These incredible Instant Pot baked beans will make your mouth water. Made with a secret ingredient or two, they are vegan and gluten-free and perfect for meal prepping on the weekend. Enjoy these for breakfast, lunch or as a side dish.
Served over rice, in a taco or scooped over grilled toast, homemade baked beans are both comforting and nutritious. Full of beneficial fibre, protein and nutrients, beans are the staple in many cuisines and are perfect for health-conscious eaters. In today's post, we're sharing the ultimate Instant Pot baked beans with a couple of secret ingredients that make this a must-have recipe.
Many people make homemade baked beans with bacon for extra depth and flavour, but we really wanted to stick with a vegetarian and vegan-friendly version. We are using not one but two special ingredients that take these pressure cooked baked beans to the next level: porcini mushrooms and onion soup mix or onion stock cube. But let's begin with the essential ingredient first.
KEY INGREDIENT: BEANS
For this Instant Pot baked beans recipe, we are using regular dried cannellini beans. You can use any type of beans really, but we think the smaller white beans work best.
As we are cooking beans from scratch, it is important to pre-soak them ahead of time. Dried beans need 8-12 hours of soaking time to rehydrate and to make them easier to digest (you know, that old bean story!). If you're short on time, you can use dried beans in this recipe or soak them for a shorter time, but you will need to increase cooking time. About 30-35 minutes for dried beans instead of 12 minutes for soaked. If you're using canned beans, then you can reduce the cooking time 5 minutes. Check out our Instant Pot legumes 101 post here.
SECRET INGREDIENT #1: PORCINI MUSHROOMS
Dried porcini mushrooms are a wonderful ingredient to have on hand as they add the most marvellous mushroomy, forest flavour to stews, soups and risottos. It's not a cheap ingredient but a small amount goes a long way, so you only need a handful for this recipe. Other dried wild mushrooms or dried shiitake mushrooms can also be used. You can buy dried porcini mushrooms on Amazon too.
If you can't find dried porcini mushrooms, you can easily dice up some fresh brown or white mushrooms and add them to this dish. In this case, we recommend sautéing the mushrooms with the onions for 3-4 minutes, before adding the rest of the ingredients.
SECRET INGREDIENT #2: ONION STOCK CUBE
Our second secret ingredient is onion stock cube, which gives out a lot of flavour. Kallo brand is our favourite! Alternatively, 1-2 tablespoons of onion soup mix will do the trick. You can use leftover cubes in any Instant Pot soup you make.
The rest of the ingredients are pretty straightforward and you can easily get them in most supermarkets.
HOW TO MAKE INSTANT POT BAKED BEANS
You will find the full recipe ingredients, instructions and nutrition breakdown in the recipe card below. Here are the basic steps and some handy pics to guide you along.
- Soak the beans! If using unsoaked, check the cooking time adjustment.
- Saute the aromatics (onions, chilli, garlic).
- Add the beans, spices and the rest of the ingredients and stir.
- Pressure cook on HIGH for 15 minutes with 10-15 minute natural release.
We hope you enjoy this pressure-cooked baked beans as much as we did. They were incredible! Store for 3-4 days in the fridge, and you can also freeze them for later. Serve these over rice, in tacos, with pasta, over toast, with eggs or any other way you like.
MORE INSTANT POT BEAN RECIPES
- Instant Pot Black Beans With Spiced Onions
- Instant Pot Vegan Bean Burgers
- Instant Pot Mexican Bean Salad
- 20 Must-Try Instant Pot Garbanzo Bean Recipes
- Instant Pot Lamb Shanks With White Beans
- Instant Pot Vegan Thanksgiving Recipes
Rate This Recipe
Instant Pot Baked Beans
Ingredients
- 1.5 cups dried cannellini beans or other beans of choice
- 1 oz. dried porcini mushrooms or shiitake mushrooms (20-25 g)
- 1 cup warm water
- 2 tablespoons olive oil
- 1 medium onion finely diced
- ½ long red chili diced or sliced, can be omitted
- ¼ teaspoon salt
- 2 cloves of garlic finely diced
- 1 medium carrot diced into small cubes
- 1 can diced tomatoes or passata (400 ml)
- 1 tablespoon soy sauce or Tamari sauce
- 1 tablespoon ketchup
- 2 tablespoons brown sugar
- 1 cube onion stock or 2 tablespoons onion soup mix
- 1 teaspoon smoked paprika or 1.5 teaspoons regular
- ½ teaspoon paprika powder
- ½ teaspoon allspice powder
- 2 bay leaves
Instructions
- Add dried beans to a large bowl and fill up with double the water. Mix in a teaspoon of salt and soak overnight (minimum 8 hours). Strain and rinse before using.
- Soak the dried porcini mushrooms in a cup of warm water for 10-20 minutes until rehydrated.
- Turn on the Instant Pot and press the Sauté function key. Add the olive oil, onions, and chili and cook for 5 minutes, stirring a couple of time.
- Remove the mushrooms from the water (but reserve the water) and chop into small pieces.
- After 5 minutes of cooking, the rest of the ingredients, beans, chopped mushrooms, and the reserved mushroom liquid and stir through. Press Keep Warm/Cancel.
- Place the lid and lock. Set to Manual, High pressure, and set for 15 minutes. After 3 beeps, the Instant Pot will begin to build up the pressure and start cooking. If cooking un-soaked beans, set the timer to 35 minutes.
- Once the timer goes off, release the pressure naturally, for about 10-15 minutes. Open the lid and stir the beans. Serve over toast, rice or any other way you like. These will keep for 3-4 days in the fridge.
Nutrition
SAVE THIS INSTANT POT BAKED BEANS RECIPE TO PINTEREST
Ellie
Love this, love this, love this. I didn't have everything so made a couple of adjustments. I used dried haricot beans (soaked overnight), fresh mushrooms, ordinary paprika, 2veg stock cubes as I'd no onion ones and a sprinkling of dried mixed herbs as I'd no bay leaves. I also used dark muscovado sugar.
Apart from that, it was the same
I wanted to make some ready meals to have after eye surgery due shortly, so I cooked potatoes over the bean mix and made "shepherd's pies" to go in the freezer. Of course, I had to have one that night. All I can say is ♥️♥️♥️♥️
This is now in my recipe box, will be making it on a regular basis.
Thank you so much for sharing xx
Ann Fabrizio
Thanks you! Hope you have a speedy recovery from eye surgery Ellie.