Instant Pot Rice and Beans Recipe (2024)

Perfect for summer when you don’t want to heat up the oven, pull out your Instant Pot for these pressure cooker rice and beans! With peppers and enchilada sauce, this Mexican flavor inspired combo makes a perfect gluten-free dip or filling for burritos.

I’ve been making this bean/rice/tomatoes combo for many years. But I’ve always mixed it together and then placed the rice and beans mixture into the oven to bake before serving.

This time, instead of heating up my oven, I opted to make keep the kitchen cool and instead use my pressure cooker (Instant Pot) to make it. These Instant Pot Rice and Beans turned out perfectly on my first try at converting this recipe from an oven recipe.

7 minutes prep + about 17 minutes to come to pressure + 10 minutes cook + 1 minute stir = about 35 minutes start to finish and all without heating up your kitchen with an oven! Truly easy to make this rice and beans in the instant pot.

This Mexican rice and beans recipe makes for a unique and hearty dip. When we have company, I’ll put it out with chips and sometimes guacamole or chopped avocado to just enjoy this way. Another good dip to put out alongside this is my gluten-free cheesy bean dip too!

Other times, I’ll put it out in a big bowl like this and we’ll fill up taco shells for gluten-free burritos. It’s such a great gluten-free burrito filling! Plus any leftovers can be enjoyed with chips the next day.

This is truly a dump and run type of recipe. No pre-cooking, no sautéing, etc.

How to make this Pressure Cooker Rice and Beans Recipe:

Into your pressure cooker, you’ll:

1. Add the chopped peppers
2. Add cans of black beans and pinto beans that have been rinsed and drained
3. Add cans of enchilada sauce and diced tomatoes.
4. Add the uncooked white rice (I used Basmati)
5. Add the vegetable broth over the top. No stirring!
6. Just put the lid on the pressure cooker and set it for low for 10 minutes and away you go!
7. It’ll take some time for it to come up to pressure (it took 17 minutes for me), then it will cook for 10 minutes.
8. Once the 10 minute timer is up, do a quick pressure release.
9. Once the steam is released, remove lid carefully, stir in the sour cream and cheese and serve!

The mixture is more soupy right when it finishes cooking and you’ve just stirred in the sour cream and cheese. But as it sits for about 10 minutes, it really thickens up to a great consistency for dipping or for burrito filling.

Store leftovers covered in the refrigerator and just reheat in your microwave when you want to enjoy again.

Ingredients for this Instant Pot white rice and beans recipe:

Notes on Ingredients for this Beans and Rice Instant Pot Recipe:

• Peppers: I used medium heat Hatch Chile peppers that I removed the seeds from. I used 1 cup chopped pepper, which was around 2 large peppers. You can use hot or extra hot peppers too!
• Beans: I almost always use one can of black beans and one can of pinto beans in this recipe, but have made it with all black beans too when that’s what I’ve had on hand.
• Enchilada Sauce: You can vary your heat level of the overall recipe by choosing a different heat level of enchilada sauce too.
• Vegetable broth: Since this is a meatless recipe, I chose to use vegetable broth to keep it vegetarian. You can definitely use chicken broth instead. The broth basically is there to cook the rice.
• Sour Cream: I used regular sour cream but you could use a light sour cream if you want to cut calories a bit.
• Cheese: I used a Mexican 4 cheese blend which I like a lot.

While I usually use bell peppers in these, after seeing some Hatch chiles at my local store, I immediately thought I needed to get some to add to this easy rice and beans recipe! You can use regular bell peppers, chili peppers or Hatch chile peppers in this recipe for instant pot black beans and rice.

For this particular recipe, I decided to use some medium heat Hatch chile peppers, and chop them up like I would a bell pepper. If you like heat, then use hot or extra hot peppers, and use two or more of them. You can also take the time to roast some of the peppers yourself at home on your grill to use.

What else can you make with bell peppers or Hatch chile peppers? You can add them to my simple guacamole recipe to give it a kick!

And my friend Brianna, who told me about Hatch Chiles first, makes these amazing microwave gluten-free enchiladas that you can add additional Hatch Chiles to!

I like heat. How can I make this rice and beans dish spicier?

1. Use the hottest Hatch Chile peppers. They have everything from mild to extra hot, so go for the hotter ones if you like heat!
2. Double the amount of peppers I used.
3. Chop up some roasted peppers instead of just using raw ones. You can chop ones you buy roasted or you can char your own over the flame of your grill.
4. Before adding all of the other ingredients to the Instant Pot, you can use the sauté setting to just sauté the peppers to bring out their flavor. You can also add onions at this stage if you’d like some! Then after sautéing, just turn the Instant Pot off, and follow the rest of the instructions from there.

This pressure cooker beans and rice recipe is adapted from one I’ve been making for many many years that was given to me from my friend Tami.

I looked at my friend Justine’s Instant Pot Stuffed Pepper Casserole for inspiration on how to convert my existing recipe to be successful in the Instant Pot – particularly how much broth to use and the cooking time. Her Instant Pot Stuffed Pepper Casserole Recipe is gluten-free too! Check out her blog for so many Instant Pot recipes!

If you make this recipe and love it, please come back and give this recipe a 5 star rating in the recipe card! Feel free to comment with tips or to share any successful substitutions you made.

Gluten-free Instant Pot Rice and Beans Recipe:

Pin this Instant Pot Rice and Black Beans to your Gluten-free Board on Pinterest:

I think you and your family will like this black beans and rice instant pot recipe too! Enjoy!