Instant Pot Black Bean Soup with Tomatoes. A cross between black bean soup, tomato soup, and chili. Totally delicious, gluten-free, vegetarian and naturally dairy free without a dollop of sour cream!
My initial intention was to create an Instant Pot black bean soup. I was going to base it off of a yummy Sopa de Frijol recipe from SAVEUR that I have made a bunch of times.
Then, I realized I didn’t have the right ingredients on hand and still felt like black bean soup. That’s how this concoction was born. Imagine if black bean soup, black bean chili, and tomato soup had a baby. It’s this and you know what, it’s AWESOME.
I know I have said it before but some of my favorite recipes are born out of necessity and having to work with what is in my pantry.
You can serve this over rice or topped with melted cheese (I suggest pepper jack!) or just like in the picture with some diced onion, avocado, sour cream and cilantro like I did.
It’s really versatile, freezes well and if you are not vegetarian, would do well with some cubed chicken thighs or even shredded pork.
If you don’t have an InstantPot (why don’t you?), you can modify for the stove or slow cooker but along with adjusting the cooking time, you may need to adjust the liquid.
Did you make this recipe? Please give it a star rating below!
Instant Pot Black Bean Soup with Tomatoes. A cross between black bean soup, tomato soup, and chili. Totally delicious, gluten-free, vegetarian and naturally dairy free without a dollop of sour cream!
- 1 pound dried organic black beans rinsed and soaked overnight
- 4 dried New Mexico chilies soaked in 1 cup boiling water for 15 minutes
- 1/3 cup avocado oil or olive oil
- 1 large white onion finely chopped
- 5 to 6 cloves garlic finely chopped
- 1 1/2 T ground cumin
- 1 T kosher salt
- 1/2 T dried oregano
- 1 bay leaf
- 3 cups tomato puree or strained tomatoes
- 4 cups low sodium vegetable broth
- 1 medium bell pepper any color, ribs and seeds removed and diced
- avocado
- diced red onion
- cilantro
- sour cream
- shredded pepper jack cheese
- tortilla chips or plantain chips
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Rinse beans and discard any stones. Soak in cold water for 12 to 24 hours. Make sure the water is covering the beans by at least 4". Add more as needed.
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Soak chilies in 1 cup of boiling water for 15 minutes.
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Place garlic in the bowl of a food processor. Process until finely chopped.
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Remove chilies from soaking liqud and reserve liquid to add to soup. Trim stems off of soaked chilies and remove seeds. Add chilies to food processor and process until finely chopped.
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Add peeled and cubed onion to garlic-chile mixture in food processor. Pulse until chopped.
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Measure spices and combine in a small dish.
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Wash bell pepper, remove ribs and seeds and dice.
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Set InstantPot to "Saute". Once hot, add oil and then onion mixture. Saute for 5 minutes, stirring occasionally.
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Add spices, stir to combine, about 30 seconds until spices are fragrant.
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Add chile soaking liquid and stir to combine.
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Add drained soaked beans, tomatoes and broth.
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Next, add diced bell pepper.
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Place lid on InstantPot, make sure vent is set to "Sealed" and set to Manual, High Pressure for 15 minutes for done but firm beans. 17 minutes for tender and 20 minutes for very tender, slightly mushy beans.
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When cooking time is up, allow InstantPot to release pressure naturally for 15 minutes and then use manual pressure release to open.
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Remove bay leaf and discard.
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Transfer `1 to 2 cups (depending on how thick you want the final soup) of black beans to a food processor or blender and process until smooth. Return blended beans to soup and stir to mix well.
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Serve with your favorite toppings and Enjoy!
Did you make this recipe? Tag @EverydayMaven on Instagram with the hashtag #EveryDayMaven and please give a star rating below.
I’m sure this is a stellar recipe, unfortunately I tried to triple it AND ya unsoaked beans. My insta pot kept saying “burn” even when I removed about a third of the soup. So I tried slow cooking it. Even after literally 15 hours of cooking the beans were still hard. User error for sure but I wanted to pass this along. I’m going to try it again tomorrow with canned beans. I need this soup!
Oh no Emily!! Sounds like a bad batch of beans – they may have been really old. They should have been cooked after 15 hrs in the slow cooker no matter what. How did it come out with the canned beans?
Can you use canned black beans? If so, how many cans would you use? I would like to try this today!
Hi Sharon, You can use canned beans but this soup will come out COMPLETELY different! The dried beans give off a natural starch as they cook in the IP and help make the base thick and tasty.
I have tried other Instant Pot black bean soup recipes, but keep coming back to this one. It’s just so good.
I’ve tried it with some canned chipotle chiles in adobo sauce in a pinch when I haven’t had dried chiles as well as diced tomatoes with their juice when I’m out of the purée and each version has always been great. Also used dried beans that haven’t been presoaked and just cooked for 25 minutes. Perfecto!
Thanks for this great recipe!
Hi Julie! Thanks so much for taking the time to let me know about your experience with this recipe. LOVE the chiles in adobo idea 🙂
This recipe looks amazing! I’d like to make it, but haven’t soaked the beans. How would you modify the recipe to accommodate unsoaked black beans?
Thanks!
Hi Cris! I would suggest changing the cooking time to 25 to 30 minutes under high pressure as the Instant Pot guide recommends 25-ish minutes for un-soaked black beans! Let me know how it turns out. http://instantpot.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/Cooking-Time-Tables-1.pdf
Oh my goodness I love everything about this soup! I need an instant pot!
You really do Lauren!
For some reason I still haven’t tried making soup in my Instant Pot. Time to fix that!
You have to! It’s so easy. Sometimes it can take a while to come up to pressure. A trick is use the Saute feature to warm the broth / liquid first.
I love how you combined black bean chili and tomato soup!
Thanks! It’s really flavorful!
This looks and sounds amazing… I feel like I can almost taste it — all those flavors!!! YUMMMM. My mom just got an instapot — so I’m emailing this to her!
Yes!! I hope she loves it!
I love bean soups and that looks and sounds so good!
Thanks so much!
This looks wonderful! Love black bean soup, but it’s been ages since I’ve made any. Weird, because I’ve used every other bean known to man in soup this year. 🙂 Gotta try this — good stuff. Thanks!
You do! Black beans are one of my favs <3