Instant Pot Black Bean Soup

Craving black bean soup but don’t have hours to soak beans? You can speed up the time it will take to get it on the table with this simple Instant Pot Black Bean Soup version.

If your family loves soup as much as mine, then you’ll want to check out my entire collection of Instant Pot Soup Recipes too!

Instant Pot Black Bean Soup

Traditionally, cooking with dry black beans means you’ll have to soak the beans for twelve hours or more before cooking or cook for an extended period of time. Using this Instant Pot Black Bean Soup recipe, you can turn this into a weeknight soup.

This recipe starts by using the Instant Pot to pre-soak the beans. Instead of twelve hours, though, you’ll have them done in about a half hour. Drain the beans, and you’re ready to make the soup itself.

If you’d prefer, you can do a long soak for the beans instead. Simply rinse and sort the bean and add them to a large bowl. Cover them with several inches of water and let soak for at least twelve hours, then drain when ready to use.

For the Instant Pot Black Bean Soup, it’s pretty much just a dump-and-cook recipe – you add everything to the pot and set the cook time. When it’s done, you’ll remove half of the soup to a blender. Blend until smooth and then return – this will give the soup it’s signature texture of black bean puree mixed with some still intact beans.  And don’t forget the vinegar! It gives the soup a great tang.

If you don’t have a ham bone for this soup, you can omit it and replace the water in the soup with chicken broth. The chicken broth will give you a similar flavor.

My favorite accompaniments for this soup are cornbread and a big salad (topped with avocado, tomatoes, and cheese, of course).

If you’d prefer to cook this for several hours, you can check out the Slow Cooker Black Bean Soup.

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Instant Pot Black Bean Soup

Prep Time10 minutes mins

Cook Time1 hour hr

Total Time1 hour hr 10 minutes mins

Servings: 6 - 8 servings

Ingredients

For the beans

• 1 lb. dried black beans
• 8 cups water
• 2 tsp. salt

For the soup

• 1 ham bone
• 1 onion, diced
• 1 green pepper, diced
• 3 cloves garlic, crushed
• 6-7 cups water
• 1 tsp. kosher salt
• Black pepper, to taste
• 1½ tsp. chili powder
• 1½ tsp. cumin
• ⅓ cup vinegar, to be added at the end of cooking
• Diced red onion, optional, for serving
• Sour cream, optional, for serving

Instructions

• Sort and rinse the beans. Add them to the pressure cooker along with 8 cups of water and 2 tsp. of salt.
• Set cook time for 2 minutes. Let the pressure release naturally for 15 minutes, then release remaining pressure. 
• Remove the pressure cooker pot and drain the beans.
• Add the ham bone to the pressure cooker pot, then return the beans to the pot. Add the onion, green pepper, garlic, water, salt, pepper, chili powder, and cumin. Stir to combine.
• Set cook time for 30 minutes. Let the pressure release naturally for 15 minutes, then release the remaining pressure.
• Remove the ham bone from the pot.
• Remove half of the soup and place in the blender. Blend until smooth. Return to the pot and stir to combine. Stir in vinegar.
• Serve with diced raw onion and sour cream, if desired.