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Instant Pot Black Beans with Sofrito Rice

  • Author: Carole Nelson Brown - The Yum Yum Factor
  • Prep Time: 30
  • Cook Time: 40
  • Total Time: 1 hour 10 minutes
  • Yield: 4-6 servings as a main dish, 8-10 servings as a side 1x

Description

Thanks to electric pressure cookers, like the Instant Pot, we can have delicious, wholesome black beans on a busy weeknight. From start to finish, it takes just under an hour, no soaking required.


Ingredients

Scale

Beans:

  • 2 tbsp olive oil
  • 1 onion, chopped
  • 4 cloves garlic, chopped
  • 1 carrot, finely chopped
  • 1 tbsp cumin
  • 2 tsp mexican oregano
  • 2 bay leaves
  • 5 cups chicken stock, water or a combo
  • 1 lb dried black beans, rinsed and picked over
  • 1 455g(1 lb) ham steak, cut up into a few big pieces
  • 2 chipotle chilis in adobo, finely chopped
  • 2 tbsp cup cider vinegar

Sofrito:

  • 1 red onion, chopped
  • 2 cubanelle peppers
  • 8 cloves garlic, chopped
  • 2 handfuls of cilantro, chopped roughly
  • 2 small tomatoes , chopped
  • 1/2 red pepper, chopped
  • juice from 1 half orange

Sofrito Rice:

  • 1 tbsp olive oil
  • 1/2 cup sofrito
  • 2 cups basmati, rinsed
  • 2 cups of waterpinch kosher salt

Instructions

To make sofrito:

Put the onions and cubanelle peppers in the food processor and pulse til coarsely chopped. Then, with the motor running, add the remaining ingredients through the feed tube and process until smooth. Taste and add salt to taste. This is good in the fridge for up to three days and freezes well.

Sofrito Rice:

Heat the oil in the pot of your pressure cooker and fry the sofrito for a couple of minutes. Stir in the rice and then the water with a pinch of salt and cook according to your method.

For the Instant Pot, hit the rice button, walk away and let it NPR for 10 minutes.
You can also cook in your rice cooker according to directions or using your own method for stove top rice.

Black Beans:
Heat the pressure cooker (on the Instant Pot, hit sauté) until it’s nice and hot, add the oil and sauté the onion for a couple of minutes. Add in the garlic and carrot, cook for another minute and then throw in the cumin and oregano and stir around for another 30 seconds before adding in the chicken stock. Give the pot a good stir to make sure you scrape up all the good stuff on the bottom of the pan. Now throw in the black beans, the oregano, bay leaves, chipotle and the ham steak.

Cook on manual for 40 minutes to make sure the beans are nice and soft. Let the pressure come down naturally or for at least 15 minutes before releasing remaining steam, open it up, stir in the cider vinegar and give it a good stir.

To serve:

Add a dollop of sofrito, chopped fresh cilantro, a squeeze of lime and put another wedge on the side of the plate and drizzle some sour cream over the top if you like.


Notes

Make the beans in advance and reheat as needed.  This frees up the Instant Pot to do rice at dinner time while the beans get reheated on the stove top.