While you wouldn’t turn to the Instant Pot to make a salad, you can use it for batch cooking the base ingredients required to make a satiating, healthy salad meal, like today’s Mexican Bean Salad. It's a vegan, gluten-free, low-calorie and high-fibre recipe.
Instant Pot is all the rage over the colder, winter months but come sunshine and barbecuing season, the poor pressure cookers get put away and forgotten. But don’t rush with locking your Instant Pot away because there are plenty of reasons to use it over summer months.
Think of all those dishes and salads that you love making over summer months: potato salads, French lentils, zucchini noodle salads, cold ratatouille or Italian caponata spread over crusty sourdough bread, gorgeous beans and chickpea salads, fruit and berry recipes and the list goes on. They can all be made quicker and easier with the help of the Instant Pot. Bonus, you won’t have to slave over a hot stove and can enjoy a cold glass of wine instead.
This is why we love this zesty, nutritious Mexican bean salad made with legumes cooked in the Instant Pot to save time and heat. It works as its own summer meal or you can bring it as a side dish to a picnic or a barbecue.
How To Make Mexican Bean Salad
You will find a full list of ingredients, instructions and nutritional breakdown in a recipe card below but here are some basic steps.
Step 1. Prepare the beans. For this recipe, we are using a mix of dry white and black beans, which pressure cooked using the Instant Pot. The beans are first soaked for 12 hours and then pressure cooked on HIGH for 12 minutes. You can also use canned beans for this recipe. Make sure to rinse both cooked and canned beans well before using.
Step 2. You can use a mix of garden vegetables in this bean salad but the key ingredients are tomatoes, chili, cilantro and scallions. We also love to add red peppers for crunch and all that vitamin C. A little garlic and spices give this Mexican bean salad a lot of oomph and flavor. Lime juice and olive oil are used for the dressing.
Storage & Make-Ahead Tips
Once ready, this bean salad will keep for 3 days in the fridge, although the veggies will get a little soggy. If you're making this dish ahead of time, you can prepare all the ingredients but dress the salad just before serving to keep it fresh.
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Full Recipe
Find the full list of ingredients, instructions, and a nutritional breakdown below. If you have questions or cook this recipe, please let us know in the comments, and make sure to rate this recipe so it’s easy for others to find.
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Mexican Bean Salad (Instant Pot, Vegan, Gluten-Free)
Ingredients
- ½ cup dried white beans soaked in water for 2-3 hours
- ½ cup dried black beans soaked in water for 2-3 hours
- 3 cups water
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1 cup diced red bell pepper
- 10 cherry tomatoes halved (or 2 medium tomatoes, diced)
- ⅓ cup chopped scallions / green onions
- ¼ cup chopped cilantro / coriander
- ½ long red chili chopped
- 3 tablespoons lime juice
- 3 tablespoons of olive oil
- ½ teaspoon coriander seed powder
- ½ teaspoon cumin powder
- 1 garlic clove grated or minced
- ¼ teaspoon salt or to taste
- Other options: diced avocado tortilla chips, chopped jalapenos
Instructions
- Strain and rinse the pre-soaked beans. Add to the inner pot of the Instant Pot together with 3 cups of water and a teaspoon of salt. Stir through, place and lock and lid and set to Manual, HIGH pressure for 12 minutes. After 3 beeps, the Instant Pot will start to build up the pressure and begin the cooking process.
- Once the timer goes off, allow 15 minutes for natural pressure release and then use quick release (point the valve on top of the lid to Venting) to let off the rest of the steam/pressure. Strain and rinse the cooked beans, leave in the sieve to cool down completely (to speed up the cooling process, spread the beans on a flat tray).
- Add the cooked beans to a mixing bowl together with the rest of the salad ingredients and mix through really well.
Nutrition
SAVE THIS MEXICAN BEAN SALAD PINTEREST
Madhvi
I am loving this. These days I am on diet and trying to lose weight. constantly searching for salad recipes and bean salad is looking yummy.