I know many of you Budget Byters already cook your own beans but I wanted to make this post for all of the newbies out there. Beans are one of the most economical and nutritious foods available so I try to use them in recipes as often as possible. Canned beans are quick and convenient but with a little planning ahead, dry beans can be just as easy and HALF the cost of canned.
Many people (including myself) shy away from cooking dry beans because it seems like such a daunting chore with the overnight soaking and hours of cooking. What I’ve discovered is that cooking beans can be as easy as “setting it and forgetting it” and, thanks to Kalyn’s recent post, I now know that presoaking is not even necessary! If you cook a large batch, the beans can be divided up into two cup containers, frozen and then pulled out of the freezer as needed. Taking frozen beans out of the freezer is just as convenient as opening up a can!
Last night, I cooked up a batch of black beans for today’s soup. The final cost for one can equivalent of dry beans was $0.40 cents. Compare that to a store bought can which usually runs me about $0.79 and I’ve cut the cost in half. Plus, I’ve eliminated salt, preservatives and a lot of wasted packaging. Have I convinced you yet?
*NOTE* This method is not advised for kidney beans or beans in the kidney bean family (like white kidney beans or cannellini) because they contain a naturally occurring substance called Phytohaemagglutnin, which can be toxic to humans and cause severe GI distress. The beans must be cooked in a full boil for at least ten minutes to break down this substance, and most slow cookers do not achieve this level of heat.
How to Kick the Can (of beans)
Here is how it’s done:
STEP 1: Pour one pound (or two for an extra large batch) of beans out onto a baking sheet and sort through to remove any stones or debris. Transfer the beans to a colander to rinse off any dust.
STEP 2: Place the cleaned and sorted beans in a slow cooker and add 6 cups of water for every pound of beans. Put the lid on, set the cooker to HIGH and let her go. Beans that have not been presoaked will take 4-6 hours to cook on HIGH.
STEP 3: Once the beans are tender, pour them into a colander and give them a quick rinse. Divide the beans into containers (re-sealable or zip top freezer bags), label, date and freeze until ready to use! Easy as that.
One pound of dry beans will yield about 6 cups of cooked beans, equal to about 3 cans.
The hands-on time to make these beans was only about 15 minutes. Once they were cleaned and sorted, they go straight into the pot and then I didn’t have to do ANYTHING until I checked them four hours later. Then it’s just a quick drain, rinse and pack into containers.
You can cook beans on the stove top if you don’t have a slow cooker although it takes more attention and care. Just place them in a large pot with a lid (same water/bean ratio), bring it up to a boil then reduce the heat to low and let it simmer until tender. Do not let the beans boil heavily or else the delicate skins will disintegrate and you’ll be left with nothing but bean fragments.
If you have any tips, tricks or notable experiences cooking dry beans, share them in the comments section below!
…the black bean soup recipe should be posted later tonight ;)
An update on my two day bean-cooking quandary. I found another article that suggested an 1/8 of a teaspoon of baking soda if the water is heavily calcified. I tried that and it worked perfectly.
Hello!
I’ve been lurking around on and off for a while. I love your blog’s concept :)
I’ll be soon moving out of my parents’ house for the first time and am having an increased awareness of how much food costs! I’ve always been a cook, but not necessarily money conscious. So, this helps! Thanks for the great ideas and tips
All I would add is, “Don’t throw out that pot likker!” I was skeptical but finally started saving the water I cooked beans in and used it to make soup later. Amazing how much flavor it added. The only problem I have with cooking beans in my crockpot is I often cook them overnight and wake up with a rumbling stomach from the yummy smells!
Cooking my own beans is one of the last frontiers of diy home cooking for me…but for some reason I’ve had a hard time getting on to it and have only done it a couple of times. Reading this entry reminded me that I really need to get on to this. Good suggestion on the freezing! After the holidays I’m definitely going to make a big batch.
My boyfriend and I are vegetarians on a budget, and dried beans are one of our go-to foods. We usually cook up a pound or two of beans each week. We’ll measure out what we’ll be using for recipes that week and put them in the fridge, and freeze the rest in their cooking liquid in two cup containers to use later. By changing up the type of beans we cook each week, we eventually end up with a pretty well stocked freezer so we can easily make things like three-bean loaf and different chilies.
Another of the many great things about beans is that different types can often be interchanged in recipes based on what you have on hand. You obviously wouldn’t want to make black bean soup with kidney beans or hummus with pintos (because then it’s just bean dip!), but there are a lot of cases where swapping out one bean for another will not hurt your recipe at all. Flexibility is one of the keys to keeping it cooking costs down and waste to a minimum, after all.
Thanks so much for this. I have been too lazy to cook my own beans, even though I love black beans so I buy a bunch of the canned ones – but love that I can make them in the slow cooker and control the sodium!
Thanks for this. I really didn’t know that you could pre-cook your beans and then freeze them. I love this idea. I thinks it’s healthier too….I keep reading about health risks from eating food from cans that are lined with a plastic liner…and I noticed this liner in some of my cans of beans. So not only is it cheaper but it might be better for you too.
Just one more reason to love (LOVE!) my slow cooker!
Isn’t it great how easy it is to cook dried beans in the crockpot. They pretty much cook themselves.
Bethany is right about the red kidney beans. They should be soaked and then parboiled for 10 minutes (although the sources I read said there hasn’t been as much of an issue with this in the United States as in other countries.) I edited my post to add that information after a reader alerted me about it.
I’ve read that older slow cookers ran hotter than newer ones, so they would often boil their contents. My guess is that this is why the United States had less of an issue with kidney beans, and currently it seems that most people just use canned beans.
Beth, would you please put a note in the main body of this post with the kidney bean rules? I worry that someone will miss the comments section and get sick.
Thanks! I thought I had! It must be a different recipe that I added the note. I’ll do that ASAP.
Soaking beans usually eliminates the gassy after effects…
Be careful if you use kidney/red beans. Those require parboiling to kill toxins in them as part of the long soak. Otherwise you’ll have serious digestive upset and certain people can get quite ill.
Thanks for the tips, Beth. Now I can’t wait for the black bean soup recipe. One question I had was what do I do when a recipe calls for the canned beans + liquid? That’s always been my hesitation about cooking my own beans
I use dried beans almost exclusively – the turning point for me was the 90 minute no-soak recipe (I use this http://thepauperedchef.com/2009/06/90-minute-no-soak-beans.html ) Over the course of a day – once every 6-8 weeks, I’ll make 3-4 kinds of beans over the weekend (if I had more than 2 good heavy pots this would be even faster), turn them into individual servings and freeze. They’re ready for soup, main dishes, whatever.
One thing I had always been told was to freeze beans with enough of the cooking liquid to cover them so they don’t dry out. Since I use mine pretty quickly, I don’t know that it makes a big difference though.
Wow! Excellent advice, thanks! I can’t imagine cooking for TWO DAYS…. whew.
The only thing I want to be sure people are aware of is that if you have water with a lot of calcium in it (like in the Chicago suburbs), you may want to filter your water first or buy bottled water for cooking beans.
I recently moved to the midwest and as I was broke after the move, the first thing I cooked was a pot of beans. I put in the crockpot as I always do and never got them as soft as I wanted them even after cooking them for two days. I found from an article on NPR that calcium inhibits the beans from getting soft. The article can be found here: http://www.npr.org/2010/11/18/131418960/burned-garlic-and-other-kitchen-quandaries-solved
I am going to try filtered water on the next pot so hopefully the beans will soften up like I like them. I just can’t bring myself to spend the money on canned beans.
wow….I wonder if this was my problem..twice…I thought maybe the beans were old…but it happened again. I never have the trouble cooking them on stove top though.
WOW..I wonder if this is my problem. I have tried twice in the crockpot. I don’t have trouble on the stove though…