October is here and the temperature is starting to dip. It’s the time of year when we in the north start thinking about the coming winter and of course comfort food. Staples like soups, hearty stews and baked beans can keep us warm and full on those cool autumn evenings.
Ah beans, the magical fruit… My family loves (Ok, likes sufficiently) baked beans, but I rarely make them because they have to bake for 7 to 9 hours. Frankly I don’t tend to think that far ahead when it comes to meal planning, so this dish gets relegated to special occasions like Thanksgiving or International Day of the Forest (it’s a thing; March 21).
That said, when I got home yesterday and started rooting through the cupboard for something to feed the herd I came across a bag of white navy beans and thought A-HA! Since it was 3:30, the traditional long-haul method of making beans was out of the question but what about the Instant Pot?
The Instant Pot has been an indispensable appliance in our home for the last few years. Possible exposure to BHP (whatever that is), added salt and the environmental impact kind of turned me off of using too many canned foods. The Instant Pot helps solve these problems in… an instant. In just 40 minutes the pressure cooker turns dried beans into ready to use protein and even I can plan that far ahead.
With delicious baked beans as the goal I started to scour the internet for Instant Pot recipes. There are many such concoctions and a few have 5 stars. The issue was ingredients. Apple juice and tomato sauce aren’t things I generally have on hand so what to do?
In the past I used a sweet and savory recipe by Dr. Dean Ornish from his book Eat More Weigh Less. With a few little changes this has been my go to bean recipe so I wondered if I could use those ingredients and the instructions and liquid requirements from an online, Instant Pot recipe. Well I says “it’s only beans, so what the hell”. In the end this is what I did and frankly, there wasn’t a legume left at the end of the meal so it must have “been” a success.
Instant Pot Baked Beans à la VegHead
Course: MainCuisine: North AmericanDifficulty: Easy15
minutes1
hour20
minutes400
kcal1
hour35
minutesIngredients
2 lbs. of dry white navy beans
15 cups of water
3 large onions, chopped
2/3 cup of molasses
1 Tbsp dry mustard
1/4 cup brown sugar
1/2 tsp. red pepper flakes (or cayenne)
2 Tsp nutritional yeast
2 Tbsp tamari or soy sauce
4 bay leaves
4 cloves crushed garlic
Salt and pepper to taste
Directions
- Add the two pounds of beans and 12 cups of water to the instant pot. Select 20 minutes on the manual setting. When the cycle is done, let the pressure release naturally for 20 minutes. Release remaining pressure and rinse the beans under cold water.
- Add all the ingredients; onion, molasses, mustard, brown sugar, red pepper flakes, nutritional yeast, tamari, bay leaves, garlic, salt and pepper and beans along with the remaining 3 cups of water to the Instant Pot and stir together.
- Select the manual setting for 20 minutes. When the cycle is done, again let the pressure release naturally for 20 minutes before releasing any remaining pressure.
- Serve with rice or on a bed of spinach.
Notes
- So there it is, a super easy version of the classic baked bean. Instead of 7 – 9 hours in the oven these beans cook for just 40 minutes in the Instant Pot. Keep in mind though that the Instant Pot takes 10 or 15 minutes to get up to speed so plan on adding 20 – 30 minutes to the cook time. You can adjust the amount of water in the final cycle to suit your tastes. The 3 cups of water suggested in the ingredients list will make the dish quite saucy but not runny.