Instant Pot Red Kidney Beans Soup [V]

This Red Kidney Beans Soup is cooked in the instant pot with plenty of fresh vegetables and olive oil. I love serving this beans soup with rice and pickled vegetables. I tend to add some kick to the soup by spreading sliced, raw jalapenos & red chilis to soup bowl.

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Mediterranean Beans Soup

I grew up in Albania and as in many other Mediterranean countries we cook plenty of beans soup, especially in winter time. The most typical Albanian bean soup is made with navy beans and you can find that recipe in my blog too – Instant Pot Bean Soup, Albanian Fasule. We call beans fasule.

Red beans were a bit more rare to find, but we enjoyed cooking them anytime we could find them. They’re healthy and contain a lot of minerals, high fiber and protein. It’s a great food to add to your diet to help with heart health, blood sugar and other health issues.

Typically beans in the Mediterranean are cooked with onions, garlic, peppers, tomatoes and carrots. Then each country adds their own signature herb or spice, and usually most serve it with rice or a salad. And of course we cook it with olive oil:) and drizzle with olive oil when we serve it as well.

Soaking The Beans

I’m not sure if soaking the beans is still considered a best practice, but I continue soaking the beans. I usually soak them the night before and next day drain and rinse them. It’s said that soaking the beans overnight helps with digestion and gas.

Red Kidney Beans Soup Recipe Notes

Before I get into the recipe, please see some of my notes and process pictures below.

• Cooking time in the instant pot might vary. I usually cook for an hour on the beans/chili setting, de-pressurize, check if it is cooked then add more time if needed. This time it took me 1 hr and 40 mins to get the soup cooked as I wanted. The cooking time varies a lot on type of beans and how old they are (which you can’t see in the package unfortunately).
• You can use other types of multi-cookers to make this soup, even a regular pressure cooker. Please follow safety instructions of each device.
• Some recipes require an almost surgical precision with instructions. But this beans recipe is so easy, you just need to saute everything, add beans, add tomato paste, water and cook. That’s it!!
• Mediterranean flavors don’t rely on a lot of spices. Mediterranean food usually has a lot of fresh vegetables and herbs. I add some spice to this soup with the raw slices of red pepper and jalapeno on the bowl. However, if you like your soup itself to be spicy or have a kick you can add more spices in before you close the pressure cooker lid and let them cook with the beans.
• In Albania, we pair bean soups with salads made with pickled vegetables. Some people even add the dressing of the pickled salad back in the soup to add more flavor.

Here’s a picture of all the ingredients before I started cooking. Hope it helps you visualize quantities and help with shopping list.

Another image that I thought might be helpful is the below collage of 4 process pictures taken while I was cooking the soup.

If you would like to save this recipe for later, please save the below image in Pinterest. You can reach out to me if you made it or have questions in social media:)

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Other Mediterranean Soups:

• Lemon, Egg, and Rice Chicken Soup
• Cream of Asparagus Soup
• Yellow Split Peas Soup with Spinach
• Orzo, Turkey Soup