Cozy Black Bean Stew (Instant Pot)

COURSE Main or Side dish, Kids-Friendly, vegetarian or not

SERVES four to six

TIME About 1 hour

Cooking Tip: I normally cook this soup as a vegetarian dish. However, if you prefer to add some meat to it, the flavor is also very good. Getting some ham hock or other stew meat from the local grocery store to cook with this stew adds very good flavor.

Ingredients:

• 1 1/2 Cups of dried black beans (soaked and drained), or 2 cans of canned black beans (rinsed and drained)

• 1 Can of roasted fire garlic tomatoes (other canned or fresh tomatoes will do, but roasted fire garlic tomatoes adds very good flavors)

• 5 Cups of low sodium chicken soup

• 1 large onion, diced

• 2 medium carrots, peeled and diced

• 4 - 6 stalks of celery, diced

• 4 cloves of garlic, minced

• 4 Tbsp olive oil

• 2 Tsp of sugar

• 1 Tbsp cumin

• 1 Tsp chili power

• Salt (to taste, I use about ¼ tsp )

• ¼ cup coarsely chopped cilantro (optional)

• Avocado (optional)

• 1 pound of ham hock or other stew meat (optional)

Directions:

1. Heat instant pot using "Saute" function. Pour in the olive oil and heat till hot.

2. Add onion and garlic to the hot oil and stir for a couple minutes until fragrant.

3. Add celery and carrots, and cook for about 5 mins till the carrots are a soft.

4. Add the spices (cumin, chili power, sugar, and salt) and stir until the spices are distributed evenly.

5. Add the black bean, tomatoes, and chicken stock, stir to combine. If using meat in the dish, add the meat before moving to the next step.

6. Close the instant pot lid and set the "Bean" function. It takes 5 - 10 mins for the instant pot to build up the pressure, and about 40 mins to cook the beans. However, since the beans are pre-soaked or canned, 30 mins cooking time usually suffice. The meat is cooked during this time as well.

7. Once the instant pot cooking is complete, let out the steam and open the lid.

8. Use an immersion blender to blend about half of the bean stew.

9. Add celery and avocado for garnish before serving.

Recipe inspiration:

This recipe is inspired by SimplyRecipe's "Hearty and Healthy Black Bean Soup". Link: https://www.simplyrecipes.com/recipes/black_bean_soup/

Also, the idea of using garlic fire roasted tomato come from the RecipeCritic's "20 Minutes Black Bean Soup". Link: https://therecipecritic.com/20-minute-black-bean-soup/

Other Tips:

Stews are good place to use up the whole celery. In winters, stews are cozy and hearty comfort food for me. I like to have dried black beans, chickpeas, and red lentil in my pantry year round. These healthy stew items becomes a must have stable for winter. they are not only basis to create colorful dishes, also nutritionally rich. With these items, carrots and celery are used up in no time.