Instant Pot Multi Bean Soup with Ham Bone

I thought this one would be a no-brainer, but there are a bunch of different ideas about how to make this in the IP with a ham bone. I found one here at Kenarry, which references a 20-oz bag of beans (I bought bulk at Sprouts but I could weigh it, although I thought bags of beans were usually 1 lb?). I found an Instant Pot Hambone Bean Soup at Homemade Food Junkie that goes all out with making the bone broth ahead of time, but it’s for just one kind of bean (2 cups, dried). However, I liked the idea of cooking the hambone down first then adding the beans, so I’m going with that one, sort of, but I don’t have carrots, so no carrots. Also no mushrooms. I used to put a can of diced tomatoes in mine – none call for it. Another one that is kind of a mashup is from Simply Happy Foodie, and doesn’t do the the hambone ahead of time but also only uses one kind of dried bean (1 lb). This recipe includes celery and carrots and parsley – I did not include them.

The one I’m using, with bone broth, is a lot more water than the other 2 – 3 quarts vs 6 cups – so I guess we shall see how that works out. I read a lot of stuff about not filling the IP more than 1/2 full and 2/3 full for different foods, but the recipe I’m following uses the Soup function which – maybe? – can mitigate the problems? I pulled about 2 cups of broth out – it’s still almost to the Max line. (Officially scared right now)

UPDATED JAN 2022

I had a ham bone and a bag of HamBeens, so I looked at my notes which said the result was “not particularly flavorful” in the previous version, and I switched it up a lot. I think it’s much better now, with more onions, celery, diced tomatoes and a jalapeño.

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Instant Pot Multi Bean Soup with Ham bone

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Ingredients

• 1 ham bone, much of the meat removed
• 3 quarts water
• 2 bay leaves
• 2 diced onions
• 3 cloves diced garlic
• 1 cup diced celery
• 1 diced jalapeno
• 20 oz multi bean mix, dried
• roughly 2 cups of chopped ham I removed from the ham bone
• 1 28-oz can diced fire-roasted tomatoes
• 2 T kosher salt
• Tony Chachere's
• pepper
• turmeric

Instructions

1

Put the ham bone, water, bay leaves, 1 onion and all the garlic in the instant pot.

2

Using the Manual button, increase to 120 minutes

3

After it's done, use quick release

4

Strain the broth, add back to fill 1/3 of the pot (see note)

5

While the bone broth cooked, I sauteed another diced onion and the celery in avocado oil

6

Add the rest of the ingredients to the broth in the IP

7

Use the Soup button or the Manual button, 30 minutes (see note)

8

Natural release for 15 minutes

Notes

Note 1: At this point the other recipe recommends straining the broth, adding broth to fill about 1/3 of the pot and freezing the remainder. I took about 3-4 cups of the broth out before adding the rest of the ingredients, to avoid overfilling the IP; I did not strain it.

Note 2: The beans were really good, not mushy at all, and probably some of the beans could have even cooked a little longer. I don't think there is any difference between the "Manual" and "Soup" buttons, except "soup" defaults to 30 minutes high pressure, and increases to 40 or decreases to 20.

I re-read the Homemade Food Junkie version, and it says to remove the bone and strain the broth before making the soup. Also, that recipe recommends saving the extra broth in the freezer, and only fills the pot 1/3 way with broth. I left it all up in there and picked out the bones and the bay leaves after the soup was done.