Best Hurst Beans Pressure Cooker Recipe (Instant Pot)

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​This 15 bean soup recipe is a recipe that we modified from Hurst’s own recipe. It has great flavor, is super healthy, and cooks in no time in your Instant Pot! And best of all, you’re starting off with dried beans and there is no overnight soak involved! 

HURST BEANS PRESSURE COOKER RECIPE

We’ve modified the original recipe by omitting the ham seasoning packet that came with the dried beans, and we’ve also omitted the leftover ham bone. This hearty soup uses chicken broth, but you can easily make it vegetarian by using vegetable broth instead. 

The Hurst 15 bean bean soup mix comes with a seasoning packet, but we don’t use it because there are artificial ingredients in it, and we’ve crafted our own mix of herbs and spices.

Purchase the 15 bean mix at your local grocery store if you can since it is very inexpensive. At the time of writing this post, the prices on Amazon are ridiculous so I will not even include an affiliate link in this post for the soup mix.

The mix contains these 15 types of dry beans: northern, pinto, large lima, yelloweye, garbanzo, baby lima, green split, kidney, cranberry, small white, pink, small red, yellow split, lentil, navy, white kidney, and black beans. All of these different types of beans give this soup an amazing depth of flavor and it also looks beautiful as well!

It’s so much easier to cook with dried beans. It is cheaper than buying cans, and there is no metallic taste. And using your Instant Pot makes the process so QUICK! This is a great recipe too because many of us will already have most of the ingredients, so it will minimize additional trips to the grocery store. And if you love Instant Pot recipes, this is a great one!

The first thing you’ll want to do is to rinse the beans in a colander. Sift through the beans to make sure there isn’t any debris (stems, etc.)

Then on your Instant Pot, select sauté and add about 3 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil, 2 cups of chopped onion, and 1 cup of chopped celery. Sauté everything for about 3 minutes and stir frequently.

Next, add 4 large cloves of garlic. If your cloves are smaller, add 6-8 cloves. And no, this is not too many! Sauté and stir for about a minute.

Add your rinsed beans.

Then add 2 quarts of chicken broth. Homemade broth is amazing, but we often “cheat” and mix in a heaping tablespoon of Better Than Bouillon roasted chicken base into 8 cups of water (2 quarts). 

Now it’s time to place the lid on your Instant Pot. Select high pressure for 35 minutes.

Once the time is up, we like to do a manual release of the steam (don’t forget to put a kitchen towel over the vent).

Once it is completely done venting, and the float valve button (next to the steam release valve) has gone completely down, you can safely remove the lid. Never try removing the lid if the float valve is still up because your pot is still pressurized! Always refer to your Instant Pot manual for safe operation.

Next, add in a 28oz can of diced tomatoes. We love using fire-roasted tomatoes for a richer taste. Also add in 1 cup of diced carrot, 1 bay leaf, 1 tablespoon of chili powder, 1 teaspoon cumin, 1/2 teaspoon pepper, and 1 teaspoon paprika.

Stir everything up well and place the lid back on your Instant Pot. Select high pressure and a 3 minute cook time. This may not seem like a long time, but this will completely cook your carrots! 

After the 3-minute cook time, turn off the Instant Pot, use a 10-minute natural release. Then release the remaining pressure by turning the steam release valve (with a kitchen towel on top to capture the steam). 

When the float valve button has dropped down, it is safe to carefully remove the lid.  Fish out the bay leaf. At this point, stir everything up nicely and taste your soup.

Add any additional salt and black pepper to taste. Lastly, stir in 1 tablespoon of freshly squeezed lemon juice. This will add a little acidity and help balance the flavor of your soup.

​This delicious soup is even better the next day, and you can also freeze it since it does make a nice amount. Check out our blog post on freezing soup in ziploc bags for all the details.

If you want to add fresh spinach, this is also delicious. We’d recommend just adding fresh spinach to your individual servings of soup since it cooks quickly and it tends to get slimy and disintegrate when you heat it back up. 

If you’d like a thicker soup, you can pureé a couple cups of the soup, and stir it back into the batch. Keep in mind though, that if you are planning on refrigerating the leftovers, this soup will thicken a bit on its own after it sits in the refrigerator. 

If you live in a higher altitude region, the technical rule of thumb would be to add 5% more pressure cooking time at 3,000 feet above sea level. Then with every 1,000 feet above 3,000 feet, add 5%. So you would have 10% more cooking time for 4,000 feet above sea level, 15% more cooking time for 5,000 feet, etc. Then you can experiment and tweak it to your liking. 

Here is a reference that you can use for more details on high-elevation cooking adjustments for your Instant Pot.

If you’ve enjoyed this recipe, you may want to try our hearty, healthy, tomatoey Goya lentil soup recipe. It is delicious and packed with veggies and protein!