I recently shared three Budget-Friendly Easy Vegan Instant Pot recipes over on Youtube, and one of them is for Vegan Instant Pot Mexican Rice and Beans.
Why you’ll love this recipe
It’s my version of Mexican Rice and Beans but made vegan and simplified. After you sauté a few aromatics, you’ll dump the remaining ingredients into the Instant Pot and that’s all! It’s a super simple recipe and a great option for meal prep. Plus, like many bean recipes, it’s made with inexpensive, everyday ingredients so it’s also really affordable to make.
Tips for making this recipe
To keep this dish budget-friendly, I use dried beans (instead of canned beans) that I purchase in bulk (along with the brown rice). Since dried beans typically take anywhere from 25-40 minutes to cook in the Instant Pot, I first soak the beans overnight to reduce their cook time. This enables you to cook the beans and the rice (and all the other ingredients) at the same cook time. If you don’t soak the beans, they won’t fully cook through in the 12-minute cook time.
If you forget to soak your beans overnight, you can try this quick soak method.
Oh, and if you want more than 90 incredible vegan Instant Pot recipes, be sure to order my 5-star-rated cookbook, The Vegan Instant Pot Cookbook!
Vegan Instant Pot Mexican Rice and Beans Recipe Video
EASY VEGAN INSTANT POT RECIPES (Budget-Friendly)
More Mexican Inspired Recipes
Okay so none of these are authentically Mexican, but they’re all so delicious I don’t think you’ll mind:
Vegan Instant Pot Mexican Rice and Beans
Ingredients
- 1 cup (165-175g) dried pinto beans, soaked for 8 hours or overnight
- 1 tablespoons olive oil or neutral cooking oil of choice
- 1 small red onion, diced
- 1 small green bell pepper, diced
- 4 garlic cloves, minced
- 1 teaspoon ground cumin
- 1 teaspoon ground coriander
- 1 teaspoon dried oregano
- 1 teaspoon chili powder
- Pinch of crushed red pepper flakes
- 1 ½ teaspoons kosher salt + more to taste
- Freshly cracked black pepper to taste
- 4 cups water
- 1 ½ cups (270g) long-grain brown rice
- 1 (15-ounce) (425g) can crushed tomatoes
- 1 (8-ounce) (227g) can tomato sauce
- ½ of a lime, juiced
- ½ cup fresh cilantro, finely chopped
Instructions
- Place the beans in a large bowl and cover with plenty of cold water. Soak for 8 hours or overnight, then rinse and drain the beans. Alternatively, use the quick soak method described here.
- Sect the Sauté setting on the Instant Pot and let the pot heat up for a few minutes before adding the oil. Once the oil is hot, add the onion and bell pepper along with a pinch of salt and cook until the onions are translucent, 3-5 minutes.
- Add the garlic and cook for 1 minute, tossing frequently to prevent burning.
- Add the spices, salt, and pepper, and stir frequently until very fragrant and the vegetables are well coated with the spices, about 30 seconds.
- Pour in the water to deglaze the pan, using a wooden spoon or spatula to scrape up any browned bits on the bottom of the pot. Add the soaked and drained beans, along with the brown rice, and stir well.
- Pour the crushed tomatoes and tomato sauce on top and gently stir (don’t stir the tomatoes down too much, or they might sink to the bottom and block the Instant Pot’s heat sensor, causing it to burn).
- Secure the lid and set the Pressure Release to Sealing. Select the Pressure Cook setting at high pressure and set the cook time to 12 minutes.
- Once the 12-minute timer has completed and beeps, allow a natural pressure release for 15 minutes and then carefully switch the Pressure Release knob from Sealing to Venting to release any remaining steam.
- Stir in the lime juice. Season to taste with additional salt and pepper as needed and garnish with the cilantro.
Unclear about step 6 how does the lack of stirring not block the sensor. Want to really get to grips with my IP
Hi Kp, you can learn more about the Instant Pot’s burn warning on this blog post!
I think I must have done something wrong 😔 the flavour was lovely, but mine came out gluggy, I used canned beans as in Australia I can’t find dried pinto beans 🤷🏼♀️
Hi Sonny, we don’t recommend using canned beans in the Instant Pot because pressure cooking them makes them become mush. Sorry to hear it didn’t work out for you :/
Okay
Am going to try again but with dried black beans in place of the pinto beans. I want it to work so bad as it’s such an easy inexpensive meal.
Thanks for your reply
You’re the best 👌 will let you know how I go
You’re welcome, we hope you enjoy it!
The flavor of this dish is sooooo good! I served it alongside tacos for the meat eaters in my family, and ate it as a main dish for myself, along with a tortilla for dipping. I love that it uses pantry staples and is easy on the grocery budget. I tripled it (!) and portioned it out into individual servings to freeze for future meals. Thanks for the recipe!
Awesome, Coby. Thanks for your comment and for taking the time to review!
This is amazing! Such good flavour, so satisfying! Yum yum :)
Awesome, Kelly. Thanks for your comment and for taking the time to review!
I made this today and it’s so good! Next time I’m just going to add some fresh jalapeños because I like spicy food but aside from that, I definitely recommend. I love how affordable this recipe is as well!
Thanks for the lovely feedback, Yosseline!
Excited to make this! Looks so easy and delicious.
Quick question on the crushed tomatoes – can we use fresh tomatoes instead? If so, how many? Also in the video I think you said tomato paste instead of sauce, we’re using sauce right?
If I was to use caned beans, would I follow the same cooking time?
Hi Phoebe, probably, yes, since the rice needs the full 12 minutes to cook through. The beans might get a little soft, since they’re already cooked.
Hello! I made the lentil version from your cookbook and it’s absolutely delicious! Since the servings are more in the cookbook, I was wondering how reducing the portion would affect the cooking time in the instant pot. Also is this or the lentil Tex Mex brown rice freezable? Thanks!
Hi Nada, the Instant Pot is smart and doesn’t require a change in cook time when you change the size of the batch. Just make sure you don’t fill the Instant Pot over the maximum fill line. Also, yes they are freezable!
Wow absolutely delicious! This will definitely be going into our easy weeknight rotation
Awesome, Shannon. Thanks for your comment and for taking the time to review!
Every single recipe I have made off your site is AMAZING. I love rice and beans and this is no ordinary recipe…packed with flavor. Easy to make and its a ton of food for the rest of the week. Thank you for all of the recipes!!!
Awesome, Lauren. Thanks for your comment and for taking the time to review!
This turned out wonderfully! I soaked my rice for a bit because I was worried it would be undercooked (the worst thing ever, lol). So tasty and will be making again, thanks for the recipe!
Awesome, Tiffany! So happy to hear you loved the recipe!
Delicious! I love my new instapot and made this recipe from your book. It turned out delicious, was easy to make and my husband (carnivore) loved it too! He said it was so flavorful. Thank you so much for your amazing recipes! They are all 5 stars! Especially the hummus and cashew sauce variations! I can’t get enough. :)
Awesome, Kelly! We are so happy you and your husband love the recipes, thanks for the great review :)
Hi,
One cup of beans and one and half cup of rice is approximately what in grams (sorry I’m from the UK and have only just found your site and love it!)
Hi Ellie, just updated the post with the metric measurements. For beans, that’s about 165-175g and for the rice, that’s 270g.
Thanks Nisha for this recipe. I made it with white rice and adzuki beans. Turned out great. This really is an inexpensive meal. Will put this on my weekly meal plan!
I just made this and it came out wonderfully! My husband loved it too. I did add some liquid smoke and chipotle Tabasco sauce to make the flavor more smokey rather than tomato and it did the trick. Will be making again as part of my meal prep recipes.
Yummy! Yummy! Thanks for the quick soak method for the beans and for the idea of soaking the brown rice for 30 minutes after rinsing but before cooking. Made this today with just a few minor substitutions. Didn’t have the spices listed so I used taco spice, salsa fresco instead of crushed tomatoes, and some sofrita sauce for tomatoe sauce. It was delicious and the consistency of both the rice and the beans and the sauce were perfect!
Do you think this would fit in a 3qt instant pot? Or should I half the recipe
Generally, I recommend halving recipes for the 3 quart, unless the recipe itself is quite small / doesn’t have a lot of liquid. Since this recipe is rather voluminous, I would recommend halving it.
Hello in other video u said you don’t need to soak the lentils , is this apply to beans? Because this recipe looks like you need to soak the beansThanks love your ideaI’m not vegan but I wanna start eating healthy with flavor and your recipes are both
Hi Ying, you don’t need to soak lentils. Lentils cook pretty quickly. You also don’t need to soak beans for the IP, but I often soak them anyways because it helps with digestion and it also reduces the cook time quite significantly (say, from 35-40 minutes to just 5-10 minutes). I also soak them in this particular recipe so you can cook the beans along with the brown rice at the same time. If you didn’t soak the beans and just used the stated cook time of 12 minutes, the beans wouldn’t be done cooking.
I just made Tex-Mex Brown Rice and Lentils from your new cookbook, but found that the rice was still hard. I used long-grain brown rice from Whole Foods. Do I need to rinse first? I ended up cooking at high pressure for 5 more minutes and waited another 15 minutes to release and than worked. If brown rice generally takes 20-22 minutes, how can it be done in 12 minutes in these recipes? I’m thinking I should always up the time if it includes brown rice.
Hi Carrie, I’m sorry to hear that the rice was not fully cooked, but glad you were able to troubleshoot it on your own. I have tried this recipe a few times without any issues, but occasionally, the type of rice and/or how old it is might affect the cook time. This is similar to beans – if you try to cook an old bag of beans, they will take much longer to soften and cook than a bag of fresh beans.
When cooking brown rice separately, it does need 20-22 minutes, but I’ve found that when it’s mixed with a bunch of other ingredients in this fashion, it cooks more quickly, almost as if it’s in a soup.
If you want to be safe going forward, you can try soaking your brown rice in water for 15-30 minutes – that should reduce its cook time. Or since it seemed to work with your adjustments, you can just cook it for 15-18 minutes instead of the 12 minutes.
Hope that helps!
Great idea!