Cooking with Dried Beans: It’s Easier Than You Think
A dip made of pureed white beans, fresh herbs, garlic and lemon zest with some fruity olive oil swooshed on top is a Mediterranean summer delight. Once you’ve made this and other bean dishes using dried beans, you’ll never go back to canned; the texture is far superior and the flavors earthy and complex. Also, dried beans triple or quadruple in weight (depending on type and freshness), so when you buy a pound you’re really buying three or four. That makes them half the price or less of canned, and with less packaging, it’s better for the environment too.
Oh, but it’s so much work, all that soaking and then they can still take forever to cook. It’s not as hard as you think, let’s look at some ways to make it go faster. First, a note on bean cooking in general: I mention cooking times below, but in reality they vary depending on the type of beans, how old they are and how long they’ve been soaked. A ballpark estimate of cooking time is somewhere between 40 minutes and an hour. For the best result, simmer (don’t boil) your beans, partially covered, in three times their volume of salted water. Taste them every 15 minutes during cooking. You want them tender, but not mushy, with an almost creamy interior.
The simplest solution is to make a big pot of beans on the weekend and store them in the refrigerator or freezer for later use in soups, cold summer salads, etc. They will last 7-10 days in the refrigerator and 2-3 months in the freezer. If you mix them with a little acid like lemon juice or vinegar after cooking it keeps them from going mushy. According to food science maven Harold McGee, soaking dried beans for more than four hours doesn’t buy you anything, so start your beans soaking in the morning and cook them in the afternoon.
You can also shorten the soaking time with this technique: Add the dried beans to boiling water; boil for 2-3 minutes; turn off the heat and cover the pot leaving them to soak for one hour. Finally, drain, rinse and cook in salted water until tender.
Often, the dried beans found in the grocery store are two or three years old. The older the beans, the more slowly they absorb water, which makes everything take longer. Older beans can also have a flat, cardboard flavor. Unfortunately, there aren’t any use-by dates on packages of dried beans, but there are ways to find fresher, tastier beans that cook more quickly.
It helps to buy from a store that has good turnover in their bean section. Look for ethnic markets where beans figure prominently in the cuisine (e.g., Central or South America, or the Caribbean). I live in a Caribbean neighborhood and can get away with soaking grocery store pinto beans for 2 hours and cooking them for 45 minutes. Try a few different sources until you find a store with relatively fresh beans.
The best place to obtain younger beans is the farmers’ market. You’ll pay a little more (about the same price as canned) but they’ll be very fresh with complex earthy flavors and a firm creaminess you won’t find in the grocery store. These beans were harvested in Autumn, but even at this time of year they only need about 1-2 hours of soaking and cook in about 40 minutes. One of the bean farmers I spoke with said he has customers who don’t soak at all, but that can be a bit hard on the digestion. Experiment and see what works for you.
Two purveyors of beans at New York City’s Greenmarkets are Cayuga Pure Organics from Brooktondale, NY who sell their organic beans for $4/lb. on Wednesdays at Union Square and Maxwell’s Farm of Changewater, NJ whose beans are priced at $3/lb. and can be found at Dag Hammarskjold Plaza on Wednesdays and Grand Army Plaza in Brooklyn on Saturdays.
By Kathryn McGowan on May 13, 2009 | 6
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6 Responses to “Cooking with Dried Beans: It’s Easier Than You Think”
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Kim
May 13th, 2009 @ 3:38 AM
I’ve been soaking my own dried beans as well. So much better than the canned versions. I love to make chickpeas and just pop them like popcorn.
Kathryn McGowan
May 13th, 2009 @ 5:32 AM
Thanks for asking Kim. My husband is one of those cooks who doesn’t really measure things so I’ll have to follow him around the kitchen next time he makes it and see if I can nail down a recipe. Then I’ll post it here on Thrifty
Gourmet. Stay tuned!
Kim
May 13th, 2009 @ 8:32 AM
Great! Thanks for sharing! But I’ll probably be too lazy to make hummus since I’m the only who likes it at home.
Are you a regular posters on this blog?
Kathryn McGowan
May 13th, 2009 @ 11:23 AM
Yes, I’m a regular poster.
Cooking for one is hard, but maybe if you reduce
the recipe so there’s just enough for you…
One of my favorite uses for good hummus is on a sandwich with some mashed avocado and thai chili sauce. Mmmmm.
Diane Erwin
May 13th, 2009 @ 4:23 PM
Hummus and avocado … that sounds amazing.
Matt
June 10th, 2009 @ 4:09 AM
Great write up… people just don’t realize how easy and thrifty cooking with dry beans can be!
Look forward to checking your site out often, thanks!