Instant Pot Black Bean Soup

Dried black beans are usually the ingredient that makes you remember dinner planning would have been useful yesterday. The Instant Pot changes the calendar. One pound of rinsed, unsoaked beans goes in with broth, tomatoes, onion, bell pepper, garlic, cumin, smoked paprika, salt, and black pepper, then pressure cooks for 30 minutes. No overnight soaking, no saucepan quietly occupying a burner for the better part of the afternoon. The texture gets decided after the 15-minute natural release. Partially blend the soup with an immersion blender and you get a thick, creamy body while still leaving enough whole beans to remind everyone this is soup and not an unusually savory smoothie. The tomatoes add acidity, cumin and smoked paprika bring warmth, and the vegetables disappear into the broth just enough to make the whole pot taste more developed than the timeline suggests. Then the toppings get to argue over the last word: cool sour cream, cilantro, lime, and crushed tortilla chips. The lime is especially useful because rich bean soup wakes up fast with a hit of acid. It is inexpensive, filling, and capable of making a bag of dried beans look much more ambitious than it did on the pantry shelf.