The beige background of the conventional pinto bean (Phaseolus vulgaris L.) seed coat turns brown over time due to oxidation of its proanthocyanidins. Pinto beans that have slow‐darkening (SD) or non‐darkening (ND) seed coats are more desired in the market because they are perceived to be fresh, high‐quality beans. However, correlations between the ND seed coat trait and agronomic performance have not been investigated. Therefore, the objectives of this study were to estimate variance components and broad‐sense heritabilities of agronomic and seed coat traits in pinto beans, and to determine if correlations exist between the ND seed coat trait and agronomic, sensory, and cooking traits in recombinant inbred lines, developed from crosses between ND pinto bean breeding lines, incorporating the ND gene from ‘Wit‐rood boontje’, with two regular‐darkening (RD) pinto bean varieties (‘Stampede’ in Population 1 and ‘La Paz’ in Population 2), grown in four different environments of southwest Ontario in 2016. Analysis of variance indicated significant differences between the RD and ND genotypes for grain yield, 100‐seed weight, hydration capacity, and the seed coat color parameters in both populations. The color parameter L*, which represents the whiteness of the seed coat, was selected as the main discriminative parameter between the RD and ND seed coat phenotypes. There was a weak positive genetic correlation between the ND trait and days to maturity in Population 1 (rg = .11). The ND trait showed weak negative genetic correlations with grain yield (rg = −.23 in Population 1 and rg = −.13 in Population 2). Moderately weak positive genetic correlations were found between the ND trait and hydration capacity in Population 1 (rg = .44) and Population 2 (rg = .40). The ND pinto beans were perceived as sweeter and had softer and smoother textures and shorter cooking times compared with the RD pinto beans.