Pinto Beans and Rice in a Crock Pot (Or on Stove Top)

This is an awesome bean recipe. You just throw them in a crockpot and forget them. They smell wonderful cooking and taste even better. I did add a little cornstarch and water to thicken (just personal preference). My husband took one bite and said I should make them when his mother comes to visit. High praise indeed! I will definitely make these over and over again. Thank you for the recipe.

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Note that dried beans cooked with tomatoes from the beginning will be tough - calcium or acid of any kind causes the outside of the bean to stay tough. The way to get around this is to do as some commenters have mentioned - precook the beans by themselves (overnight), then add the other recipe ingredients and cook for the duration mentioned in the recipe. Crockpots don't come to the same high heat as the stovetop. Unsoaked beans cooked only on low may never get tender.

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I was thrilled to find this recipe just after I received a new crockpot for Christmas! This tasted wonderful even after I overcooked it a tad (no need to thicken anything!) Absolutely delicious!!

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Very easy and tasty. I doubled the recipe and added the uncooked rice at the beginning with extra water. Had to cook on high for 6 hrs before beans and rice were done.

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Deeeeelicious! I used Pace picante sauce and used all the seasonings as per the recipe. I soaked the beans all afternoon and then cooked the beans on low overnight. We enjoyed them for lunch served over fresh cooked rice, topped with fresh salsa, grated cheddar cheese and minced onion. DH has requested that I make this meal once a week. So healthy and delicious, just loved it. Thanks for posting the recipe.

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This is a great recipe but cooking pinto beans in the slow cooker takes a long time. I doubled the recipe and it took about 12 hours to get the beans soft. I left out the picante sauce for most of the time so the beans did not get tough. Even then it took way too long. I also put the cooked rice in too soon so by the time the beans were soft the rice nearly dissolved. Even after all that, it was still a nice flavorful dish. Next time I will cook the beans ahead and add all the ingredients (except rice) for the last 3 hours and the rice right at the end just to get it hot.

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I know, we hate it when people tweak a recipe and then rate it; but sometimes it's necessary. I had no picante or salsa--so I used a Tbs of tomato paste & a Tbs of hot chili sauce. I used chicken stock rather then water--more flavor. I added 1/2 cup of dry basamati rice to the beans the last hour along with a can of stewed tomatoes. Nothing but enhancement to a wonderful recipe! Topped with a little cheddar cheese and sour cream, loved it!

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I have tried other bean recipes and they've been okay. And this is not perfect but I got great taste with that lovely creamy texture. I think 1/2 t. pepper is too much for me. I will take that down to 1/4 t. next time. I love cumin and think I will go up to a full tsp on that. And I used red beans because I didn't have any pintos. I probably dumped closer to 3/4 c picante sauce into the beans. When i read the recipe, a first thought was that I did not think unsoaked beans would cook in 3 hours, so unlike others I did not make the finish time critical and wasn't unhappy. My red beans were tender and yummy after about 5 hours. (they are a smaller bean than the pintos, I'd say.) I used 1 T of Penzey's medium chili powder. I often cut back on recipes that call for chili powder because it is pretty competent chili powder, but this was a whole pound of beans and I thought that would work out okay and it seemed to. I like bay leaves and kept all three. I think that gets you a more complex flavor and I am excited to see how they will taste tomorrow. I have some Penzey's Chipotle powder and I might try a bit of that because smoky heat sounds like it could be good here. Great recipe. Update: This really has become my go to recipe and I use it for all kinds of beans though if it's chick peas or white kidney beans, I don't use the chili powder or the Picante Sauce. I use the bay leaf "faithfully" and may just add thyme or something like that. Trying to add fiber to my diet and I often will cook these over night and then I have beans in my fridge. Tasty and versatile.

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I made this on the stove top and it is pretty good but didn't love it. Will keep but maybe add some onions or something next time. It needed a little sometime more to make it really great. Thanks for posting!

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Mine were not even close to being done in 3 hours and I even went ahead and soaked them for 12 hours prior to cooking - they took about 6 hours on high. I ended up doubling the amount of salsa and all of the spices. Good beans in the end!

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Very simple, very delicious. Kids aren't huge bean fans, but topped theirs with more salsa and some sour cream. They cleaned their bowls! Thank you so much!

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Great Recipe. Ive been making pinto beans for years and this simple recipe is very good. I added some pork shank because I like my beans that way.

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This is a wonderful recipe! I make extra and freeze it. We've used this as side dish, by itself and in burritos. LOVE this healthy tasty inexpensive recipe. I'll tweek the spices sometimes but find it tastes the best as the recipe is written.

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Great recipe! Very tasty. We made this in our Rival Crockpot and it took 4 hours on high. We would make again!

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This gets five stars for flavor but four for preparation. After 3 hours on high, my beans were crunchy (even though my crockpot is on the hot side), so I put them in a pot on the stove and boiled them another half hour and they still weren't fully cooked. However, the taste was great and I will make this again, either soaking the beans first or starting my cook time a couple hours earlier. I might also cut back the black pepper and up the rice. I didn't have any bay leaves but we didn't miss them.

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This is a great bean recipe! So easy, and has a great flavor that the whole family enjoyed. I did soak my beans over night before following the rest of the recipe. The only other change was I used instant brown rice that I threw in at the end to cook right in the crock pot with the beans. If I had the ingredients for corn bread, it would have been the perfect meal for a chilly fall day. Thanks Junebug!

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Okay, five stars on taste, but two stars on prep directions. This is definitely NOT going to be done in 3 hours in a crockpot. If you want it that fast, you'll have to boil it on the stovetop. This is an all day dish, even on high, in a crockpot. I presoaked my beans overnight and they absorbed a lot of water. After cooking six hours on high the nex day, they were still not done. Because I'd presoaked the beans, they didn't absorb most of the water I'd added to cook with, so I cooked the rice in the extra liquid for the last couple of hours. aste is great, texture is wonderful. Just be aware you'll have to play with the cook method and time to get it all done right.

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I added 2 C. of instant rice and omitted the fresh garlic, other than that I followed the recipe. This was good but as others mentioned the beans were a little tough. Perhaps adding the picante later in the cooking process would prevent that.

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This was very very good and easy to make thanks

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This smelled so good when I got home from work - like spicy sausage, athough there is no sausage in it! lol My pinto beans have been around for a while so I actually cooked them on high overnight, then on low for about 9 hours while I was at work. Followed the recipe excelt instead od picante I used extra hot hot sauce along with a little ketchup but it was not too spicy - I guess because it cooked for so gosh-darn long! Tried it on top of rice, mixed with rice, and used some of the beans to make burritos. Excellent and super easy, just what I like. Thank you for this great recipe!

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