There does seem to be a fair amount of snickering involved when beans are about to be discussed. Childhood rhymes and a poverty class status have wrongfully doomed the dried bean to the corner of the room, under-appreciated by the masses and championed by the few. I have always loved beans of all types, but really became what is affectionately known as a “bean freak” about beans about 2 years ago. Coincidentally, that is also how long it has been since I have purchased a can of beans. Soaking a bean, cooking it down, and enjoying it’s compact nutrition as a part of your weekly kitchen duties is really a life changing thing.
Rarely now does a week go by without a half pound of some kind of bean being made into something around my house, and if you think that it has to take hours to accomplish this beany perfection, read on.
Cranberry beans, soaking.
What cemented my conversion to bean freak was actually the man who coined the phrase “bean freak”: Steve Sando. In 2009, I ordered my first shipment of his Rancho Gordo beans and was forever changed in my culinary views of beans. Rancho Gordo beans are more expensive, but are shipped with a flat rate and are all heirloom varieties native to the Americas. They may not really be “local”, but I’ve yet to find anything that makes me more excited than ripping open a new package of Rio Zape or Tepary Beans, or the even more unusual Christmas Limas that taste like chestnuts and are as big as your thumb.
After my first shipment of luxury beans, I became obsessive about soaking and boiling in an open kettle for several hours at the barest simmer, as Steve personally recommended in his book. I began daydreaming of Bram bean pots (and they are amazingly lovely, I still daydream of them!), and made all kinds of bean salads and main dishes, branching out from the classic frijoles I could make in my sleep.
Christmas Limas.
I grew from freak to snob when I witnessed my Mom using her pressure pot to get her pintos done in short order when we were cooking for a crowd. It wasn’t long after that I needed some beans in rather short order, and I didn’t plan ahead for soaking them. My snobbery quickly cured, into the pressure pot they went. Less than a half hour later, I had perfectly cooked beans. To be honest, I don’t usually cook my more expensive heirloom beans this way, but for a quick meal of bulk bin beans, I felt empowered at the mere thought of dry pantry proteins hitting the table in record times.
All dried beans cook at different rates. It depends on the variety and freshness of the bean (which you can gauge somewhat by appearances, non-wrinkled, fat beans are best). Pinto beans can generally cook in an hour or two on the stove after an overnight of soaking, but others can really try your patience. Garbanzo beans for instance are ridiculously hard and take forever to cook in an open pot – and then usually they turn out starchy, with an uncooked flavor instead of the creamy-middled, mild flavored garbanzo that comes from a can. Pressure cooking garbanzos is now my favorite way to ensure creamy beans, and if they still aren’t quite done, adding a teaspoon of baking soda to the pot and keeping the lid on for 10 more minutes off the heat really works wonders.
It’s been more than a year since I’ve bought a can of garbanzo beans, which was the most difficult bean for me to master, and it feels really good to finally be able to make soups and hummus with creamy smooth beans at a fraction of the cost of their canned counterparts. (If you try making them in a pressure pot, bring the half pound of unsoaked beans and enough water to cover the beans by 3 inches up to pressure, cook for 25 minutes, and let the pot return to normal pressure naturally – also called the slow release or natural release method. The beans should be soft throughout and still holding their shape.)
Without even factoring in environmental stresses of the processing and packaging of canned beans, price alone confirms the economical nature of dried beans. Most organic beans from the dried bulk bins at the co-op will run $1-2 dollars a pound, and organic cans of beans are about the same price per can. (And, I’ve weighed the contents of a 15 oz. can of cooked beans, it hovers somewhere around 9 oz. actual beans depending on brand…). I usually cook a half pound of beans at a time (the equivalent of at least 2 cans of beans), because we can usually that many within several days, but beans will freeze well in their cooking liquid until needed. If you are short on time, cook up a whole pound and save some in the freezer. Beans you have cooked yourself will also be of better quality and contain far less sodium than canned, since you are controlling all aspects of the processing!
While I turn to a pressure cooker pot to cook beans on occasion, I do prefer to soak them 8-10 hours and then cook them on the stove. There is also an argument that the beans undergo a enzymatic change, making their healthfulness more readily available to our bodies, and reducing the amount of indigestible components naturally found in all nuts, seeds, and legumes. (Some go so far as to actually sprout the bean, you can read more about that here.) If you are looking for a general guide to soaking and cooking times for most types of beans, this table is a reasonable guide for both beans and grains that I’ve used in the past.
I am frequently surprised at the number of people who own pressure cooking pots. These pots are different than the pressure canners used in home preservation, but they operate on the same premise: the food is sealed in the pot, and cooks faster because the heat combined with pressure makes it hotter. A weighted regulator keeps the pot from exploding by letting out a judicious amount of steam, and care should be taken to never open a pot that hasn’t fully returned to normal pressure.
I have seen a number of pots like this in thrift shops and rummage sales, and if the pot looks to be in good shape, it’s a good way to buy them. Most models have replacement parts (the rubber seal around the upper part of the lid may be bad if it’s been sitting around unused for years), and it is considerably cheaper than buying new. That said, a great gift for someone interested in cooking or starting a new household would be a pressure pot and a copy of Lorna Sass’ Cooking Under Pressure or Tom Lacalamita’s The Ultimate Pressure Cooker Cookbook.
A guide for pressure cooking times for dried beans can be found online here, but I usually err on the least amount of time listed. If a bean is mostly cooked, you can always finish it up on the stove, and ensure that the bean retains it’s shape and integrity. If you ever let the beans cook too long, don’t fret because you can probably make some kind of bean dip out of it and it will be delicious.
So, did I convince you yet? Try a few new varieties, and you too will likely become a bean freak. It’s a healthy addiction to have, and one that is incredibly versatile. Even revisiting the humble common varieties like pinto beans with renewed excitement will surprise you. If you adhere to the only hard and fast rule of beans (which is to add the salt with a light hand near the end of the cooking time, after they’ve been pressure cooked if you use a pressure pot), beany success is just around the same corner those dried beans were hiding.
