Instant Pot Hoppin' John Recipe - Good Luck in the New Year Meal! (2024)

Here’s the best Instant Pot Hoppin John recipe that’s made in just 30 minutes using dried black eyed peas! You’ll love this traditional New Years recipe.

Either way this easy Hoppin John recipe is super yummy and a great way to use leftover ham like we did here.

I used dry black eyed peas with NO soaking required when using your pressure cooker but if you’d like to use frozen that is an option too.

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If you are new to pressure cooking we have a lot of easy one pot meal recipes for you here. To begin with let’s start with a few basic tips:

• Make sure to Bookmark our InstaPot recipes page. We add new ones each week!
• Then PRINT this —–> Instant Pot cooking times cheat sheet that will help you understand how long meat, vegetables and beans take to cook in your pressure cooker.
  • This is a great InstaPot cookbook and a set of wooden utensils are great to grab too.
  • I HIGHLY recommend you buy this non stick pot.
    • You should still deglaze pressure cooker after sautéing but it won’t have as many issues with this better liner.

For reference, this is the pressure cooker I have (a 6 quart) and use for all recipe creations.

Instant Pot Hoppin John

I don’t like canned because they can get quite mushy in the Instant Pot so I’d opt for frozen or dried, dried is best.

This is what ours looked like when it was done….and in just 30 minutes! If you haven’t tried this fun comfort food before I suggest that you do.

It might become a new year tradition for your family too.

What is Hoppin John anyway?? Well I have to be honest, I had no idea until a friend of mine said she was making it for dinner the other night.

I am a sucker for recipes with fun names so I asked her about it and she said it was a popular southern dish made for New Years but she loved it so much they made it year round.

So…..I did a little research about where the name came from and it’s origination and this is what I found.

Why is it called Hoppin John

• Tradition began in the Southern United States
• Eating Hoppin’ John onNew Year’s Dayis thought to bring a prosperous year filled with luck.

Serving leafy green vegetables (we used kale) served along with this dish (or inside like I did) are supposed to add wealth since it’s the color of money!

• Another traditional side served with Hoppin John is cornbread, you can make our pressure cooker cornbread recipe to serve with it.
• On the day after New Year’s Day leftovers are usually called Skippin’ Jenny bringing a hope for an even better chance of prosperity in the New Year.

Doesn’t this look yummy ??

Topped with smoked gouda it really was a hit with all 5 of us.

This is what you’ll need to make this Instant Pot Hoppin John recipe

1. Bag of black eyed peas – can use frozen or canned but time will be different than that in the recipe card below
2. Ham – diced leftover ham is what we used, can use a ham hock
3. Can of diced tomatoes
4. Butter
5. Chicken broth
6. Onion and celery is optional
7. Rice – make separately, here’s how to make perfect Instant Pot white rice
8. Smoked gouda
9. Spices

AdditionalInstant Pot Hoppin John ingredients or substitutions

• Add diced celery
• Add diced bell peppers

4 cups water instead of chicken broth

Omit the smoked gouda cheese on top, or use a different type but this is our favorite

• Don’t the kale I added inside and/or serve easy collard greens on the side
• You could use frozen black eyed peas vs. dried but that will alter the cook time. 30 minutes on high pressure vs 12 would be the difference.

Use a ham hock instead of diced ham like we did, and some like adding bay leaves

Leftovers are great too, just make a fresh pot of rice and serve on top with cheese and you’ve got a second meal!

Watch our video to see how easy it is to make this traditional New Years recipe

Can you use canned and pre cooked black eyed peas instead of dry?

• You could but it will be mushier. See timing difference in step 4 if you want to do it this way.

Timing is 12 minutes instead with a quick release. I’m telling you that to pressure cook dry beans is super easy. I would highly recommend this method.

After you’d made this here are a few other Instant Pot dinner recipes you’ll enjoy

• Instant Pot red beans and rice
• HealthyInstant Pot pinto bean soup

Pressure cooker chili with dry beans is super easy to throw together from scratch.

What do you eat with Hoppin’ John?

There are many variations to traditional Hoppin’ John. Some cook black-eyed peas and rice in one pot. We omitted the rice and added diced tomatoes instead.

• Others insist on simmering ingredients separately. We’re all about one pot meals though so that’s not our style. Some also like to add the collard greens to the pot, that isn’t my favorite veggie so I opted for kale.

The favorite traditional way to eat a Hoppin’ John meal is with collard greens and corn bread.

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***** If you LOVED this recipe give it 5 Stars below and let everyone know what you thought about it. 😉

See Also

Homemade Root Beer Recipe

Here is the printable recipe below, good luck!