Context: For most of my life, I refused to eat beans. Once, when my mother labored over her legendary bean soup for hours, I made a grilled cheese sandwich instead. The horror. These days I’m cooking dried beans rather than buying canned. Things change. It sounds intimidating, but anyone can do this…and it’s worth the effort.
Why would you want to cook your own beans? 1) It’s really cheap. A can of beans typically costs $1.50 and has about a cup and half of beans. A one pound bag of dried beans (available at any grocery) costs the same, but yields SIX cups of cooked beans. 2) You get bean stock out of the deal. If you save the cooking liquid from the beans, you have an amazing stock that is freezable. 3) It involves less packaging and waste. 4. It sounds impressive and hard when it’s actually easy.
Note that most cookbooks don’t tell you how to cook dried beans unless it’s inside a recipe (like a soup). You might have to consult a vegetarian cookbook that covers basics. My two favorites, Mark Bittman’s How to Cook Everything Vegetarian and Deborah Madison’s Vegetarian Suppers both have recipes/directions. I consult both because Bittman gives clearer cooking directions, but Madison’s includes spices in the recipe to make the stock tastier.
You can freeze all the beans when you’re done if you’re not using them, which makes it as convenient as having canned beans in the pantry. Freeze the bean stock in one- or two-cup plastic containers. Use it instead of water in recipes like chili or soups for a richer flavor and substitute it for beef stock.
Cooking dried beans
- Rinse one cup of dried beans. If your pot is big enough (mine is not), double it and use the whole bag of dried beans.
- Put the beans in a pot, cover with water.
- Bring to a boil and let boil for several minutes. Turn off the burner.
- Let soak with a cover on the pot for one hour.
- Drain and rinse the beans again. Put them back into the pot, and cover with six cups of fresh water.
- Bring the water and beans to a boil. Let the pot boil for ten minutes.
- Add any aromatics (Deborah Madison recommends a small onion cut into quarters, a couple bay leaves, some parsley, a sliced garlic clove, and a teaspoon of olive oil).
- Lower the heat and cook for another hour.
- Add a couple teaspoons of salt and continue cooking until the beans are tender. Remove the onion, bay leaves, etc. Let cool. Enjoy!
Joy of Cooking did cover cooking dried beans. My copy from 1975 contained this delightful little nugget: “Dried peas and beans, being rather on the dull side, respond readily–like a good many dull people–to the right contacts.”
For a really quick and easy way to enjoy the beans you just cooked, throw a cup in a pan with a tablespoon or more of olive oil and a teaspoon or more of sage and thyme. After a few minutes of cooking over medium heat, add some salt and pepper. Good enough to eat with a spoon.
Posted by Becky on March 22, 2010 at 10:24 pm
I’ve never thought to make bean stock! I make veggie stock from all my veggie peelings, but bean stock is a fantastic idea.
When you freeze the beans, do you leave any of the stock in with them? Do the beans get mushy when thawed? How long would they keep in the fridge? So many questions!!
Thanks for posting!
Becky
Posted by unlikelyvegetarian on March 23, 2010 at 8:25 am
Glad you like the idea! I love cooking with it – especially chili and beans with greens. The greens becomes really silky and flavorful. I don’t leave any stock in the beans when I freeze them. I think that might make them mushy, but I haven’t tried it. They thaw really well. I don’t think they’ll keep in the fridge very long – a couple days maybe. Let me know how it goes!
Posted by Sarah on March 23, 2010 at 11:36 am
I JUST soaked beans last night and was wondering what to do with them…
Posted by Becky on March 24, 2010 at 4:29 pm
Dried black beans are on my grocery list. I’m using my last can tonight! I think I’ll try the soak and cook over the weekend, and will definitely use the bean stock for soups. While I love my vegetable stock, it seems like veggie overkill to use it in a veg soup
I’ve made a beans and greens recipe that I got from a friend of mine, but would be very interested in hearing your recipe as well.
Posted by Easy Greens with Beans « Unlikely Vegetarian on March 29, 2010 at 8:55 pm
[...] olive oil 1 small onion (chopped) 1 garlic clove (minced) 1 lb greens 1 1/2 cups cooked beans 1 cup bean broth salt and pepper to [...]
Posted by Maria on March 30, 2010 at 11:32 am
Beth!
Hey, how did I not know about your amazing blog? I LOVE it and thank you so much for sharing my Web site with your readers!! You are amazing and beautiful and mult-talented!!
Just one more reason to cook dry beans is that, what do you know, there are BPAs now found in cans so eating out of a can is just not a good idea if you can avoid it. I was so sad to hear this b/c I do like use canned, organic tomatoes in my soups that are not raw-food based.
xoxo
Maria
Posted by unlikelyvegetarian on March 30, 2010 at 5:30 pm
Maria – great to hear from you! Thanks for the info on the cans. I didn’t know that!
Posted by Blake on April 12, 2010 at 11:24 am
Another great technique is to do them in the oven. Because you can turn an oven to hotter than 212 degrees–the boiling point of water, and therefore as hot as things will ever get on the stovetop–you can cook them quickly. Starting with unsoaked dried beans and they can be ready in 90 minutes. Check out this technique…changed my life. No more planning so far in advance for beans! 90-Minute, No-Soak Beans.
Posted by Freezer to Table: Easy-to-Freeze Vegetarian Meals « Unlikely Vegetarian on September 13, 2010 at 9:58 pm
[...] freezer. This almost makes up for the lost space because I have more food to store lately. Cooking beans and saving the liquid as bean broth takes up a surprising amount of space. Especially when you add [...]