This delicious Instant Pot Chili recipe is made with dried beans and your choice of ground meat (or vegan soy crumbles). It offers up a hearty, depth of flavor you’ll appreciate. Serve it up with Our Favorite Homemade Cornbread. Video.
Here’s a hearty, flavorful Instant Pot Chili recipe that can be made using dry beans from your pantry. It’s cozy comfort food for chilly days and is perfect for feeding a crowd, like on game day. It’s a quick and hearty chili with bold, rich flavor!
Why You’ll Love This!
- Simple ingredients. This recipe calls for pantry staples that you likely already have at home. You’ll use dry beans, crushed tomatoes, spices, broth, and even cocoa powder!
- Highly Adaptable. Make it with ground beef, ground turkey, ground chicken, or keep it vegan by adding textured soy protein or “soy crumbles”. This recipe calls for dry pinto beans but dry black beans, or dry red beans will all work! You can easily make this recipe plant-based with textured soy protein or “soy crumbles.”
- Quick & easy to make! While the overall cook time is 45 minutes, much of this is hands-off. Let your instant pot do the work!
- Flavorful & comforting. Chili is the ultimate cold-weather comfort food. This recipe sneaks in surprising ingredients like dark beer, Worcestershire, and dark cocoa powder for rich, mouthwatering flavor.
Ingredients
- Dry pinto beans: Provide a hearty and creamy texture to the chili, while also adding a slightly nutty and earthy flavor. You can sub red beans, black beans, or kidney beans.
- Olive oil: Adds richness and depth to the chili, enhancing the overall flavor.
- Onion: Adds a sweet and savory flavor to the chili, providing a nice base for the other ingredients.
- Protein: Ground organic beef, chicken, turkey, textured vegan protein, “soy crumbles,” or soy chorizo! The choice of protein adds its own unique flavor and texture to the chili. Beef adds richness, while chicken and turkey offer a lighter taste. Vegan options like TVP or soy crumbles provide a meaty texture with a plant-based twist.
- Garlic: Adds a pungent and aromatic flavor to the chili, infusing it with depth and complexity.
- Spices: Kosher salt, pepper, chili powder, cumin, dried Mexican oregano, smoked paprika. The spices add subtle heat, mild spice, smoky flavor, warm and earthiness, and a touch of herbal flavor.
- Diced or crushed tomatoes: Provide a tangy and slightly sweet flavor to the chili, as well as contributing to the overall sauciness of the dish. Fire-roasted tomatoes are nice here and add a smoky element.
- Fresh jalapeño: Optional, but adds heat and a subtle fruity flavor to the chili. The amount can be adjusted depending on desired spiciness.
- Tomato paste: Intensifies the tomato flavor and adds richness to the chili.
- Beef, chicken or veggie broth: Provides a savory base for the chili, adding moisture and enhancing the overall flavor.
- Dark beer: Adds depth and richness to the chili, imparting a complex flavor profile. If preferred, it can be substituted with additional broth.
- Worcestershire sauce: Optional, or can be substituted with soy sauce. Worcestershire sauce adds a tangy and savory flavor to the chili, while soy sauce provides umami undertones in a vegan-friendly option.
- Dark cocoa powder: Adds a subtle bitterness and richness to the chili. Optional, but really enhances the depth of flavor.
- Optional additions: Other vegetables like corn, diced red bell pepper, or poblanos can be added for additional flavor and texture. Fire-roasted corn adds a smoky element.
- Optional garnishes: Grated cheese, sour cream, cilantro, avocado, scallions, hot sauce, and pickled red onions can be used for garnishing, adding extra flavors and textures to the chili.
Instant Pot Chili Instructions (video below)
- Faux “presoak” the beans. Place dry, unsoaked beans in the Instant pot (or your electric pressure cooker), and add water, one inch above the level of the beans. Pressure cook on high for 10 minutes. (See notes!) Manually release. Drain and set aside. You can skip this step and presoak your beans overnight.
- Prep your ingredients. While the beans are pressure cooking prep your onions and garlic, open any cans and gather all the spices.
- Saute. Turn Instant Pot to Saute function and heat the oil. Add the onion and saute 2-3 minutes, until fragrant. Add garlic and the ground meat or soy crumbles. Saute 3-4 more minutes, while continuously stirring and breaking up the meat. I find a metal spatula comes in handy for this. Add the salt, pepper, chili powder, cumin, oregano, and saute one minute, cooking the spices a bit. Add the diced tomatoes and juices, tomato paste, broth, beer, Worcestershire, cocoa powder, smoked paprika or chipotle, optional jalapeño. Give a good stir, then add the pressure-cooked beans (drained) or pre-soaked beans.
- Pressure cook. Set Instant Pot to high pressure for 22 minutes. Naturally release the seal for 15 minutes.
- To make a thicker chili: If you like a thicker chili, stir in a little masa harina or masa corn flour, sprinkling it in a tablespoon at a time. This also adds delicious “corn” flavor. You can also stir in frozen corn and set to “saute” function until heated through.
- Taste and adjust. Taste, adjust spice level and salt. If you want more “kick” add it!
- Serve with fresh garnishes and cornbread!
Chilli Toppings
- Sour cream or Mexican Crema
- Grated cheddar cheese
- Diced Avocado
- Sliced Jalapeno
- Green Onions
- Cilantro
- Tortilla Chips
- Hot sauce
Expert TIPS
- Save time soaking the beans. Giving the beans a quick 7-minute pressure cook, replaces the soaking time here and during this first phase, it is the perfect amount of time to prep the rest of the ingredients, allowing the recipe to go quite quickly!
- Use beef stock or broth. Using beef stock or broth adds a lot of depth here. If going vegan, veggie bullion is the best!
- Thicken the chili. To thicken the chili sometimes I’ll add a couple of tablespoons of Masa Harina which also adds delicious flavor!
- Garnishes add a lot of flavor and texture! Top the flavorful chili with avocado or sour cream, fresh cilantro, scallions, jalapeño and hot sauce if you like extra heat!
- Yes you can use a slow cooker! Cook on high for at least 6 hours, or low for 8 hours. (Make sure beans are soaked!)
FAQs
Using dried beans makes the flavor of chili immensely better! In our instructions, we use the instant pot to do a faux “presoak” for the dry beans. Older and larger beans will take longer to soak. If you choose not to use the instant pot for soaking the beans, soak them for 8-12 hours, or until doubled in size and drain.
Not only are dried beans more affordable than canned, but their texture and flavor is so much better. Soaking dried beans can make them easier to digest as well. Canned beans also tend to have a higher sodium content.
Each ingredient listed has a purpose to the overall flavor of the chili. But some of the key ingredients that make a truly exceptional chili are dark beer, Worcestershire sauce (or soy sauce) and dark cocoa powder. Each of these ingredients enhances all of the flavors in the chili and they add richness and depth. These unique additions are optional, but can really take a great chili to absolutely amazing!
Simply replace the protein with textured vegetable protein, soy crumbles, or vegan chorizo and use a vegetable broth to make this an instant pot vegetarian chili!
The default “chili setting” on an instant pot is set at 30 minutes at high pressure – the reccommended time- which does make a nice batch of chili. You can increase the time, or lower the time, depending on the bean type and whether the beans have been pre-soaked.
Make sure the underside of the pot and the heating element are clean and free from any debris. Always ensure the steam valve is closed to prevent too much liquid from evaporating. After sauteing, always deglaze the pot, scraping up any browned bits. Make sure there is at least one cup of liquid.
While it is not imperative to soak beans before cooking them in an instant pot- pre-soaking the beans results in beans that are cooked more evenly and make them easier to digest. Large beans like Pinto beans or red beans tend to cook a little unevenly if unsoaked. Smaller beans like black beans, need not be presoaked, but larger beans or older beans, will benefit from pre-soaking. Here, we offer a faux “presoak” with the Instant pot.
Hope you enjoy this extra bold and flavorful Instant Pot Chili– such a great way to keep using up those pantry ingredients!
More Favorite Chili Recipes
How to make Instant Pot Chili | 30-sec video
Instant Pot Chili (with dry beans)
- Prep Time: 15
- Cook Time: 45
- Total Time: 1 hour
- Yield: 8 1x
- Category: Instant pot, beef, vegan, vegetarian, healthy, turkey, Beans, dinner idea, comfort food,
- Method: Instant Pot
- Cuisine: American
Description
This hearty Instant Pot Chili recipe is made with dried beans and your choice of ground meat (beef, turkey or chicken) or try vegan soy crumbles! Vegan-adaptable! Serve it up with Our Favorite Homemade Cornbread. Video.
Ingredients
- 2 cups dry pinto beans (or sub red beans or black beans) SEE NOTES.
- 1–2 tablespoons olive oil
- 1 onion, diced
- 1 pound ground organic beef, chicken, turkey or vegan TVP (1 3/4 cups dry and rehydrated) Textured Vegan Protein or “Soy crumbles”) or soy chorizo!
- 4 cloves garlic, rough chopped (or 1 tablespoon granulated garlic)
- 1 1/2 teaspoons kosher salt
- 1/2 teaspoon pepper
- 1 1/2 tablespoons chili powder, more to taste
- 1 tablespoon cumin
- 2 teaspoons dried Mexican oregano
- 1 14–ounce can diced or crushed tomatoes with juices ( fire-roasted are nice here)
- 1–3 tablespoons fresh jalapeño, finely chopped (optional, adds a kick of heat)
- 2 tablespoons tomato paste
- 2 1/2 cups beef, chicken or veggie broth
- 1 cup dark beer (or sub more broth)
- 1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce (optional) or soy sauce
- 1 –2 teaspoons dark cocoa powder, (optional, adds delicious depth)
- 1–2 teaspoons smoked paprika (optional, adds smoky flavor) or 1/2 teaspoon chipotle powder
- Optional additions: For a smoky flavor, add canned chipotle ( or some of the adobo sauce) or a little smoked paprika. Other veggies: frozen corn (fire-roasted is nice) or diced red bell pepper, or poblanos. For a thicker chili, add 1-2 tablespoons masa harina corn flour to thicken.
- Optional Garnishes: grated cheese, sour cream, cilantro, avocado, scallions, hot sauce, pickled red onions.
Instructions
- Place dry unsoaked beans in the Instant pot, and add water, one inch above the level of the beans. Pressure cook on high for 10 minutes. (See notes). Manually release. Drain and set aside.
- While the beans are pressure cooking prep your onions and garlic, open any cans and gather all the spices.
- Turn Instant Pot to Saute function and heat the oil. Add the onion and saute 2-3 minutes, until fragrant. Add garlic and the ground meat or soy crumbles. Saute 3-4 more minutes, while continuously stirring and breaking up the meat. I find a metal spatula comes in handy for this. Add the salt, pepper, chili powder, cumin, oregano, and saute one minute, cooking the spices a bit. Add the diced tomatoes and juices, tomato paste, broth, beer, Worcestershire, cocoa powder, smoked paprika or chipotle, optional jalapeño. Give a good stir, then add the pressure cooked beans (drained) or pre-soaked beans.
- Set Instant Pot to high pressure for 22 minutes. Naturally release for 15 minutes.
- If you like a thicker chili, stir in a little masa harina or masa corn flour, sprinkling it in a tablespoon at a time. Simmer 5 minutes to cook it. This also adds a delicious “corn” flavor. You can also stir in frozen corn and set to “saute” function until heated through.
- Taste, adjust spice level and salt. If you want more “kick” add it!
- Serve in bowls and garnish with any or all of the following: sour cream, grated cheese, avocado, sliced jalapeño, cilantro, scallions, corn chips.
Notes
Pre-Soaking: If your beans are very old (like older than a year) increase the Pre-Pressure Cooking Time to 20 minutes. Older beans and bigger beans take longer to cook. Or soak in cold water for 10-12 hours or until doubled in size, then drain.
You can skip pressure cooking the beans in the beginning if you soak them in cold water for 10-12 hours. (Pre-soaking or pre-pressure cooking the beans cuts the cooking time in half.)
*FYI, if you do not pre-soak or pre-cook the pinto beans, they would take roughly 45-50 minutes of pressure cooking time, with some uneven cooking. That being said, yes, you can absolutely do it this way, just allow for the full, natural, long release. They will need 3 1/2-4 cups of liquid, so I’d add an extra 1/4 – 1/2 cup ( 3 cups broth, 1 cup beer)
I used a 6 Quart Instant Pot. -this recipe doubled, will not fit in a 6 quart.
SLOW COOKER: Yes you can use a slow cooker! Cook on high for at least 6 hours, or low for 8 hours. ( Make sure beans are soaked!)
Nutrition
- Serving Size: 1 cup
- Calories: 294
- Sugar: 4.7 g
- Sodium: 841.7 mg
- Fat: 5 g
- Saturated Fat: 1.8 g
- Carbohydrates: 38.9 g
- Fiber: 9.3 g
- Protein: 23.7 g
- Cholesterol: 35.6 mg
Will a double recipe fit in a 6qt instant pot? Thanks
Hi Madison- I’m so sorry I dont know the answer to this! Haven’t tried doubling. Has anyone else?
I doubled this recipe including 2lbs of ground turkey and it did not fit in my 6qt. I had to avert the mission after adding the tomatoes and move the whole thing into a La Creuset dutch oven. As I was doing that, I realized that this recipe doesn’t really benefit from the instapot (other than for speed cooking the beans). If you were to use canned beans, I’d definitely recommend just skipping the instapot and simmering all the ingredients together for 20 minutes after all the ingredients are added. My family loved the recipe and I will make it again. I added more salt and liquid smoke.
Thanks for the suggestion Sarah!
Absolutely delicious! Me and my mom couldn’t stop sticking our spoons back in the pot lol. Happy to see vegan options too, I went with the TVP and it turned out great. Definitely going to repeat this one.
Great to hear and glad you both enjoyed!
My picky chili eater daughter loved it! Adding the coco is brilliant! I upped all the seasonings because we like a ton of flavor. Love this recipe and will definitely use it again.
Thanks Julia!
The recipe is fine. Not particularly flavorful. It tastes good but definitely could be a lot more flavorful.
I don’t think cooking in the Instant pot is a good idea to get the most flavor.
I think the recipe is missing fat. Maybe some butter or duck fat or or lard.
I was expecting a lot more of a kick too.
Sorry, it didn’t do it for you. You can always add more “kick” to taste.
Wow! Quick, delicious chili!! My new go to. I didn’t use tomato paste, or beer (didn’t have any), but it was so so good. Thanks for sharing a delicious Instant Pot recipe
Awesome Sherlyn!
Delicious and so flexible! I used a bottle of Imperial stout that we probably weren’t going to drink. I made it vegetarian with small red beans Quorn meatless pieces. Honestly, it didn’t need the Quorn pieces. I didn’t have cocoa, but I did have bittersweet chocolate so used some of that. Between the dark beer, chocolate, and smoked paprika this chili had so much flavor! I will make it again.
Awesome, great to hear Rachel! 🙌
So easy and SO DELISH! Have already made it several times during Pandemic. I did use pinto &black beans instead of meat. So super easy!
So good, and so easy. I doubled the beans in lieu of meat (thanks to a previous poster for the tip), and I used more broth because I didn’t have any beer. I did add masa harina to thicken it, as suggested, and it tasted great!
Hi,
I didn’t add any meat and instead doubled the amount of beans and added more vegetables. I also didn’t have beer do I used more broth. Came out great. I persisted my beans.
Thanks so much Katrina, love that you did it vegan, great to hear! 🙌
I first tasted this chili at my brother’s house when visiting him. It was the first thing that he made in his Instant Pot. It was so good, that I was compelled to buy an IP when I got home. I have since made it several times and love your recipe. I need a large amount of chili to donate for a lunch at our local Ronald McDonald House and wondered if anyone has doubled this recipe in an 8 qt IP. I would be presoaking the beans for 12 hours. I know I need to stay below the ‘maximum amount line’ on the pot but is there any rule of thumb about that many beans in the IP that I need to be aware of?
Great question- and I’m not sure. I have a 6-quart, not an 8-quart. Does anyone else have the answer to this?
I load mine up to the line and follow the same ratios and times in an 8Qt with no issue.
Thanks!!!
I tried a double batch in my 8 qt this morning and it worked just fine. Thanks for responding to my question. Normally I am not too concerned about doubling a recipe in my 8 qt but I have read about some disasters with beans and wanted to be sure. I think most of those may have been people who did a quick release instead of waiting and doing a 15 min. natural release as the recipe states.
Great to hear, thanks for the update!!!
The problems you may have seen posted are perhaps due to people really pushing it and filling to the very max of the line or even a bit higher. They probably did not account for the fact that dry beans always naturally foam when cooked. Toss in the beer and I can see some people perhaps having a “disaster” If the foam inundates the space between the removable aluminum plate and the lid of the cooker and also gets into the pressure valve it can be a bit messy. Cooking the beans first on their own, as suggested by Sylvia will mostly mitigate this issue so it will never occur.
Thanks so much- really helpful!
I made the chili today it easy and delicious. I will be making this chili often. Thank you for sharing your recipe
Thanks so much Malena- glad you liked it!
So comforting and delicious! Definitely making again. My adaptations: I quick-soaked dry kidney, black, and pinto beans (put beans in saucepot, cover them with 3 inches of water, allow to boil for 1 minute, then turn off heat and let sit for an hour). Instead of standard chili powder and fresh jalapenos, I used New Mexico red chili powder and mild nacho jalapenos. I used ground beef and all chicken broth (no beer). I did not have paprika, chipotle powder, or cocoa, but added Worcestershire sauce, frozen corn, and 1 tsp. cacao powder. We garnished with plain skyr, cheddar, and saltines, but it was good on its own, too. The two of us finished this off in less than 2 days, so I think a double batch is in order… Thanks for sharing this recipe!
Wow! Thanks Elle!
I made this recipe! Still new to Instant Pot cooking, I tossed ALL INGREDIENTS in at once together – including dried red beans – but I forgot the tomatoes, Chili setting for 15 minutes including pressure release time. Beans were still half done. No problem. I added a large can of chopped stewed tomatoes + small can of tomato paste and set for Chili for 10 minutes, and voila’! All good and tender – and delicious!
Thanks for the great chili recipe! I made this with some modifications given limited availability of ingredients (#quarantinelife):
– Used supermarket private label (read = not fancy) dried pinto beans that were purchased within the last 2 months (washed, picked through, but not soaked). Unsurprisingly, they weren’t done in 12 minutes under IP manual high pressure so I added another 3 minutes under high pressure. The beans were mostly cooked but still very al dente after 15 minutes total. Knowing that they were going to be cooked for another 22+ minutes with the rest of the chili ingredients, I didn’t want them to be mushy or blown out with further cooking. The bean texture in the finished chili was perfect!
– Used ground turkey (85/15) for protein. Turkey is pretty bland so I highly recommend going with all of the optional seasonings, including Worcestershire sauce – if needed, Annie’s has a decent vegan version.
– Subbed 1/4 of 85% cacao chocolate bar in place of cocoa powder (none to be had in the house!)
– Subbed 1 chipotle pepper finely diced with 1 tsp of liquid instead of chipotle powder and smoked paprika (didn’t have either). Those who like it spicy could probably get away with 2-3 peppers and more chipotle liquid!
– Subbed extra chicken broth in place of beer (didn’t have enough to sacrifice for cooking!)
Thanks for your adaptions. Loved that you used Turkey!
Fabulous chili! Thank you!
This was amazing! Did it with Soy Crumbles and soaked red beans and ate it with brown rice. Toppings where cashew yoghurt, an avocado and some green onions. Incredible!
Perfect! Thanks!
I loved this recipe I’ve sent it to my friends. It was the best chili I’ve ever made.
THanks Julie!
I made this and had to add 5 minutes because the beans were not done ( I cooked them from dry, unsoaked, 10 minutes initially. The flavors and textures were delicious. I used a pound of ground turkey.
family loved it currently going to try with jack fruit
Awesome- let me know how it turns out.
This was absolutely delicious chili! I added dried coffee instead of cocoa but that is the only change I made. The flavors are rich and deep—just what a good chili should be. I will definitely make it again!
Thanks Molly! Glad you liked it!
smells amazing, I used soy-rizzo and dried black and kidney beans since that is what I had in the pantry!!
Super easy and flexible. I left the meat out and it was still very hearty and flavorful. Used black beans because that’s what I had in my pantry. It thickened a lot while cooling, which was perfect, and I added several tablespoons of masa flour too. Will definitely make this again.
Love your addition of Masa! perfect!!!
What since pot is the 1x recipe for?
I’m not sure I understand the question Lee!
I think Lee is asking what size pot?
Oh! 6-Quart Instant Pot.
Excellent! My first try at Chili in the instant pot. Simple and quick. I added more tomato paste because my husband doesn’t like anything “soupy”. Also threw in some lentils. We all loved this.
I have a mini – will all of this fit or should I halve the recipe?
You will need to cut recipe in half.