Making beans – everyone has their own recipe. It’s funny because growing up in Nigeria I practically hated beans, but as I’ve got older I’ve started to love them more and more. Especially as I realised they can be quite healthy.

My biggest issue with making them was the time it took, honestly it can be an absolute faff…hours spent soaking them, boiling them etc #mission! Then I discovered the joys of a presure cooker 😀 Literally an hour or less for perfect, no-fuss beans, yassssssss. Scroll down to read more about how I do it.

• Prep time: 10 mins
• Cooking time: 40 mins
• Serves: 7 people
• Calories per serving: 433

What you’ll need

• Black eye beans – 6 cups
• Palm oil – 3/4cup
• Plantains – 2
• Onions – chopped, 1/2 cup
• Scotch bonnet pepper – chopped, 1
• Chopped tomatoes – 1 tin
• Chilli powder – 1/2 teaspoon
• Mixed herbs – 1/2 teaspoon
• Salt – 1/2 teaspoon
• Meat or chicken stock – 1 cup

Instructions

1. Chop the onions and scotch bonnet into small pieces then rinse, peel and slice each plantain into about 6 pieces
2. Chuck everything in pressure cooker, stir and add 8 cups of water and cook on the “stew” setting for 40 mins – fin. Yes really that’s it!
3. Let out the steam and open the cooker to double check the consistency. Depending on how soft/porridge-like you prefer your beans you may want to add one more cup of water and stew for a further 10 minutes
4. Dish and enjoy!

Final Result

I told you it was easy!

When I was calculating the calories it really hit me how many calories are in palm oil…as in, it’s mad! So I’m definitely going to try this again with less oil and I’ll update this post then.