The new year is near, so it's time to eat your peas! Hoppin' John, the traditional black-eyed pea dish, will bring good luck in the coming year, and this healthy recipe allows you to stick to your health goals while courting fortune.
It's a quick and easy version that uses the Instant Pot so that you can enjoy the hearty, protein-rich peas and their smoky seasonings in less than 30 minutes.
Ladled onto a mound of whole-grain brown rice, this traditional one-pot wonder is nourishing and delicious. Guaranteed to help you start the year right!
Ingredients
Black-eyed Peas: The quickest hoppin' John is made with canned or frozen peas. You can use soaked or dried peas, but the dish will take longer. Please look at the full recipe for guidance.
Rice: Please use brown rice for the sake of all the fiber and minerals found in whole grains. I love the convenience of frozen brown rice, but it's easy to cook a pot from scratch, although brown takes longer than white to get soft.
Bacon: Cut the bacon crosswise into small rectangles, sometimes called lardons. Choose a good-quality, flavorful bacon. It adds big taste to the peas. Ham is also delicious and contains less fat.
Red Pepper Flakes: Rather than a traditional Cajun seasoning, I like to combine these with other dry spices to add heat and give the hoppin' John a traditional Creole taste.
Many Cajun seasonings pack a salty wallop!
Broth: Choose vegetable or chicken broth rather than beef, which tastes wrong in this dish. You could also simply use water.
How to Prepare
Set the Instant Pot for Saute, medium heat, and cook the raw bacon pieces.
Remove the crisp bacon bits and let them drain on paper towels.
Save two Tablespoons of the fat rendered as the bacon bits cook.
Use a paper towel to wipe off the excess bacon fat.
Pour the reserved bacon fat into the Instant Pot.
Cook onion in the bacon fat just until soft.
Add the celery and green pepper to the onion and cook until the onion is translucent.
Add the garlic, bay leaf, and other dry spices, and stir to warm them up.
Return the cooked bacon bits to the pot.
Pour the broth over the cooked veggies and bacon and scrape up crusty bits on the bottom of the pot.
Serve hot cornbread with your hoppin' John to sop up the juices. If gluten is a concern, look for a gluten-free mix. King Arthur, Bob's Red Mill, and Stonewall Kitchen (affiliate links) all offer gluten-free cornbread mixes.
Storage
❄️Hoppin' John will keep for about three days in an airtight container in the fridge. Please refrigerate leftovers within two hours or keep the peas warm for up to four hours.
♨️Reheat in the microwave or on the stovetop. The peas need to reach an internal temperature of 165 F. An (affiliate link) instant-read thermometer can give peace of mind.
🧊For longer storage, place the pea stew in the freezer for up to three months.
These (affiliate link) soup containers are handy when freezing soft foods. Once the hoppin' John is frozen solid, pop it out of the container like an ice cube and put it in a zip bag so it's easy to thaw when you want to eat it.
Cooking Tips
Keep in mind that frozen or canned black-eyed peas are pre-cooked and will become mushy if heated at high pressure in the (affiliate link) Instant Pot for too long.
For peas soaked overnight, cook the hoppin' John at pressure for five minutes.
Dried peas need 18 minutes at pressure to soften up.
Cooking your peas longer may result in mushier vegetables, too.
Is hoppin' John healthy?
The original recipe for this dish with white rice and ham hocks or fatback is not particularly healthy, although black-eyed peas are fundamentally good for the body.
- This revision uses whole-grain brown rice and just a few pieces of bacon or ham, so much of the unhealthy saturated fat is removed from the recipe.
- 🧂This verison is also lower in sodium than many others. To keep the salt to a minimum, look for "no salt added" peas whether they are canned or frozen. Of course, dried peas will not have sodium.
- 💧Choose water rather than broth to further reduce the salt.
On a further health note, the Advisory Committee for soon-to-be-released 2025-2030 Dietary Guidelines for Americans recommends eating more legumes/beans their high nutritional value. Of course, black-eyed peas fall into this category.
Beans offer fiber, protein, minerals, and vitamins, such as folate, that promote heart and reproductive health. Beans also benefit the gut and overall wellness. Some nutrition experts recommend eating half a cup per day.
Recipe Variations
🐽Ham vs bacon: Ham is leaner and simplifies the recipe prep. You may enjoy that ham stays firmer than bacon. Add the chopped, precooked ham after the spices and before adding the broth.
When using ham, start the hoppin' John by sauteing the onion in olive oil instead of bacon fat. This is a health bonus since olive oil contains healthy monounsaturated fats, and the dish will have less saturated fat.
🍅Tomatoes: Some people add a can of chopped tomatoes when adding the broth.
💧Water vs broth: You can totally use water instead of broth if you don't have broth on hand. This is especially true if you add a can of tomatoes.
Feel free to experiment with this forgiving, stewy dish. At the beginning of the recipe, I often add a chopped carrot to the celery and pepper.
FAQ
The origins of hoppin' John are Southern, and some cooks used fatback, which is similar to bacon. Sometimes, ham hocks or sausage were added to the dish.
You don't have to use bacon but want to add a smokey, cured flavor. You could do that with ham. (See variations, above.) Or, use liquid smoke and keep the dish vegan.
🌽Just be sure to serve some cornbread on the side.
If you use the Instant Pot, this works fine. When you start from dried, the dish will take about 18 minutes at pressure.
Hearty Dishes You Might Like
This healthy Mushroom Barley Soup is another Instant Pot favorite, and it's a hearty, filling meal in a bowl. It's basically vegan and loaded with delicious nutrition!
Posole (or pozole) is another favorite New Year's dish. My satisfying slow-cooker recipe is bursting with whole-grain hominy corn, chiles, and pork. You'll love the Mexican flavors!
Another popular one-pot dish is Jambalaya with Andouille Chicken Sausage. It's got all the delicious rice and shrimp you love in this Cajun Fat Tuesday specialty with less fat and more nutritional goodies!
Instant Pot Hoppin' John
Equipment
- 2 cutting boards
- Scale optional
Ingredients
- 3 slices bacon, chopped
- 1 cup onion, chopped
- ½ cup celery, diced
- ½ cup green pepper, chopped
- 1 teaspoon garlic granules
- 1 teaspoon thyme
- ½ teaspoon red pepper flakes, more if you like it hot!
- ¼ teaspoon black pepper
- 1 bay leaf
- 2 cups broth, chicken or vegetable
- 2 15 ounce cans black-eyed peas, or use 2 bags of frozen peas
- ¼ teaspoon salt, Kosher. Use less if you add broth instead of water.
- 1 10 ounce brown rice package, frozen
Instructions
- Wash hands thoroughly for 20 seconds, lathering with soap and rinsing with warm water.
- Set the Instant Pot to Saute, medium heat, and cook the chopped bacon. Remove the crisped pieces to paper towels to drain and pour the fat into a small bowl. Reserve two Tablespoons and discard any that is left over.Carefully wipe the grease residue out of the Instant Pot. It will be hot, and browned bits will remain on the surface.
- Set the Instant Pot for 10 minutes on Saute, medium heat. Add the the reserved bacon fat, and cook the onion in the fat until softened, two to three minutes.
- Add the celery and green pepper to the Pot and cook until the onion is translucent and the vegetables are soft, about five minutes more.
- Add the dry spices: garlic granules, thyme, red pepper flakes, black pepper, and bay leaf and stir to warm the spices for about a minute.
- Return the bacon bits to the pan. Add the broth and water and stir up any browned bits that are stuck to the bottom.
- Time to add the peas! Stir them into the bacon-vegetable-broth mixture.Cook at pressure for 2 minutes.
- Serve the black-eyed peas over rice with cornbread on the side. Spoon some hot rice into the bottom of a bowl or generous cup. Ladle the peas over the rice.
Notes
Nutrition
Copyright © 2024 Jani H. Leuschel
Jani H. Leuschel
Yes! I love to freeze this recipe. It tastes great the second time around, but it does need a little more broth sometimes after freezing. 😊
Ruth Hall
I made this recipe from an earlier blog of yours—it was delicious with ham and cornbread as you suggested! I had some leftover which I froze—it retained the great flavor and was just as good a second time!