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This Instant Pot Ham and Bean Soup is one of my favorite pressure cooker recipes! Pressuring cooking the soup makes it taste like it simmered away all day, but it only needs 15 minutes of hands on time and is ready in less than 2 hours.
Whether you need a reason to try out that Instant Pot you’ve been scared to take out of the box or you’re an old pro who just wants to test out a new recipe, this Instant Pot Ham and Beans Soup is going to be a hit.
This Instant Pot soup is loaded with beans, diced ham, and veggies, making it perfect for cold days when you just need something warm and comforting.
(No Instant Pot? No problem! Check the notes section of the recipe card for instructions on how to make this in the slow cooker!)
This ham and bean soup is hearty and delicious and I think it’s a great way to test out the magic of the Instant Pot. Cooking beans at high pressure makes for tender, flavorful beans in less than two hours, which makes beans one of our favorite Instant Pot recipes to make!
Instant Pot 15 Bean Soup:
We’re starting with a bag of 15 bean soup mix that comes with a handy little seasoning packet to add a great flavor to your soup – of course, it’s easy to make your own seasoning mix too.
You’ll likely find 15 Bean Soup in most grocery stores under the brand name Hurst Beans, but other brands do make versions of this mix. Goya has a 16 Bean Soup that would work as well, though I don’t believe it comes with a seasoning packet.
Feel free to use a different mix of beans when making this soup. We like the 15 bean soup because it has such a wide variety!
If you can’t find the 15 bean mix (or something similar), any sort of dried mixed beans should work fine or you can just stick with a bag of dried pinto beans.
What Readers are Saying!
“Excellent flavor. This was the first time I’ve made ham and bean soup and my family loved it. Thanks for sharing this recipe.” – Karahi
Why Use the Instant Pot?
The Instant Pot makes cooking dried beans quick and easy. The beans turn out so tender, with an delicious texture that you won’t find anywhere else. These will be better than canned beans, promise!
We don’t even bother to soak dried beans before pressure cooking them!
I’ve also shared our recipe for pressure cooker pinto beans that you should try sometime soon! Beans are such a filling food and they’re great for holidays, get togethers, and cool autumn days.
Ingredient Notes:
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Bean Soup Mix: We use Hurst’s 15 Bean Soup Mix in this recipe. It has a variety of beans, including navy beans , white beans, black beans, and baby lima beans for a hearty soup that makes a delicious meal any night of the week. This is easy to find in just about any grocery store in the US.
Chicken Stock: We use chicken stock rather than water to add extra flavor to our soup.
Veggies: We’re using carrots, celery, and onion to add flavor and nutrition to our soup.
Ham: You can use leftover ham or just dice up a ham steak. The bag of pre-diced ham from the store will work great here as well.
Seasoning: We use the packet of seasoning that come with the soup, but you can make your own seasoning blend with a bay leaf and other dried seasonings. We’ll include a seasoning blend below if you’d like to make your own.
Instant Pot Recommendation!
We use our Instant Pot regularly for cooking rice, making the easiest to peel hard boiled eggs, and for making tasty soups like Instant Pot ham and beans in no time! It’s a great little tool to have in your kitchen!
How to Make Ham and Bean Soup:
Prepare the Beans: Add the beans to a colander and rinse them well. Pick through the beans to remove any debris or damaged beans while doing this.
Saute: Set your pressure cooker to “Saute” and begin adding the carrots, celery, and onion. Let those cook for a few minutes to start to soften up.
Pressure Cook: Add the beans to the pot. Set the pressure cooker to “high pressure” and a 40 minute cook time. Place the lid on and set the vent to sealing. After it has reached pressure and cooked, do a natural release for about 20 minutes.
Ham: Remove the lid and stir in the seasoning packet, ham, black pepper and red pepper. Stir well and place the lid back on the pot and let the mixture set for about 5 minutes. This will warm up the ham and you’ll be ready to dig in!
Serving Suggestions:
Our Instant Pot Ham and Bean Soup recipe goes perfect with our sweet cornbread or a side of homemade biscuits.
Give our Jalapeno Cheddar Bread, Beer Bread, or Irish Soda Bread a dunk in your bowl of soup.
A side of these Tuscan roasted vegetables would also go well with the soup!
Ham and Bean Soup FAQ:
Whisk together 1 tablespoon of cornstarch and 3 tablespoons of cold water to create a slurry. Turn the pot to sauté and stir in the cornstarch slurry until thickened.
Depending on how fresh the ham you use is, ham and bean soup will last for 4-5 days in the fridge, tightly covered.
To freeze, ladle cooled soup into a freezer safe container or freezer safe bag and freeze for up to 3 months. Thaw overnight in the fridge and reheat in the microwave or on the stove.
This may vary by brand. We typically use the Hurst’s beans for this soup which contain northern, pinto, large lima, yelloweye, garbanzo, baby lima, green split, kidney, cranberry, small white, pink, small red, yellow split, lentil, navy, white kidney, and black bean.
Seasoning for 15 Bean Soup:
We typically use Hurst’s Beans 15 Bean Soup for this recipe which comes with a packet of “ham seasoning” in the bag.
If you’re using another brand of beans, or just prefer to make your own seasonings, we’d recommend adding the following:
- 2 teaspoons smoked paprika
- 2 teaspoons salt, more to taste
- 1 teaspoon garlic poder
- 1 teaspoon onion powder
- 1 teaspoon cumin
- 1/2 teaspoon chili powder
Leftover Ham Recipes:
This is a great recipe for leftover ham from Christmas or Thanksgiving dinners, or any time you make ham. We love this crockpot spiral ham and we always have plenty leftover for use in other recipes, like ham and beans!
I also have a few other recipes for you to try that could use leftover ham. My crock pot breakfast casserole is always a win and so is my slow cooker Cajun ham and beans.
Instant Pot Ham and Bean Soup
Ingredients
- 1 tablespoon olive oil
- 2 large carrots peeled and diced
- 2 stalks celery diced
- 1 sweet onion diced
- 20 ounces 15 Bean Soup mix see notes
- 7 1/2 cups chicken stock
- 2 cups cooked diced ham
- 1 teaspoon black pepper
- 1 teaspoon red pepper flakes
Instructions
- Turn pressure cooker to “saute” and add the oil to the pot. Once hot, add the carrots, celery, and onion and cook, stirring often, for 5 minutes.
- Rinse and sort through the beans. Add to the pressure cooker along with the chicken stock. If your bean mix came with a seasoning packet, set aside.
- Turn the pressure cooker off. Put on the lid and set the vent to “sealing.” Set the pressure cooker to “high pressure” for 40 minutes.
- Once the soup has reached pressure and cooked for 40 minutes, allow the pressure to release naturally, about 20 minutes.
- Remove the lid carefully and stir in the seasoning packet, ham, black pepper, red pepper flakes. Taste and add salt if needed.
- Stir well, cover the pot, and let set for 5 minutes to allow the ham to heat through.
- Serve hot. Sprinkle with fresh parsley as desired.
Tips & Notes:
- 2 teaspoons smoked paprika
- 2 teaspoons salt, more to taste
- 1 teaspoon garlic powder
- 1 teaspoon onion powder
- 1 teaspoon cumin
- 1/2 teaspoon chili powder
Nutrition Information:
This recipe was originally part of a partnership with Hurst’s Beans and was published in 2017. The partnership has concluded but the recipe is still delicious and made often in our house. We updated the blog post in 2024 to include other options beyond Hurst’s Beans for making this soup, in case it’s not available where you live. Original photo below:
JimontheBeach says
If you get a new hammer, everything you see becomes a nail. So it is with new kitchen gadgets. I got a 6 quart Instant Pot last Christmas and have been using it for every recipe I could think of. I generally have made bean soup in a stock pot, so I was anxious to try this recipe. I soaked the beans over night as a matter of habit, sauted the celery, carrots and onions, and dumped in the beans, a hambone and about 2 cups of chopped ham. I used two cartons (32oz each) of chicken broth. Set the pressure, but changed the time to 60 minutes as another commenter had suggested because of the bone. I have never used the flavor packet Hurst includes in their soup kit, because I have no idea what’s in it and they do not list the ingredients. I use my own herbs and spices and that has worked out just fine. The soup was excellent. Thank you for this recipe.
BTW, I bet your buns are pretty and very sweet!
Freddy Fudpucker says
I started farting as soon as I started cooking ?. Looking at beans gets me going ?. This is a great recipe and my gf loves it too.
David Careaga says
I have had my Instant Pot for a couple of years now, and had not yet done ham and bean soup in it, or as my dad calls it, hammybean soup. I make it every year on the last weekend of winter break before going back to teaching, and that was tonight.
This was hands down, the best hammybean soup we have ever had. I have always just used white navy beans and seasoned it to taste, but I picked up a 15 bean mix with the seasoning packet and loved it. My dad said it’s the best hammybean soup he has had in his life!
I will definitely be making this one again.
Karly says
So glad to hear that, David! 🙂
Pamela Chesbrough says
I LOVE this recipe! Today will be my 2nd time making this soup. Instant Pot both times. I do not have carrots or celery to add today, but I am confident enough that it will still be delicious! Thank you for sharing?
Kim says
Trying this as I type. We like potatoes in our soup. If I put them in from the begging would they be over cooked?
TIA!
Kim
Karly says
Hi Kim! The potatoes will be overcooked if you add them at the beginning. I normally do potatoes for potato salad at around 5 minutes in the pressure cooker, so I think 40 minutes would turn them to mush.
Bluvsu2 says
Enjoyed this soup. I used a ham bone also. Since I only had a bog of 16oz of beans I only used 6 cups of broth. I like a thicker soup. I am as HUGE fan of the Instant Pot. I am down 30 pounds since August. I love that I can cook a good meal an am no longer eating all the junk.
Only think I would do a little different is use less of the Pepper Flakes. I do feel that it was a bit to spicy. I also added a bay leave.
Don’t get me wrong..this is AMAZING! Looking forward to all the hams my boyfriend wants to cook. He knows save me the bone. There is soup in the future.
Karl says
I made this per the recipe once already and it turned out perfect. I am however not finding red pepper flakes at the grocery. I just assumed crushed red pepper was the same… it was delicious but boy did it have a hot kick to it. Still no luck finding red pepper flakes so tonight while making again I cut the crushed red pepper to a half tsp and tried to pick out as many seeds as possible to see if it helps. Any advice?
Karly says
Hi Karl…you were correct that they are the same thing. Definitely cut the red pepper if it’s too spicy to you. 🙂
Tiff’s Twisted Kitchen says
This was so Freak’n Lick’n Good! Didn’t stray to much, but added 3 rough minced Ga and 3 Celery stalks, and 1 box Low Sodium Chicken broth and 1 box of regular ( total about 8 cups). I could only get my hands on the Cajun variety, so I planned on adding some Hickory Liquid Smoke. I was about 10 minutes into the initial pressurizing when I realized I forgot to add some liquid smoke; so I manually released the pressure and added about a 1/2 teaspoon and added another cup of water fortified with chicken boullion . I locked her down and ran for the 40 mins. / 20 mins. NPR. Everything seemed good at this point but I wanted to add some canned Fire Roasted Garlic Tomatoes. So I taste tested then added the Tomatoes, Season Packet, about a cup of leftover Easter Ham, 2 cups of packaged diced Ham smidge more Salt, Chicken Boullion, and cracked Pepper. I then ran under pressure for another 7 mins. / 10 mins. NPR. Since I was feeling lazy we served over some frozen Baked Steak Fries with Everything French Bread. Oh it was wonderful; and that’s coming from someone whose not a big bean fan or into split peas. Hubby thought it was Great too.
Karly says
Sounds like you made some delicious soup! So glad the recipe was a hit! 🙂
Rose says
I was taught to always soak beans to help eliminate gas and aid in digestion. Soaking the beans also has the added bonus of making them “creamy” and downright delicious. I know that I will have to reduce the cook time and the amount of broth. Do you have any idea how much broth I would need?
Karly says
I don’t, sorry.
Mark says
You made the big time , they posted this on their website .
I made it and didnt think Ham Been’s could get better,
it was awesome!
Thanks
Mark
chicook13 says
This was fantastic!! I did add two cloves of garlic (minced) & a bay leaf. I used 5 cups of my homemade pork stock and used ham BTB for the rest of the broth. It was so delicious when the windchill here was -55°!!! I will definitely make this again.
KW says
I think this is definitely 5 stars! I tweaked it of course, added bacon, garlic and some more spices but other than that I thought this was great and very easy!
Jane Hitch says
I made this in my Instant Pot exactly as the recipe is written using a 15 bean mix soup packet from my local grocery. It’s an absolutely delicious soup and hearty. Do not skip the red pepper flakes, it makes it over the top good. I gave some to my son and some to my sister and brother-in-law. They all raved about it. My sister is going to make the crock pot version.
Thank so much for this recipe.
Karly says
So glad to hear you enjoyed! 🙂
Gina says
We did get one for Christmas. Roasted a whole chicken in 35 minutes not counting cool down. Also made a pot roast in 70min, Delicious.
Do you prefer the slow cooking or pressure cooking for your ham and bean soup? I’m making that next, looks so good.
Karly says
I prefer the pressure cooker, just because it’s so quick and I’m not tortured by the yummy smell coming from a slow cooker all day. 😉
Melonie Brown says
I found that 40 minutes with a 20 minute NR had some beans a little am dente yet. So I threw the ham and seasoning in for another 5 min and NR for 10. Perfect. When I make beans on the stove top I find that its a little thicker, but this still has a wonderful taste with so many less steps!