Slow Cooker Black Beans

January 10, 2021 • Updated July 15, 2021

5 from 16 votes

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Slow Cooker Black Beans are easy to make, inexpensive, filling, and just plain delicious. They taste just like Chipotle’s black beans, but a little bit of bacon takes them over the top.

Recipe ingredients:

Ingredient notes:

Black beans: Dried black beans are very affordable. You can use other types of beans in this recipe, though; see the variations section for ideas.

Oregano: Italian or dried Mexican oregano, if you’re lucky enough to find it. They have different flavors (Mexican oregano tastes more like marjoram) but both taste great in this recipe. Feel free to use whatever you have.

Bay leaves: Aka bay laurel leaves, they’re fragrant and in my opinion, a must-have ingredient in beans. Because they’re sturdy, take them out after cooking so no one is tempted to eat them.

Step-by-step instructions:

In a 3-quart saucepan, sauté bacon until it begins to crisp, about 5 minutes.
Add onions, bell pepper, cumin, and ½ teaspoon salt. Continue to cook about 5 minutes longer, until vegetables are softened. Stir in garlic and oregano and cook until fragrant, about 30 seconds.
Add water, beans, bay leaves, and red pepper flakes. Bring to a boil. Pour into a large crock pot and cook on HIGH for 3 to 4 hours or LOW 7 to 8 hours (see notes).
Remove and discard bay leaves. Add cilantro and lime juice and season to taste with salt and pepper.

Recipe tips and variations:

Yield: 1 pound of dried black beans makes approximately 7 cups of cooked beans.
Cooking times vary: Taste the beans and feel their texture to see if they’re done or need more time. Depending on your crockpot, the size of the bean, or even how old the beans are, they might need to cook longer than the recipe says.
Make ahead: You can pre-cook any type of bean to keep on hand or freeze in portions for later.
Storage: Let the cooked beans cool and refrigerate them. Eat the leftovers within 3 to 5 days.
Soaking: Un-soaked beans take about 30 minutes longer to cook and require more liquid than soaked beans. You would need to adjust this recipe if you don’t pre-soak your beans. Do you have to pre-soak beans? Nope. In Mexico, people almost never do.
How to soak beans: Soak dried beans in cold water at least 5 hours or overnight. Discard the soaking liquid and use fresh cold water for cooking. To quickly pre-soak beans, cover the beans with water and bring to a boil on the stove for 2 minutes. Remove from the heat and let sit for 1 hour. Discard the soaking liquid and use fresh cold water for cooking.
Salting beans: You may have heard somewhere that the universe will implode if you add salt to beans before they are completely cooked. It’s…not true. If you read Kenji López-Alt’s information in his book, The Food Lab, he did some side-by-side testing and determined that salting beans before they are cooked is absolutely fine. In fact, doing so helps prevent the beans from exploding (see page 256 in his book).
This technique applies to (almost) any bean: Pinto beans, navy beans, Great Northern beans, red kidney beans, Cannellini beans, garbanzos, or black-eyed peas all can be cooked in a slow cooker. Depending on their size and age, they may need more or less time to get to the finish line.
Kidney beans: Kidney beans phytohemagglutinin, a type of lectin that is very toxic at high levels if not cooked correctly. You MUST pre-soak dried kidney beans and hold them at boiling point (212 degrees Fahrenheit) for at LEAST 10 minutes. This means you should never cook kidney beans in a slow cooker or pressure cooker; only a stove-top method will be safe.
Substituting canned beans: To substitute canned beans use three or four 15-ounce cans of black beans. Rinse and drain before adding to the crockpot.
Stove-top beans: It’s easy to cook beans on the stove, too.

In a Dutch oven or large saucepan, sauté bacon until it begins to crisp, about 5 minutes.
Add onions, bell pepper, cumin, and ½ teaspoon. salt. Continue to cook about 5 minutes longer, until vegetables are softened. Stir in garlic and oregano and cook until fragrant, about 30 seconds.
Add water, dried beans, bay leaves, and red pepper flakes. Bring to a boil, reduce heat, and simmer until beans are tender, about 2 hours.
Remove and discard bay leaves. Add cilantro and lime juice and season to taste with salt and pepper.

Recipes that go great with beans:

Slow Cooker Black Beans are great as a main dish (serve with Mexican rice or tortillas and toppings like salsa, sour cream, and guacamole) or on the side of your favorite Mexican entrees. Or, build a classic Chipotle Burrito bowl. Just scroll down for all my Chipotle Copycat recipes!

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Meggan Hill

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Meggan Hill is a classically-trained chef and professional writer. Her meticulously-tested recipes and detailed tutorials bring confidence and success to home cooks everywhere. Meggan has been featured on NPR, HuffPost, FoxNews, LA Times, and more.