Instant Pot Large Lima Beans (Butter Beans)

Southern Butter Beans

Instant Pot Large Lima Beans, aka Southern Butter Beans, are a quick and easy to cook from dry with a pressure cooker. The lima beans are ready in about an hour, with only 20 minutes of cooking at high pressure.

Jump to:

• Southern Butter Beans
• What are butter beans?
• Ingredients Notes and Substitutions
• Sorting Beans
• Instant Pot Large Lima Beans (Southern Butter Beans)
• Frequently Asked Questions
• Storing Leftover Large Lima Beans
• Related Posts
• 💬 Comments

I love cooking beans in my Instant Pot. I was telling a friend about the joy of Instant Pot beans, and they told me to check out butter beans and shrimp, a favorite of theirs from New Orleans. This led me down the rabbit hole of "What are butter beans"? (My Butter beans and Shrimp recipe is coming soon.)

What are butter beans?

Large lima beans are also known as butter beans in the South. Southern Cooking magazine says the name "butter beans" comes from the buttery, creamy texture of the larger beans. (See: Butter Beans Vs. Lima Beans: Is There A Difference? -Southern Cooking.

And no, there's no butter in butter beans. (Unless you want to add it after cooking.)

Ingredients Notes and Substitutions

Different Lima Beans: This recipe won't work for other kinds of lima beans, because different lima beans cook for different times. If you have baby lima beans, use my Instant Pot Baby Lima Beans (from dry) recipe. If you have Christmas lima beans, use my Instant Pot Christmas Lima Beans recipe.

Ham Hock: Different kinds of smoked meat can replace the ham hock - smoked pork neck and smoked turkey neck are two common options in my area. Or, slice up a smoked sausage and add it to the pot. (If you do, don't discard the smoked sausage like you would a ham hock or neck. Serve the beans and sausage together.)

Vegetarian or vegan beans: Skip the ham hock. The beans won't have the smoky flavor from the hock, but that's OK if you're cooking vegetarian.

Broth instead of water: To add extra flavor, substitute broth for some of (or all of) the water. My favorites with lima beans are Instant Pot Ham Broth, Instant Pot Chicken Broth, or Instant Pot Vegetable Broth.

Sorting Beans

Beans are an agricultural product, and stuff tends to creep in during processing. Beans should always be sorted and rinsed before use to remove any twigs, stones, clumps of dirt, or broken beans.

To sort the beans, I pour them onto one side of a rimmed baking sheet (a half-sheet pan) to keep them from escaping. Then I slowly run my fingers through the pile of beans, pulling them towards me on the sheet. I watch the beans as they move, looking for anything that doesn't seem right. If I see something, I poke around in the beans until I find what caught my eye, and discard it. I repeat this a couple of times until I'm satisfied that everything is out of the beans.

Then I dump the beans into a fine mesh strainer and rinse them under cold running water to wash off any dirt or dust still on the beans.

Now the beans are sorted, rinsed, and ready for soaking or cooking.

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Frequently Asked Questions

• Should I soak the lima beans? I get the "to soak, or not to soak?" question all the the time. I don't soak my large lima beans. Even without soaking, they're tender after pressure cooking on high for 20 minutes.
• What if I did soak the lima beans? They turn out fine, though the bean broth isn't quite as full bodied. Soaked beans cook much quicker, 15 minutes at high pressure. I use that to my advantage when the beans are part of a recipe with other ingredients, especially when they will overcook unless I can cut back the pressure cooking time. But for this pot of beans, no soaking is necessary.
• Salt your bean water! "Salt toughens beans" is a myth. Salting before cooking helps season the beans all the way through as they cook.
• A few tough beans are still floating at the top - what do I do? If your beans are still tough after pressure cooking, especially any "floaters" at the top of the pot, give the beans a stir, lock the lid, and pressure cook for another five minutes. Older beans dry out and take longer to cook, and if the beans have been sitting on the shelf at your store for a while, they may need extra time.
• I'm in a hurry - can I quick release the pressure? If you don't want to wait for the pressure to come down naturally, increase the pressure cooking time to 25 minutes at high pressure, and quick release the pressure after that. Some of the beans will be broken up, but they'll still taste great.
• I don't want to just throw away the ham hock - that seems wasteful. What can I do? You can pick the meat out of the hock if you want, but there isn't much meat in there. It's mostly skin, fat, and gristle. (It's more work than it's worth, in my opinion, for the tiny amount of meat you'll be able to stir into the beans. The hock has done its duty by adding its smoky pork flavor to the pot.)

Storing Leftover Large Lima Beans

A 2-cup container of cooked lima beans, with cooking broth, replaces a 15-ounce can of beans from the grocery store. Cooked beans will last in the refrigerator for a few days, and freeze for up to 6 months. Freezer beans are ready to use after about 5 minutes in the microwave, and taste much better than canned.

Related Posts

I love cooking dry beans in my pressure cooker. Some of my favorites are my Instant Pot Mexican Black Beans, Instant Pot Refried Beans, Instant Pot Cannellini Beans and Greens, Instant Pot Ham and Beans, and Pressure Cooker Venetian Pasta and Beans (Pasta e Fagioli alla Veneta). Or, check out my complete list of Instant Pot Bean Recipes.

If you're looking for something else, here is my index of Instant Pot and Pressure Cooker Recipes.