This Instant Pot maple baked beans recipe is the perfect way to make the classic side dish from scratch. It starts with dried beans and can still be made in a couple of hours with the help of a pressure cooker.
Maple bacon baked beans are the perfect side dish to BBQ, fried fish, burgers and more. This is a great way to get a tasty and belly filling side dish put together that can feed a crowd.
You start with dried beans and end up with a hearty dish people will want seconds of. Plus due to the magic of the pressure cooker, there is no soaking required!
It is rare that you go to a cookout or carry-in that doesn’t involve some sort of baked beans. They are a hearty and flavorful side dish.
To make them from scratch can take quite a bit of time though. You have to soak the beans, cook the beans, flavor the beans and then let it all cook together until the flavors have melded and the sauce has thickened.
Luckily you can speed up the process by using an instant pot! There is no soaking of the beans and the cooking goes much more quickly.
That’s right, you can have from scratch beans starting with a very economical bag of dried beans and turn it into flavorful baked beans in just a couple of hours. The best part is, most of that time is hands off!
Flavoring The Beans
When building the sauce, you have a number of options. You could go classic ketchup based sauce with plenty of brown sugar and you would have delicious beans.
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Baked beans are also delicious without ketchup or with very little. That helps the flavor of the maple syrup and bacon to shine through even more.
This time I thought it would be fun to go somewhere in the middle. So the sauce it technically ketchup based, but that is not the full flavor profile.
I used a bit of our favorite BBQ sauce to add a roundness to the ketchup. Plus it does a lot of the seasoning work for you.
The maple syrup adds that warm sweet depth of flavor. The bacon adds that salty smokiness and the two work together in sweet harmony.
In the end you have a thicker sauce that is loaded with flavor, none of which are overpowering. It is just enticing you to take another bite.
Homemade Maple Bacon Baked Beans in the Instant Pot
Ingredients
- 2 pounds dry navy beans pinto or great northern beans
- 2 teaspoons salt
- ¼ teaspoon baking soda
- ½ pound bacon
- 1 onion diced
- 1 bell pepper diced
- ¼ cup water
- 1 cup barbecue sauce
- ½ cup ketchup
- 3 Tablespoons spicy brown mustard
- ¼ cup apple cider vinegar
- ¾ cup maple syrup
Instructions
- Rinse 2 pounds dry navy beans, then put in a 6 or 8 quart instant pot insert. Fill to the ⅔ full mark with water. Add 2 teaspoons salt and ¼ teaspoon baking soda.
- Cook on high pressure for 25 minutes. Let pressure release naturally for 15 minutes, then quick release.
- Drain beans in strainer and set aside.
- Chop ½ pound bacon into small pieces. Turn instant pot to sauté and add bacon to the pot. Cook until it starts getting crispy, stirring frequently.
- Drain most of the grease, leaving about 1 Tablespoon. Add 1 onion and 1 bell pepper, cooking until tender.
- Add ¼ cup water, scraping the bottom of the pan to get all of the bits up.
- Stir in 1 cup barbecue sauce, ½ cup ketchup, 3 Tablespoons spicy brown mustard, ¼ cup apple cider vinegar, and ¾ cup maple syrup.
- Add beans and stir to coat.
- Turn instant pot to slow cook and cook for at least ½ hour.
Notes
- Pinto or great northern beans also work in this recipe.
- Adding the baking soda to the water with the beans helps to soften the beans while they cook.
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I have used this recipe multiple times and it never fails to impress everybody. Thank you so much for adding it to my interest list
How much should you reduce the cooking time if you decide to soak the beans? I like to sprout my beans for added nutrition and digestion.
The soaked beans should cook in about 15 minutes.
These sound great! And, it just feels like the right weather to have a nice side dish of beans!
Making beans in the IP is so fast and easy Carlee. 🙂
Your recipe looks so good and I bet tastes delicious! I will have to try making them in my IP sometime. Thanks for the recipe and have a Happy Friday and weekend!
Thank you, Julie!
I love me some savory beans, these look sooo yummy and hearty! Have a great weekend!
They are so good and the IP makes it so much faster!