Hoppin’ John in the Instant Pot brings good health and luck to your New Year’s Day dinner. Enjoy it over rice with a slice of cornbread.
There is quite a long tradition with this meal. The black-eyed peas are said to represent coins, the kale is green like money, and the cornbread is golden to represent gold. Eating this for New Year’s Day is supposed to bring good fortune for the New Year.
Well, it might not bring any more money into your purse, but it is very economical. It’s a break for all the heavy holiday foods. It’s also very good for you. Black-eyed peas are high in protein, iron, zinc, and potassium.
Ham Gives Flavor
This Hoppin’ John is flavored with both a hambone and ham base. If you don’t have a leftover hambone or are not planning on having ham for Christmas, you can buy hambones at the Honey Baked Ham Store. Their frozen hambones have a surprising amount of meat still on them. They’re great for this dish, split pea soup, etc.
Ham Base is traditionally used to add rich, smoky ham flavor to split pea or bean soup. We use it here to give even more flavor. Ham base is great to have on hand to give extra, bacony flavor without all the fat.
To Spice or Not to Spice
If you are a fan of spicy foods, I highly recommend adding a sliced Fresno or jalapeno pepper to the bell peppers while they are sauteing. If you want medium spice, you can remove the seeds and pith (wearing gloves of course) from the pepper before you add it to the pot. For true hot spicy lovers, keep the seeds and pith intact.
Mis’ Rubin’s Creole Magic is a wonderful spice blend that shouts out its Southern origin. It has a spicy kick to it. Again, if you don’t like spicy, you can omit it.
Instant Pot Makes it Easy
The great thing about the Instant Pot is that it cooks food easily and quickly. When I made Hoppin’ John on the stovetop, it took me almost three hours to do it. With the Instant Pot, it’s about a 10th of that time. No one wants to spend hours in the kitchen!
Traditional Lucky Sides
Hoppin’ John is traditionally served with rice for wealth, greens for cash, and cornbread for gold. All of those foods are healthy.
Rice
I like Hoppin’ John served separately over white rice. However, if you want to, you can cook the rice in the same pot. You would only need to add as much water in volume as rice.
Greens
Kale has anti-cancer properties. If you don’t like kale, you could substitute cabbage, Brussels sprouts, broccoli, or any of the other cruciferous vegetables. They are all very healthy and tasty. I’m an adventurous eater and I enjoy mine with some sauerkraut – it was green at one time, right?
Cruciferous vegetables contain glucosinolates, which are under research for their potential to affect cancer. Glucosinolates are hydrolyzed to isothiocyanates (ITCs) by myrosinase. ITCs are being investigated for their chemopreventive and chemotherapeutic effects.
~ Wikipedia – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cruciferous_vegetables
Cornbread
Cornbread, if you don’t put tons of butter on it, is also good for you. We like to put a can of creamed corn in our cornbread to represent gold nuggets.
Instant Pot Hoppin’ John Recipe
Email Me the Recipe
Hoppin’ John for the Instant Pot
Equipment
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Ingredients
Beans
- 1 teaspoon Ham base
- 2 cups Water, boiling
- 1 tablespoon olive oil
- 2 cups Bell pepper, chopped
- 1 cup Onion, chopped
- 1 Fresno chili, or jalapeno, sliced
- 1 Hambone
- 1 pound Blackeyed Peas
- 2 ½ cups water
- 1 teaspoon Mis Rubin's Creole Seasoning
Extras
- Scorpion Tabasco Sauce
- Sour Cream
Instructions
- Mise en place
- 1 teaspoon Ham base, 2 cups WaterMix the 2 cups of boiling water with the *ham base and set it aside.
- 1 tablespoon olive oil, 2 cups Bell pepper, 1 cup Onion, 1 Fresno chiliIf you have a removable inner pot that can go on the stovetop, heat it on the stovetop; otherwise, put your Instant Pot on Saute mode. Put the olive oil in the pot and add the onions. Saute the onions until they are translucent, then add the bell peppers. If you are using it, add the sliced chili pepper and saute it.
- Put the inner pot back in the Instant Pot, or cancel Saute and turn the Instant Pot off.
- 1 HamboneAdd the ham bone.
- 1 pound Blackeyed PeasAdd the blackeyed peas
- Add the ham broth you made earlier.
- 2 1/2 cups waterAdd the remaining water. You should have a little over 1 quart of liquid in the pot.
- 1 teaspoon Mis Rubin's Creole SeasoningAdd the Mis' Rubins' Creole Magic and stir.
- Cover the Instant Pot and set it on high for 10 min. When the Instant Pot has finished cooking, use Natural Release.
- Scorpion Tabasco Sauce, Sour CreamServe the Hoppin' John over cooked, hot white rice. Serve with additional hot sauce and sour cream.
Video
Notes
Nutrition
Video Transcript
Instant Pot Hoppin’ John video transcript
Good afternoon and welcome to the Good Plate’s Kitchen.
Today, we’re making something called Hoppin’
John, which is a traditional New Year’s Day dish,
and it is to celebrate and bring about good fortune.
It comes from the South, it’s wonderful.
Anyway, here we have blackeyed peas,
and this is actually a hambone from Honeybaked Ham Store.
You can buy those and they sell them just
frozen, and they have plenty of meat on them.
You can make Split Peas soup, you can make Hoppin’ John, you can make, you know,
whatever you want, Ham soup, they’re just great.
We also have, this is from the Better than Bullion Folks.
This is called ham base, and it gives the, whatever liquid you’re using,
whatever, a little bit of extra flavor, so we’re using now.
And then we have usual suspects, we have onion,
and bell peppers.
We have a little surprise guest here,
this is frozen, red jalapeno
that I froze the summer,
and this is great because if you have a bunch
of these peppers and you wanna save them,
you can flash freeze them and use them later and they’re just wonderful.
And then for a seasoning, we also have Mis’ Ruben’s Creole Magic,
you may have heard me talking about Mis’ Ruben’s Black Magic
that I use for steak and grilling, and it’s a wonderful product.
And we’re gonna be doing this in the Instant Pot.
This Instant Pot is the kind that the inner pot comes up,
and it could go on the stove top.
Now, if your Instant Pot does not do that, you would just use a saute function.
As we all know, the Instant Pot requires a liquid,
so in this case, we’re gonna be adding a quart of liquid,
and the liquid we’re gonna be adding is the ham base.
So, ham base, the base is usually called
for a teaspoon of base with one cup of water, but we
don’t need that much, so I’m gonna
be doing a fan base. In this, okay, now.
It’s best to add boiling water to this to
make sure that it completely dissolves.
So, I’m gonna add two cups right here,
and then I’m gonna stir it.
If you don’t have one of these little mini whisks, I highly recommend getting them.
They’re great for little jobs like this.
And you just go like this.
You don’t need a big whisk, just a little one will do.
That’s good.
Okay, so I’ve sauteed up some of those vegetables.
This is the onion and pepper.
I’m going to now add these.
Now, you know that the seeds, and actually what holds the seeds in,
is what’s actually hot, not so much the skin.
The seeds get hot because of that ribbing.
Now, if you don’t want this to be really, really hot,
A, you can not put this kind of spice in here at all, or
you can remove the seeds, but I like my things from hot.
So, I’m just gonna stick them in there.
And now, I’m gonna add the ham bone.
There it goes into the pot.
Okay, now that the ham is in there, it’s time to add the beans.
Just put them in the pot like that.
There we go. There we go.
There everybody’s in there.
Even that little last guy.
There we go. There you go.
And now, they’re in there nicely. And now we’re gonna
add the two cups of the ham base that we made earlier.
I’m gonna give it one final stir.
This smells amazing.
Okay, I’m gonna add that.
And I’m gonna add another two cups,
because we actually want a quart of water
that I’m gonna equate actually for this particular application.
I’m gonna make it a just a little over, just a little over two cups.
So, we have about two and a third two and a half cups.
of just plain water.
And add that. And I’m going to add
some of the Mis’ Ruben’s Creole Magic.
It’s
about a teaspoon, all right?
And I’m gonna put this in the inner machine.
And I’m gonna set it for about 10 minutes, okay?
Then let it do a slow release,
and then I’ll check it and make sure that everything’s okay.
And I’ll be back.
Welcome back. The Hoppin’
John is done. I have some
rice. And I’ll put some
Hoppin’ John on that. (gentle
music) If you’d like yours
hot, put some of that.
I’m going to put the new Tabasco Scorpion sauce on it.
(gentle music) That’s enough.
I have to taste it to be sure it’s good.
Taste it, it’s fine.
It’s still really hot.
That is so good.
A wonderful thing to bring in the New Year. Happy New Year.
If you’re watching this at New Years, they’re
not have a prosperous, wonderful year anyway.
And I’ll see you next time on the good plate.
Don’t forget to subscribe.
Thanks for watching.
