Watching TV recently, I watched an otherwise fine chef make a pot of beans in an electric pressure cooker. Said he: This was the best way to make beans because it “sealed in all the flavor”. Those lovely smells you experience are really all the flavor escaping into the air and the pressure cooker made sure you kept all the aromas and flavor inside. Huh? Really great bean flavor comes from slow reduction, not an airtight prison.
I go back and forth about pressure cookers. Yes, you can have beans within an hour and that’s some kind of miracle. But really good beans means really good bean broth and the bean broth from a pressure cooker tastes dead and bland. The flavor isn’t “trapped” in the metal vault. It develops from time and air. Diana Kennedy told me she always cooks her beans in the pressure cooker because she lives at a very high altitude, but she always finishes them in a clay pot.
I had an ambitious dinner party to cook for and believe it or not, no matter what I make, when people come to my house, they expect beans. As an experiment, I cooked a pound of dry, unsoaked Lila beans in the pressure cooker with just a bay leaf and a spoonful of olive oil. I’ve read that the beans can produce a froth that can clog up the safety valve and that a little oil helps. I cooked the beans under pressure for minutes, did a slow release and then opened up the pot.
Meanwhile, in one of my favorite clay pots, I cooked three pieces of bacon, cut into cubes, until they were done. I drained some of the fat (it was even too much for me!) and sautéed onion, Mexican oregano, garlic, some chopped tomatoes and a previously roasted red bell pepper in the remaining bacon fat. When they were soft, I added the cooked beans and their liquid and then finished it off with a bottle of beer, less three swigs I took before donating the liquid to the cause.
I let the pot continue on with the gentlest of simmers until we were ready to eat. It was nice not having to worry about whether the beans were cooked or not. All I was doing was fine tuning the pot. They were ready to heat in just over an hour but they were a melody of love after several, just barely bubbling while I prepared the rest of the dinner.
I am not ready to declare the pressure cooker The Answer, but I like having it and if I continue, I think this will turn into love. I still believe clay is king but it was nice not to fuss.
Basic Pressure Cooker Beans: Add cleaned dryu, beans with water, onion, garlic and olive oil. The unsoaked beans should be covered by three inches of water. Cover and bring up to pressure. After 20 minutes, turn off heat and allow pressure to come down naturally. Don’t use the quick release. Remove the lid, add salt and allow the beans to simmer on medium low heat until the broth is reduced and beans are completely cooked, about 20 minutes.
Better Pressure Cooker Beans: As above, but after the release, pour the beans and their liquid into a clay bean pot and allow to simmer for 30 minutes or more.
Clarification: This post was edited to clarify that these were dried beans, not fresh shelling beans. We of course used our own, which we know were less than a year old. I don't recommend doing this with beans if you don't know the source. Some beans can be many, many years old and the results can be unpredictable. I also suggest you don't do this with runner beans. They are bigger and denser and I don't know how they would react. Please post your results below if you've tried runner beans in a pressure cooker.
I rely on the pressure cooker for those days when I just don’t have time to ‘do it right.’ I do find it to compromise the flavor just a bit, but sometimes practicality wins.
My situation is a bit different because I only have a 26-qt pressure canner (which I mainly use for canning large quantities of stock), but lately I’ve really enjoyed canning beans in it. If I’m making a pot of beans just to eat, I cook it on the stove, but I’ve also found it’s really handy to have just plain cans of beans lying around for last-minute chili purposes. They’re not quite as rich as stove-cooked beans but they still beat the pants off of store-bought canned beans.
I edited the post to add the water and clarify that these are dry beans.
There are two schools of thought. One would be to cook the beans with lots of flavorings in the pressure cooker and almost infuse them. The other is to keep the flavors sharp and distinct. One is better than the other but I think if I were cooking with heirlooms, I’d want them to stay pure so you can enjoy the differences and qualities. If I had commodity grocery store beans, it would be more natural to want to give them so life.
Wynkoutloud, I’ve started canning beans as well. And chicken stock! I love having these things shelf-stable and handy. I have white beans and dark beans ready whenever i like. And I like the smaller cans. Sometimes you don’t need a lot! I know garlic and oil can be dangerous, even with pressure canning, but I have discovered i love just plain beans, onion, water and salt. I can add more things later.
Thanks for the additions, Steve!
You can use the same technique I mentioned earlier with just water and a bay leaf – the key is using the minimum of water the beans will need to absorb and be covered in to cook. Then, you’ll get a concentrated broth that needs very little reduction to resemble (or even surpass) the broth achieve in conventional cooking – seasoned clay pot excepted!
Ciao,
L
I will try but I will say I am dubious. The broth comes from reduction, not infusion.
How much water would you recommend? Most recipes call for 2 inches over soaked beans. I did three on bone dry beans.
Hi Steven, I use a similar technique to the grand dame of pressure cooking. I think the pressure cooker shines when used to minimize cooking times, to preserve the fresh flavor of raw foods instead of the warmed over faded taste of slow cooker meals.
Typically, I soak dry black beans in 1 tsp baking soda and 1/2 tsp salt per cup of dry beans, plus ~1.75 cups water, for 1+ days, . This makes the bean cooking super quick.
Then for cooking the beans, I saute some onions and garlic, along with a tsp of dried chili pepper (usually smoked paprika), a bay leaf or avocado leaf, fish sauce and optionally tomato paste. Then I put in a cup of soaked beans, plus about 4-8 oz bean soaking water so the beans are covered in fluid but not necessarily fully submerged. I get the pot to pressure, turn off the heat, and it’s done in ~3 minutes of pressure cooking (though it varies hugely by bean source, I found my Masienda beans to take much longer in soaking and cooking than commodity black beans despite Masienda presumably being fresher).
Sometimes I’ll blister chilis (serrano, habanero, or jalapeno) on the stove or saute in the pan, sometimes add as a salsa, but I always have fresh Chile one way or another.
Add lime juice to taste, garnish with mild wet crumbly feta-like cheese, cilantro and/or pickled red onions.
I realize that this is an older thread, but I have to say I just cooked my first pressure cooker beans in my new electric pot. I know that lots of tweaking often needs to be done to get a recipe just right. I used a pound of Rancho Gordo black beans, along with some onion, garlic, and seasonings, etc. I was disappointed, not because the beans did’t taste good-they were better than okay -but they absolutely weren’t the Rancho Gordo beans I’ve become accustomed ot producing using low and slow cooking in my dutch oven (not even a clay pot!). The wonderful, flavorful bean liquor is what I crave, and the pressure cooker method just didn’t deliver. I’d like to try beans again some day, but I’m not willing to sacrifice my Rancho Gordo beans for the next experiment, so I think I’ll stick to other pressure cooker recipes for now.