
Crock-Pot Pinto Beans
These delicious crock-pot pinto beans are packed with a huge amount of flavor! They also are cooked in a crock-pot so they are super easy.
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Lately, I have been trying to clean out my freezer and pantry. If you’re anything like me, you have a lot of things in those places that you have completely forgotten about as they get shoved to the back. Well yesterday morning I came across a BIG ham bone in the freezer and a large bag of pinto beans in the pantry. I don’t know about you, but that was seemed like a sign from someone that I was supposed to make a big pot of Crock-pot pinto beans!
Y’all know me, I love to cook my food slowly to infuse as much flavor as possible, but I don’t always have time to do it on the stove where I will have to keep an eye on it. So, I decided to throw this little recipe into my handy dandy Crock-Pot . Cooking this in the Crock-Pot not only frees up my time but it also makes the clean up a snap when you use the Crock-Pot liners.
This recipe is SO easy.
Rinse and sort your pintos, chop up a large onion, add the rest of the ingredients, cover with water and fire up the Crock-Pot. Yep, that’s it!
I cooked mine for 4 hours on High and then turned them down to Low for about another 4 hours. Truth be told, they were done long before the 4 hours on low were up, but we weren’t ready to eat yet. During the first 4 hours on high, I did need to add a bit more water as the beans re-hydrated, however, if you add enough in the beginning you will be fine. In the picture above, you can see that I had a lot of room to add more water and should have. If you aren’t going to be home to be able to peek on these at all, I would make sure that your water is at least 3 inches above the top of the beans before adding the ham bone or shanks to the pot.
When all was done I simply took out the ham bone, cut up the bits of ham that were too large or still left on the bone and added them back into the pot. If you want your beans a bit thicker, take the back of a large wooden spoon and smash some of the beans against the pot.
Scoop up a big bowl of those pintos and add a slice of corn bread for a hearty, delicious dinner.
Ingredients
- 4 cups dry pinto beans
- Water (see above comments on amount)
- 2 cloves garlic minced
- 1 large onion, chopped
- 1 tablespoon sugar
- 1 tablespoon good quality chicken bouillon or 3 cubes
- 1 or 2 teaspoons of chopped jalapenos (I usually have a jar in the fridge)
- 1 ham bone or ham hock
- Salt and pepper to taste
Directions
Rinse and sort beans
Add all ingredients into the Crock-Pot
Cook on High for 4 hours then turn to Low for another 2-4 hours.
Take out bones and discard
Chop up ham and return to pot
Smash beans (if wanted)
Enjoy
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