18 Delicious Recipes with Dried Beans (2024)

FAQs

What can you do with dry beans? ›

All beans, canned or cooked from dried, are a great addition to a meal! Meatless option: Beans are a great vegetarian protein source. No-fuss recipe addition: Just toss cooked beans into your favorite soups, chilis, stews, salads, and tacos!

You can expect 1 cup of dried beans to yield about 3 cups cooked beans. One pound of dried beans (which is about 2 cups) will yield about 6 cups cooked beans. If a recipe calls for canned beans: 1 15-oz can of beans equals about 2 cups cooked beans.

America's favorite bean is pinto beans, according to the U.S. Dry Beans Council, often used to make refried beans. Navy beans, Great Northern beans, red kidney beans and black beans round out the rest of the top five.

But, according to a study from 1985, adding a little baking soda to the water while soaking dried beans decreases the amount of gas-causing oligosaccharides in cooked beans. (Yes, you can cook beans in the same water they were soaked in.

Modern cooking websites often say it doesn't matter. In a way, they're both right. Soaking beans can help improve the texture of the final product once the beans are cooked and reduce the gas produced when the food is being digested. But it isn't necessary to soak them.

Salt everything (almost always)

Seasoning is the cardinal rule of cooking anything, including beans. About a tablespoon of kosher salt per pound of beans is a good place to start if you're cooking them in water — remember as they simmer, the bean broth will concentrate and get saltier.

Beans, classified as legumes, can be dried or canned. When stored properly in food-grade bags, dried beans can last up to a year or more. While beans can technically last indefinitely as they are considered a shelf-stable food, the taste may not be the same.

Dried beans are slightly healthier than canned beans.

However, there are a few ways to decrease the sodium content of canned beans. Draining and rinsing canned beans removes a lot of the sodium, and you can also purchase low- or no-added sodium varieties of canned bean products.”

In fact, canned beans can have a metallic taste, or they can be too salty or mushy. Cooking with dried beans lets you season them to to your taste and control how long you cook them — making sure they're just as firm or as soft as you like.

chunky and pearly. King of all Chiccolandia are carnaroli rice and are clearly perfect for gourmet recipes and refined dishes. My pearly white coat has a particular resistance that allows me to keep cooking perfectly.

Which bean is a superfood? ›

According to healthline, garbanzo beans (chickpeas), lentils, peas, kidney beans, and black beans rank as the top five healthiest beans. These varieties tend to be the highest in fiber, folate and protein, and are the most effective at mitigating post-meal blood sugar spikes.

The color and chewiness of chickpeas can mimic that of chicken and turkey meat. Coarsely mashed, chickpeas can stand in for poultry in your favorite sandwich salads. Blended with breadcrumbs, they can be turned into mouthwatering burgers and kid-friendly nuggets.

The apple cider vinegar breaks down indigestible sugars to help digestion and also brightens the flavor of the beans without the need for excess salt.

Add ajwain or epazote – both of these spices will decrease gas production – I swear by the epazote! Just add about a tablespoon to a large pot of beans during the cooking process. You can also add ginger or cumin as these spices help with digestion.

A couple of commonly used over-the-counter enzymes have long been known to work. These include Lactaid and Beano, used by people who are lactose intolerant or who have gas or bloating after eating legumes, respectively. “Beano contains alpha galactosidase, an enzyme that our body does not produce,” Tuck said.

We could spend a day talking about all the reasons to love dried beans: They're more cost-effective than canned; they're tastier; there are tons of cool varieties to choose from. But the one big reason to not love them (at least not when you walk in the door on a Tuesday night): They take a fair amount of time to cook.

The idea behind soaking dried beans is that it makes the beans cook more quickly and evenly. It's also been posited that soaking beans breaks down some of their complex sugars, making them easier to digest. Because every stomach is different, we didn't test for digestibility.

After their soak, you can quickly cook them in a pressure cooker. Or you can simmer the beans in an open pot, or cook them in the microwave oven. All these methods produce a respectable and perfectly edible bean, but if you want the divine and unforgettable bean, try the overnight soak and slow-cook method.

Storage Conditions

Beans in normal polyethylene (food-grade) bags have a shelf life of 1 year or more. Like most stored foods, colder storage temperatures will increase shelf life. When packaged in #10 cans or Mylar-type bags, with the oxygen removed, they have a shelf life of 10 or more years.