Vegan Mixed Bean Curry in Instant Pot

Mixed bean curry or bean medley is a wholesome, healthy, and nutritious go-to option when I am running out of ideas for family meals. It goes well for lunch, dinner, potlucks and even your vegan friends can enjoy it.

Mixed beans can be served along with Indian bread or rice, cumin rice and pulao. I also use leftovers to make samosa chaat.

Jump to:

• Ingredients for mixed beans curry?
• How to make mixed beans?
• Serving suggestions for mixed bean curry
• Storing mixed bean curry
• 📖 Recipe
• 💬 Comments

Ingredients for mixed beans curry?

You can practically use any beans like garbanzo beans, brown chickpeas, mung beans, yellow peas, kidney beans, black-eyed peas, black beans; and in any proportion. I have used it in an equal ratio.

This recipe can easily be adapted as per your taste. You can adjust the types of beans used, the quantities, and the spiciness to your liking.

How to make mixed beans?

Beans can be cooked dry or soaked. They can be cooked in an instant pot or a slow cooker. I prefer soaking beans and then cooking them in the instant pot.

Soaking beans

Soaking the beans for about 8 hours helps in reducing the overall cooking time in the instant pot.

It ensures the beans get cleaned thoroughly well as the water used for soaking is discarded before pressure cooking.

It gives assurance that the beans are of good quality and will cook well. It avoids the gravy and spices from being overcooked.

Last but not the least, it helps with digestion as pressure cooking dry beans causes gas problems in some people.

However, if you forget to soak them, cooking the dry beans is always an option, you will have to pressure cook the beans for about 50-55 minutes. In such a situation, it is a good idea to cook the gravy separately, just to avoid it from being overcooked, and mix it with the beans later.

Making mixed bean curry in the instant pot

This recipe is made in a 3 qt. instant pot by first using the "Saute" mode and then the "Pressure" or "Manual" mode. I prefer to blend the tomatoes, onions, ginger, garlic, and serrano peppers instead of chopping them.

Any blender should work, I prefer to use Vitamix, and the setting of 4-5 works fine. You do not need a fine paste however not a chunky one.

Turn the saute mode on normal until it shows hot, add the oil and once oil is hot, add the whole spices. Adding whole spices gives a good flavor to the curry.

This organic whole spices starter kit has most of the spices needed for this recipe and can be used to make other beans too.

Saute the spices for a few seconds and then add the blended tomato onions along with coriander powder, cumin powder, turmeric powder, red chili powder (to taste), and salt.

Saute for about 5 minutes or until all moisture evaporates and the mixture oozes out oil. At this point deglaze the bottom of the pot with a spatula and add the mixed beans and water and give it a good mix.

Close the lid and cook on high-pressure mode for 15 minutes followed by a natural pressure release, which means at this point you can walk away from the kitchen and use your precious time doing something else 🙂

Serving suggestions for mixed bean curry

Mixed bean curry can be served with Indian bread like poori, paratha, roti and it goes well with plain rice, jeera(cumin) rice, or pulao too.

Sometimes when I have leftovers I use them to make samosa chaat instead of using yellow peas, I use the mixed beans.

Storing mixed bean curry

Bean medley can be refrigerated for 4-5 days. It can also be prepared in a larger quantity and frozen for about a month.

Meal planning

You can add the mixed beans to your meal planning menu. It would only need some advance planning of soaking the beans before the day you prepare it.

You can soak the beans a night prior and prepare curry the next day. Portion and refrigerate it for your weekday meals and also freeze any extras for later.

You may also like these instant pot recipes using beans

• 15 bean soup
• Rajma Masala
• Chana Masala
• Black Beans Chana Masala
• Black eyed peas salad
• Samosa chaat

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