For any recipe calling for cooked beans, you can use canned beans, or you can cook them from dried.
I cook dried beans in an instant pot. I typically cook them in large batches in advance of two or three meals that use a given bean.
I pour in an amount of dried beans (usually about an inch or 2.5 cm worth on the bottom of the pot), add a generous handful of salt and any other seasonings I feel like (e.g., for black beans, I often add cumin; for white beans, I often toss in a sprig of rosemary because I am drowning in rosemary from my garden last year) then I add water to cover by at least 2 inches or 5 cm.
I set the instant pot to cook at pressure for a short period of time and then let the pressure release naturally for a longer time. The usual times I use are:
- black beans: 5 minutes at high pressure, 27 minutes natural release
- white beans: 5 minutes at high pressure, 25 minutes natural release
- chickpeas: 20 minutes at high pressure, 30 minutes natural release
Once the natural release is done, I quick release any remaining pressure, rinse the cooked beans, and store them in the fridge until I am ready to use them. If they are a bit harder than I’d like, I add them to soup/stew recipes earlier to let them soften more in the cooking process.
There are many other ways to cook beans from dried and lots of people have opinions about how to do it best. If you don’t like or cannot use my method, I recommend seeking other instructions online, or using canned beans.