Recipe #48: Instant Pot (optional) baked beans

 I was making this recipe for baked beans long before I had an Instant Pot, and so you can too. But as you’ll see, the IP makes everything a whole lot simpler.

Ingredients (the night before):


What we have in the photo above is two cups of dried Jacob’s cattle beans in a large bowl of water to soak overnight. You can use any beans you like here. To be more of a classic canned baked beans, use the smaller white “navy” beans.

Full set of ingredients:


Note: feel free to add bacon or ham or other pork product if you want the meaty version.

Directions:

The next morning, drain your overnight soaked beans and place in the IP with water covering, but not exceeding the halfway measure, to avoid overflow:


Check the manual for pressure cooking time for the beans you’ve chosen and soaked. Since Jacob’s cattle beans aren’t listed, I’ll approximate the time based on similarly sized beans listed here:


And choose 8 minutes:


I let it have a slow release after the 8 minutes, and here they are, pretty darn perfect:


If you’re not using an IP, just boil the beans on the stovetop until they’re soft, maybe 30-60 minutes?

You want them to be as soft as you want the finished beans because they won’t soften in the sugary mixture.

Drain most, but not all, of the liquid from the perfectly cooked beans and return them to the pot:


Then start making the sauce. I’m using a free-form technique I learned from Laura C’s mother’s rib sauce recipe. Shout out and thanks to Mrs. C!

What you do is start with about an inch of loose (not packed) brown sugar in the bottom of a two cup measuring cup:


Soak the sugar with tamari sauce:


Drain the remainder of the bean liquid in:


Add a big squirt of molasses:


If you’re wondering about measurements, we’re about here by now:


Squirt in some ketchup, then add about a tablespoon or two of chili powder and about a tablespoon of mustard powder and stir it all up:


That looks to be about 350ml of sauce.

Meanwhile, chop an onion:


Add the chopped onion to the beans in the IP and pour the sauce over the beans and onion:

The non-IP method would be to put the beans, chopped onions, and sauce in a casserole dish with a lid and bake in the oven at 350F for a couple of hours? Or so? I think?

Back to the Instant Pot! Set the IP for 5 minutes pressure cook:



(I took the above picture a minute too late, darn! Rubbishy Photography!)

Again, I let it slow release and now we have:


Looking good! But wait, there’s more!

Now set the IP on slow cooker function for the day, and go off to work:


Come home from a long day’s hard work to this:


You can set the IP to “sauté” for a few minutes with the lid off to thicken it up a bit:


And dinner’s ready!

I’m having my beans with cheddar smashed baked potatoes and baked Delicata squash and sour cream, and a kombucha spritzer:


Thank you, Instant Pot!

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