As the New Year gets closer in the Carolinas you start to see containers of fresh black-eyed peas in the grocery store.
Like many other people who live in the South, we eat black-eyed peas at the New Year. “Collards are for a steady supply of folding green in the coming year; black-eyed peas for plenty of pocket change.”
Directions for cooking fresh black-eyed peas on the stovetop give cooking times ranging from 30 minutes to 90 minutes. What’s up with that? This year I decided to cook our fresh black-eyed peas in the Instant Pot. There were lots of recipes for cooking dried black-eyed peas in the Instant Pot but none for fresh black-eyed peas.
So we set to work and learned how to cook fresh black-eyed peas in the Instant Pot.
For cooking black-eyed peas and other beans, we love the nonstick inner pot manufactured by Instant Pot. It can be used under pressure just like the original metal pot.
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 onion, diced
1 rib of celery, diced
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon pepper
3 cloves of garlic, minced
4 cups of fresh black-eyed peas (two 10-ounce containers)
5 cups water
- Start the Instant Pot on Sauté.
Add olive oil to the pot and when it is hot, add the diced onion and celery. Cook 3-4 minutes, until the onion is soft. Add the salt and pepper to the onion mixture. Stir well.
Add the garlic and stir well. Cook for 1 more minute, stirring frequently to make sure the garlic does not burn. (The Sauté setting on the Instant Pot is a hotter than normally used for sautéing garlic and it is easy to burn the garlic.)
Put the black-eyed peas into the pot. Add 5 cups of water, enough to cover the beans.
- Lock the Instant Pot cover.
- Make sure the vent is set to Sealing.
- Cancel the Sauté setting.
- Set the Instant Pot on Pressure Cook.
- Press the Pressure Level button to select High Pressure.
- Set the timer for 9 minutes.
- Allow the pressure to release naturally.
The black-eyed peas turned out to be delicious.
We’ll eat these delicious black-eyed peas in Hoppin’ John and on their own with Coconut Rice.