Instant Pot Bean Soup

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This recipe for Instant Pot Bean Soup is a bit of childhood nostalgia in a bowl. Not only does it take me right back to my mom’s kitchen, but it couldn’t be any easier, cheaper, tastier, or more fiber-packed! Fiber is a SUPER important nutrient for lowering your cholesterol. This dish is packed with it!

As I’ve gotten older and gained more experience as a dietitian, I’ve realized more and more how lucky I was to have dinner as a family every night. While I didn’t know it at the time, my mom was laying a solid foundation for my love of food and curiosity in the kitchen. She not only instilled in me the value of a good home-cooked meal, but also encouraged us to cook.

Recipes for lower cholesterol

Cooking is a bit of a lost art on my generation. There are a lot of reasons why this may be, but I am going to focus on two. The first is easy access to a zillion types of takeout. At any moment, we can order anything we’d like by touching a screen. And while all takeout isn’t bad, the majority of it has a lot more sugar, fat, and salt than food you would ever add to food you cook in your own home. Takeout is usually ordered out of necessity and desperation. You need to eat at the end of the day and are desperate for food ASAP. I wrote about how meal planning can help to remove some of that stress in this post, but having options ready to go in your fridge will save you time, money, and stress around meals. It will also keep you in the know about your intake, which is important when trying to lower your cholesterol levels.

Another reason for the lack of cooking skills may stem from how many people were raised regarding meals. One of my friends in high school was on his own for dinner every night. He often chose Cup of Noodles, Spaghettios, or a Hot Pocket, since his cooking skills were rather limited. It’s no surprise that he feels like he doesn’t know how to feed himself as an adult and now has high cholesterol, too. Getting people (especially young adults) into their kitchens and experimenting with food is so important for developing skills to keep your cholesterol levels in a healthy range.

Importance of home-cooked meals

I have very vivid memories of our family meals like drinking milk every night at dinner, only eating my spaghetti with butter bread on the side, and putting chili on mashed potatoes. I also remember family conversations and feeling embarrassed about oversharing at the table (like when my mom told my dad and sister when “I became a woman” over pot roast).

Even when we weren’t able to make it to the table, my mom would pack dinner for us to eat in the car ride home. My sister and I did gymnastics about 30 minutes away from our house most weeknights. My mom would pick us up with dinner in the back and force us into the usual “how was your day” conversation. Having a meal as a family every night was a priority for my mom that I did not appreciate until much later.

Another thing that was prevalent in our family meals: bean soup! I don’t know when or how my mom started making bean soup, but it is something that’s firmly cemented in my mind. She would put everything in the crockpot at the beginning of the day, we’d head off to work and school, and then dig in once we got home. As a working mama, this crockpot meal was a staple for ensuring we still had a home-cooked meal on busy weeknights.

The devastation of getting home to a delicious smelling house and a grumbling stomach only to find that the beans weren’t cooked all the way was almost too much to bear. Also painful was burning the roof of my mouth because I couldn’t wait for it to cool. I don’t quite understand how something so simple can be so delicious!

Bean Soup for Lower Cholesterol

When my mom made the soup growing up, she’d start by soaking the beans overnight. Then put the in the crockpot to cook for 8-12 hours. A definite labor of love. I made it a few times this way, but recently I’ve been making Instant Pot Bean Soup. If you haven’t hopped on the Instant Pot train yet, what are you waiting for?! Treat yourself and buy one already!

Long gone are the days of 24 hours of cooking this bean soup. You can make it in 90 minutes under high pressure! No need to soak the beans. Just throw everything into the pot, put on the lid, and crank up the pressure.

We’ve mostly used the same 15 bean mix, but have made it using a couple of different kind of dry bean mixes (like Bob’s Red Mill). Throw out the suspect flavor packet. This is a 3 ingredient soup in it’s simplest form! If you want to add in more vegetables, go for it. Celery, carrots, and bell peppers are good add-ins.

I hope you’ll try this Instant Pot Bean Soup recipe out. We could all use more beans in our diet and it legitimately cost about 50 cents per serving. Good for you and good for your wallet. And it takes no time at all!

If you want to make it using the crockpot, soak the beans in water overnight in the refrigerator. Then, drain the beans and add to the crockpot with all the other ingredients and cook on high for 8 hours or until beans are soft. Add enough water to cover the beans by about an inch.