Slow-Cooked Instant Pot Yellow Eye Beans

I aimed for a brothy pot of beans that didn’t split their skins. Jump to Recipe

I discovered Rancho Gordo early on in the pandemic, and with the systematic obsession of a food nerd with a lot of spare time, I set out to try every single bean in their repertoire. Steve Sando does not recommend using a pressure cooker or instant pot, and I understand his reasoning completely. Yes, you can cook beans quickly and get them on the table, but you run the risk of over-cooking them into mush, or rushing them and causing the skins to burst. They are still tasty, but complete, whole beans, perfectly cooked, with intact skins are beautiful on the plate and delightful in your mouth.

When my dad first gave me this Instant Pot, I was honestly skeptical. I have a dutch oven, and I don’t mind taking time to get things right. I have become a convert to the cult of this appliance, though. It’s not that I need to force slow-cooked things to cook faster, but because the way that the Instant Pot seals everything inside during cooking means that the aromatics of the herbs and spices stay locked in the food.

When you are cooking something amazing, and the aroma fills the house, and everyone walks into the kitchen looking to steal a bite, you might expect that the food is going to taste even better than it smells. In actuality, all of the volatile scent molecules have cooked out of the food and dissipated into the air. When you use a completely sealed vessel like an Instant Pot to cook, those molecules are forced to stay locked in with the food.

It’s also more convenient and energy efficient to be able to plug in a small countertop appliance than it is to turn on the oven or leave a burner on low for hours. I try to use the Instant Pot when I am doing a lot of cooking, just because it buys me one more burner and makes it easy to hold food warm until I need it.

I’ve been eating Rancho Gordo beans for a couple of years now, usually cooking them in the Instant Pot. Through trial and error I’ve come up with a process that gives me what I’m looking for: evenly cooked beans, a predictable amount of broth depending on my goals, and with the majority of the skins unbroken.

Keep in mind, though- this is more of a slow cook process than an instant one. If you want to rush things you can, but you may not get the same results.

This particular recipe uses Yellow Eye beans flavored with bacon and simple aromatic herbs and vegetables to serve with Lemon Chicken Scaloppine. These beans are about the size of navy beans, and they are very thin skinned. n

Many of the skins from this batch were already split before cooking, so I coaxed them along to keep the rest of them as intact as possible.

Slow Instant Pot Yellow Eye Beans

One last note about beans: many kinds of beans contain a toxin called phytohaemagglutinin that can cause serious health problems. It isn’t very common, but there is a simple way to ensure that your beans are safe. They need to be brought up to 212F, the boiling point of water, and held for ten minutes. For this reason, I’m going to use the pressure cook setting on the instant pot for a short period of time before finishing the beans slowly.

Ingredients

- 1 lb of Rancho Gordo Yellow Eye Beans

- 2 stalks of celery

- 1 carrot

- 1 half onion

- 1 piece of bacon (OPTIONAL: if you are a vegetarian, it is perfectly OK to skip it. If you eat fish but not pork, try a bit of bonito flake!)

- black and white peppercorns

- bay leaf

- fresh thyme

- olive oil

- salt

Tools

- vegetable peeler

- knife and cutting board

- Instant Pot

- fillable tea bag (OPTIONAL)

Directions

From start to finish this recipe will take 2-3 hours, but can hold a bit longer if necessary. We will render the bacon, caramelize the vegetables, and then add the beans, water and herbs. These will cook under pressure for a short period of time, and then slow cook on low until finished.

Prep Ingredients:

My goal was to be able to serve individual, whole beans without little bits of bacon, vegetables, or thyme leaves sticking to them.

1. Cut the bacon into largish chunks.

1. Peel and cut the vegetables into large pieces.

1. These tea bag things are great! I get mine at a local Asian supermarket. Tuck your peppercorns and herbs into one to make a sachet. It will keep those little thyme leaves contained.

Saute Setting:

1. Turn the instant pot to the Saute setting, and set the Custom temperature to 250F.

1. Put in a Tablespoon or two of olive oil and the bacon pieces, and cook them slowly until the fat renders out.

1. Add the veggies and cook them briefly. They can start to caramelize, but should stay somewhat raw.

1. While this is happening, rinse your beans and check them over for little rocks pretending to be beans. You can remove cracked and broken pieces if you want, too.

Pressure Cook:

We are going to salt the beans at the beginning of cooking. I am convinced by Serious Eats that this is the right call if you want to keep your beans from splitting.

1. Turn off the saute setting.

1. Add beans and water. One lb of beans is about 3.5c of dry beans, and I added about 4 c of water. We’re looking for them to have about an inch of liquid on top of the beans.

1. Add about 1 Tablespoon of Diamond kosher salt, or a heaping teaspoon of table salt. (Diamond kosher is not the same as Morton kosher salt. If you have to use the blue box, use about a teaspoon and a half.)

1. Set the Instant Pot to Bean/Chili and cook on high pressure for 12 minutes. For smaller beans I would go down to ten, for larger beans I would use 15 or up to 20 minutes but no longer.

1. Allow the Instant Pot to cook and then depressurize on its own.

Slow Cook:

1. When the Instant Pot releases its seal, open it up and give it a little stir. If there are beans sticking out of the water, add a bit more to just cover them all.

1. Set the Instant Pot to Slow Cook on LOW or 185F. (When I took this picture it must have been flashing because Low is the only temp not showing.)

1. Check on the beans every half hour, giving them a little stir and checking for doneness. When they are close to where you want them, taste and adjust seasonings.

Serve

Once the beans are cooked they can hold warm until you are ready for them. We enjoyed this particular batch with the fennel variation of Lemon Chicken Scaloppine.

Did you try it?

Let us know what you think! We’d love to see pictures and hear about your results.

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