Instant pot kidney beans (Dried and Soaked)

Learn how to prep, cook, store and use kidney beans. With this detailed post, cooking Instant pot kidney beans at home is easy, and they are much better than canned beans.

What are kidney beans?

Kidney beans are common beans that are native to Central America and Mexico(1). These are a good source of protein, folate, iron, and copper (2). 

And these red beans are usually combined with other grains like rice, wheat, millet to make it a complete meal.

Types of kidney beans

These kidney beans come in different colors, patterns, and sizes. But commonly, we get two types of kidney beans. They are red kidney beans (top left one in the below image) and speckled kidney beans (bottom right one in the below picture).

Speckled beans will yield soft and buttery beans on cooking. Also, cooking time will be less for these speckled beans.

Why you should cook kidney beans at home

Buying beans in bulk and cooking at home is often cheaper and preservative-free. And it is so easy to cook at home from scratch.

I usually use an electric pressure cooker for cooking the kidney beans in bulk and store them in the refrigerator for weekday meals.

Benefits of soaking beans:

Though soaking is optional, I will always soak kidney beans overnight. And if you are someone who has digestive issues with beans and legumes, you should soak beans to remove phytic acids (3).

And soaking kidney beans will drastically reduce the cooking time. All we need is a little planning, and that will pay off!

Soaking beans has the following benefits, and I suggest you try soaking them.

• It makes beans easily digestible.
• Reduces the cooking time drastically.
• It yields uniformly cooked beans every time.

How long to soak kidney beans

You need to soak the kidney beans for at least 8 hours or overnight. If you plan to soak the beans for more time, soak them in the refrigerator so that beans are not fermented.

• Clean the beans to remove stones and other dirt. Wash them once and soak them in clean water for about 8 hours. You can soak them overnight as well. 
• Beans will absorb the water and will increase in volume. One cup of dry beans will yield around 2.5 cups of soaked beans.
• Discard the water from soaked kidney beans and wash them a couple of times. There might be white foam on the top of the water. Rinse them well to remove the foam.

Instant pot Instructions

• Add the rinsed kidney beans into the Instant pot inner pot.

• Add water, salt and close the Instant pot with its lid.

• Start the instant pot in manual or pressure cook mode and cook on HIGH pressure for 10 minutes for soaked beans.
• Select the manual or pressure cook option and set the timer for 40 minutes on high pressure to cook dried beans.
• Once the instant pot turns off, wait for 15 minutes and manually release the pressure. You can do a natural pressure release as well.

• Perfectly cooked kidney beans are ready to use in your recipes!

Stovetop Instructions

• Add the beans and water to the large pot. 
• Place the pot on the stove and cook on a medium flame for about 45 minutes. Stir the beans in between for every 10 minutes or so and skim off the white foam. It might take up to 90 minutes if you are cooking dried kidney beans.
• Use 4 to 5 cups of water for every 1 cup of dried beans and cook it till you reach desired texture. Add more water if beans soak up all the water while cooking.
• Add salt at almost the end of the cooking. Adding salt at the beginning will increase the cooking time.

Storage

Cooked kidney beans stay good for about 2 to 3 days in the refrigerator and up to 6 months in the freezer. So store them accordingly.

After cooking kidney beans, let them cool down a bit and then drain water from them completely.

Store this drained water and cooked kidney beans separately in the refrigerator and use them. In this way, beans will not spoil quickly.

As shown below, I always measure the beans according to my meal size and store them in individual steel boxes. I also freeze them in the same containers.

You can measure and store the cooked beans in any freezer-safe containers and thaw them when needed.

Recipes to use cooked kidney beans

Now that we have cooked kidney beans let us see how we can use them. Cook the beans on the weekend and keep them handy to make quick meals on weekdays.

Recipe notes:

• One cup of dried beans will yield around 2.5 to 3 cups cooked beans.
• To cook kidney beans in an Instant pot or pressure cooker, I usually use 2 cups of water for every 1 cup of dried beans. This will result in less leftover water, and I typically use them in my soups. You can use even 3 cups of water for every 1 cup of dried beans.
• Do not throw away the water in which you cook kidney beans. This water is nutritious as water-soluble vitamins and minerals will leech into this water. You can freeze this water and use it in soups and for cooking beans and rice. I even use this water to make the chili.
• Speckled kidney beans take a little less time to cook when compared to red kidney beans. I usually pressure cook them for 8 minutes on HIGH pressure.
• Are you still looking for more ideas to use up the cooked kidney beans? Make them into hummus and serve it as a dip. Top them as a sandwich spread.
• How long should you soak kidney beans? I usually soak them for 8 hours or overnight. If you are soaking for more than 10 hours, place them in the refrigerator to avoid the fermentation of the beans.
• What to do if you cannot cook soaked beans? Drain the water and refrigerate the soaked beans. They stay good for about two days.
• How to thaw frozen kidney beans?  You can place them refrigerator overnight and use them the next day like regular beans. If you are in a hurry, take them out and pour hot water over them to thaw them quickly.

Some other Instant pot recipes that you may like.

Instant pot basmati rice

Instant pot chickpeas

Instant pot vegetable curry

Instant pot dal

Instant pot black-eyed peas

Recipe

As you are here, you will love my other cooking 101 posts. Check them out!