Instant Pot Yellow Eye Beans

Instant Pot Yellow Eye Beans. Dried beans, ready in about an hour without soaking, thanks to pressure cooking.

Yellow Eye Beans, with their brown spots, remind me of a pinto¹, like the spots on black-eyed peas remind me of a Holstein cow. That said, yellow eye beans are not a black-eyed pea variation; they are closer to Navy beans, and are often used in New England Baked Beans recipes.

These Yellow Eye beans came in my Rancho Gordo bean box, so I’m going to make of a pot of beans with garlic and onion. Of course, the pot is an Instant Pot - I pressure cook all my beans. Looking for creamy, mild beans with hint of garlic? Try a pot of yellow eye beans.

Jump to:

• 🥫Ingredients
• 🥘 Substitutions
• 🛠 Equipment
• 📏Scaling
• 🤨 Soaking yellow eye beans?
• 💡Tips and Tricks
• 🔪Recipe
• ☃️ Storage
• 🤝 Related Posts
• 💬 Comments

🥫Ingredients

This is a simple dried bean recipe, so the ingredients list is pretty basic

• Dried yellow eye beans
• Onion
• Garlic

See recipe card for quantities.

🥘 Substitutions

Don’t have an onion? Use more garlic, or skip it.

Don't have garlic? Just skip it. It won't be a garlicky pot of beans, but it will still be good.

🛠 Equipment

A 6-quart pressure cooker. Pressure cooker dried beans are one of the reasons I became a pressure cooker convert, and love my Instant Pot. Try them - you’ll never go back to canned beans. (OK, maybe you will, for convenience - but see the Storage section for tips on make ahead freezer beans.)

📏Scaling

This recipe scales down easily - cut everything in half if you don’t need as many beans, or have a 3-quart pressure cooker. Scaling up runs into space issues; if you have an 8-quart pressure cooker, you can double this recipe, but it’s too much to fit in a 6-quart pressure cooker.

🤨 Soaking yellow eye beans?

I get the “to soak, or not to soak?” question all the the time.

I don’t soak my yellow eye beans in this recipe. They don’t need an overnight soak, and cook to tenderness with 30 minutes at high pressure.

That doesn’t mean you can’t soak the beans. They turn out fine, though the bean broth isn’t quite as full bodied. Soaked beans cook much quicker, 12 minutes at high pressure. I use that when I’m cooking the beans with other ingredients, where the shorter cooking time keeps me from overcooking the whole dish just to get the beans tender.

💡Tips and Tricks

• Salt your bean water! “Salt toughens beans” is a myth. Salting before cooking helps season the beans all the way through as they cook.
• Try to buy beans from a store with lots of bean turnover. Beans dry out as they age, which makes them a little tougher to cook.
• If your beans are still tough when the cooking time is over, especially any “floaters” at the top of the pot, you probably got some old beans. Give the pot a stir, lock the lid, and pressure cook the beans for another five minutes.
• Simmer to thicken: If you have the time, and want thicker bean liquid, simmer the beans for 20 minutes after pressure cooking. I set my Instant Pot to Sauté mode adjusted to low, set the timer to 20 minutes, and leave the lid off to let the broth evaporate.

Print

🔪Recipe

☃️ Storage

A 2-cup container of beans, with cooking liquid, replaces a 15-ounce can of beans from the grocery store. They’ll last in the refrigerator for a few days, and freeze for up to 6 months. I always make extra beans, and freeze the leftovers for use in other recipes. Freezer beans are ready to use with about 5 minutes in the microwave, and are so much better than canned.

🤝 Related Posts

Instant Pot Small Red Beans (Domingo Rojo Beans)
Instant Pot Royal Corona Beans
Pressure Cooker Vaquero Beans in Broth
My other Instant Pot Pressure Cooker Recipes

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1. The horse, not the car. ↩