©2016 – Photo by Rachel the Riveter
Instant Pot Cuban Black Beans
I always have some of these Cuban Black Beans on hand. They are creamy and flavorful and dirt cheap to make. Making it on Instant Pot Financial guru Dave Ramsey recommends a diet of beans and rice when you are trying to pay off debt, however that doesn’t mean they have to be bland and boring. Addictive and delicious recipes can be cheap and easy too. This is one of those recipes.
Three Myths About Cooking Beans
Myth 1: dried beans take hours to cook.
Every type of bean is a bit different. Cooking times can range from less than 30 minutes to an hour or two at the most. The things that determine cooking times are desired final consistency, bean size, bean age and how hard your water is. In the end, there will be general time frame for, but if you need to cook the beans more, cook them a bit more.
Myth 2: Soaking your beans is necessary.
Soaking beans will definitely lower the cooking time, but it really is an either or thing. Soak them overnight or cook them a little longer. Which works better for your kitchen and your meal? And when in doubt, you can try the quick-soak method.
- Rinse and pick over your beans
- Cover them by 2 inches of water.
- Bring the water to a boil and boil for just 1 minutes.
- Remove from heat, cover and allow it to stand for an hour.
- Cook as normal.
While some cooks will tell you that the quick-soak method will prevent the lyrical nature of beans – you are also going to lose a lot of the nutrients, flavor and other beneficial qualities of the beans. More often than not, I don’t soak my beans and just cook them in a pressure cooker.
Myth 3 : Salting beans before cooking makes them tough.
The belief that salt will stop beans from cooking as quickly, thereby leaving them tough at the normal end time is kinda true. If you add salt to a pot of simmering beans, the skin stops absorbing water and prevents them from softening. But you can always salt the beans during the soaking process (if you soak). I however, just salt them at the end when I have full control of the near finished product.
How Long Do I Cook Beans in a Pressure Cooker?
As stated above, that mostly depends on the type of bean and the various other influences. But here is a general table that can help you cook your beans. This is specifically for an electric pressure cooker.
|
Dried Beans & Legume |
Dry, Cooking Time |
Soaked, Cooking Time |
| Adzuki |
20 – 25 |
10 – 15 |
| Anasazi |
20 – 25 |
10 – 15 |
| Black beans |
20 – 25 |
10 – 15 |
| Black-eyed peas |
20 – 25 |
10 – 15 |
| Chickpeas (chick peas, garbanzo bean or kabuli) |
35 – 40 |
20 – 25 |
| Cannellini beans |
35 – 40 |
20 – 25 |
| Gandules (pigeon peas) |
20 – 25 |
15 – 20 |
| Great Northern beans |
25 – 30 |
20 – 25 |
| Lentils, French green |
15 – 20 |
N/A |
| Lentils, green, mini (brown) |
15 – 20 |
N/A |
| Lentils, red, split |
15 – 18 |
N/A |
| Lentils, yellow, split (moong dal) |
15 – 18 |
N/A |
| Lima beans |
20 – 25 |
10 – 15 |
| Kidney beans, red |
25 – 30 |
20 – 25 |
| Kidney beans, white |
35 – 40 |
20 – 25 |
| Navy beans |
25 – 30 |
20 – 25 |
| Pinto beans |
25 – 30 |
20 – 25 |
| Peas |
15 – 20 |
10 – 15 |
| Scarlet runner |
20 – 25 |
10 – 15 |
| Soy beans |
25 – 30 |
20 – 25 |
| Prep Time | 5 minutes |
| Cook Time | 25 minutes |
| Servings |
servings
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- 1 pound dried black beans
- 4 cups water
- 4 cups low sodium chicken stock
- 1/3 cup sofrito
- 2 smoked ham hocks
- 1 1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
- 1 teaspoon dried oregano
- 1 teaspoon thyme
- 2 bay leaves
- 1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar
- salt and pepper to taste
Ingredients
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Rate this recipe!
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- Dump beans into strainer and rinse thoroughly. Check carefully for small stones and sticks that may have accidentally been picked up during the harvesting process.
- Add to Instant Pot. Combine water, chicken stock, sofrito, ham hocks, cumin, oregano, thyme, & bay
- Lock Instant Pot lid in place, with vent turned to pressure and in manual mode set timer to 25 minutes. When the timer goes off, allow to come down in pressure for 25 minutes naturally then release any excess steam. Season to taste with salt and pepper, add apple cider vinegar and serve with lots of cilantro and sour cream.
Do you really cook black beans with absolutely no seasonings of any kind? I thought Cuban Black Beans normally had garlic at least. Also, are your cooking times all for an Instant Pot? Generally when people publish pressure cooking times without including the work “electric”, the times are for stovetop pressure cookers.
I tried to print your recipe, but that was disappointing.
Thanks for commenting. For some reason there was an error and the recipe didn’t fully publish. That is fixed and I’ve updated the chart to show that this is for an electric pressure cooker, such as the titled Instant Pot. There are tons of seasonings that come from the sofrito and the other seasonings added, but they just hadn’t shown up. Sometimes technology gets the best of us. 🙂 Thanks for pointing it out and let me know if you like the recipe.
Thanks for updating the recipe. When you call for 2 ham hocks, just how big are they? Usually 1 large smoke ham hock takes care of 8 servings. Recently my local supermarket started carrying bone-sawed ham hock pieces by the pound. So how much do your ham hocks weigh? (Thanks for posting your Sofrito recipe, I shall make that.)
H3LLyes, I am plannng on making this. This is right up my alley.
I’m so glad – please update what you think! I will be updating the recipe in a few days with a video. I just purchased, on recommendation from a friend, a really cool little tool to help spread masa. It will speed up the process even more and I’ll post an update with a video review of the tool.
That’s a great question – I honestly picked up a package of two from my local store. I will be heading there to get the stuff for yogurt today and will look at the package I bought. I’ll check back in with you in about 4 hours.
I got 2 9 oz ham hocks.
You say that salting beans during cooking can stop them from cooking and that you like to salt at the end. But then you add 1/3 cup of Sofrito. If you’re talking about the Goya jar of Sofrito, there’s a lot of sodium right there. 35mg in 1 tsp of Sofrito! And then you need to add the sodium from the smoked ham hock.
Now, don’t get me wrong!! I approve of those flavors in beans. But, just want people to be conscious of the amount of sodium the beans have from the beginning of cooking. Personally, I haven’t found that having the salt in the beginning (at least in those two forms) hurts the softening process. Also, I think Cooks Illustrated actually suggests salting the soaking water for beans. Just an FYI.
I agree that you have to beware of the salt. However, the amount of salt in my homemade sofrito, along with only using the 1/4 cup of the sofrito didn’t hurt the beans softening. Otherwise, I’d add sofrito after the beans were cooked and simmer for a few minutes to allow the flavors to combine. Thanks for the comment – it really is important in cooking to be aware of your ingredients and how they can effect the recipe. 🙂
Sorry to be so long getting back to you, Rachel. I made the Sofrito (and froze a lot in individual bags for subsequent batches!), and then the Cuban Beans. I used only one large smoked ham hock, cuz it seemed silly to have 2 large ham hocks in my 6-quart Instant Pot. Honestly, in a pinch, one could use 3 of those sliced knuckle cuts – just enough to infuse pig magic. The beans were a little “soupy”… but I know I could 1) drain them if I just wanted the beans (and forfeit all the umami in the sauce), or 2) mash 1/3 of the beans to make the sauce thick. I didn’t bother. Of course, the flavors melded very nicely after a night in the refrigerator. I have a large freezer container full of beans and sauce in the freezer – will probably convert to Black Bean Soup (and end with a flourish of sherry), but I also made 3 single-serve containers with a white-brown-wild-red-rice blend on the bottom. I had been dreaming about handy single servings so I could enjoy the fruit of my one-time labor for several lunches. It was important to me that I could control the amount of sodium and still have delicious beans.
By the way, I enjoyed your Cuban Beans very much!