in bulk. Cooking dry beans instead of using canned will save you a TON of money. 

What I particularly love about cooking in the instant pot is that I can just set it and walk away and not worry about having to babysit it. It’s as simple as adding the item to double the amount of water and it comes out perfectly each and every time. I honestly don’t know what I did before I had one of these delightful and inexpensive machines. What’s even better is that you can make a big batch and use them through-out the week, or even freeze them!

So whether you need to chickpeas, black beans, pinto or any of the other dozens of type I’ve listed below you’ve now got an extensive guide for how to cook beans, legumes, and lentils in the instant pot. Let me know what you make with them!!!

WHOLE GRAINS COOKING GUIDE

How to use the guide is simple – select your item from the column on the left. The general concept is to double the water to the amount of beans, lentils, or legumes. Any quantity works so long as you’re within the limits of your pressure cooker.

If you want to reduce the cooking time you can soak them overnight (8-12 hours), just rinse them after and use fresh water for the instant pot cooking. I’ll give you the difference in cooking times for dry or soaked in the chart below.

For the cooking time the only potentially confusing aspect is whether to use a quick release or natural release. Quick release means that you’re going to release the steam valve as soon as it’s done cooking – read the instructions to make sure you’re doing it safely. If it’s a natural release then let it rest until the pressure knob goes down all by itself. If you’re in a rush you can quick release most of these, it just might be a bit firmer or watery than you’d like. You’ll notice the lentils don’t have a soaking time – it’s unnecessary since they cook so quickly.

All cooking times are based on a high setting. Use can either use the manual pressure setting or the beans setting – timing is the same for either.