a few juniper berries and bay leavesoptional (you can also use other seasoning, like ground cumin or taco seasoning, garlic or onion if you prefer)
Instructions
Pick over your beans: Place the beans on a kitchen towel or baking sheet and pick out any debris, cracked or shriveled beans.
If you want to soak your beans: Place the beans in a large bowl and cover them with cold water. Discard any that float to the surface. Place a clean kitchen towel over the bowl and leave to stand for 6-8 hours at room temperature.
Drain and rinse: If you soaked your beans, drain and rinse them. If you didn't soak them, just rinse under cold water.
Place in instant pot: Place the rinsed beans in your instant pot with all the remaining ingredients of the recipe.
Cook: To cook the beans, close the lid and set the pressure valve to “sealing”. Pick “manual” and make sure it’s on “high pressure”.
Set the timer to 8 minutes for SOAKED beans.
Set the timer to 25 minutes for UNSOAKED beans.
Natural pressure release: Once the beans are done cooking, switch off the instant pot. Leave it alone for 10 minutes.
Open the instant pot: After that, manually release the remaining pressure: Place a kitchen towel over your hand and carefully push the pressure release valve to “venting”.
Finally, carefully open the instant pot once the pressure gauge has dropped all the way. Do NOT drain off the cooking liquid if you want to freeze the beans. You can also drain the beans, but catch the liquid in a bowl.
Notes
Timing
I added additional time to the recipe to allow for the cooker to come to pressure, and for the natural pressure release.
Cooking times are based on UNSOAKED beans.
If you soak your beans, you need to add 6-8 hours of soaking time.
Cook on the stoveIf you don't have an instant pot, you can cook the beans on the stove. Place them in a large pot with all the remaining ingredients from the recipe. Bring to a boil, then simmer for 60 minutes (for soaked beans) to 90 minutes (for unsoaked beans).Freezing beans
while this recipe can be frozen, please remember to do the following:
Wait for the beans to cool completely before freezing them (otherwise your freezer could heat up too much and affect the other frozen goods in there).
Use a container that is suitable for freezing.
Add the beans to the container and cover them with cooking liquid. If you forgot to save it, cover them with clean, cold water.
Label the bag or container with the contents, today’s date AND the use-by time (cooked black beans can be kept in the freezer for 2-3 months)
Defrost thoroughly before using.
And always make sure the beans are piping hot all the way through before eating them!