Dried beans cost little and taste better than canned when cooked well. They take planning, and one bean takes care.
Key idea
Sort out stones and broken beans, rinse, and soak beans (overnight in plenty of water, or a quick soak: boil 2 minutes, then rest 1 hour). Drain, cover with fresh water, and simmer until tender. Lentils and split peas need no soaking. Red kidney beans contain a natural toxin destroyed by boiling: soak, drain, and boil hard in fresh water. Meal Prep follows FDA advice to boil for at least 30 minutes.
- Simmer gently so skins don't burst; stir rarely.
- Salt the cooking water to season the beans.
- Strong acids (tomato, vinegar) slow softening: add them after the beans are tender.
- Old beans may never soften; buy from a store that sells a lot.
Safety
- Don't cook raw kidney beans in a slow cooker without boiling them first; slow cookers may not get hot enough to destroy the toxin.
Why it works
Soaking lets water into the bean so it cooks faster and more evenly. The toxin in kidney beans (a lectin) is destroyed by full boiling but not by long cooking at lower temperatures.
Worked example: Yield
Dried beans roughly triple in volume when cooked. How many cups of cooked beans from 1½ cups dried?
- $1.5 \times 3 = 4.5$.
Answer: About 4½ cups.
Common mistake
Adding tomatoes at the start of cooking dried beans, so they stay hard for hours.
Practice at home
- Cook a pound of black beans from dry. Write the soaking and cooking times and the cooked weight.
In Meal Prep
- Black beans from dry
- Red kidney beans from dry: with the boiling step
- Dried vs. canned beans: cost and taste