Cooking with dried beans

The friendliest place on the web for anyone that enjoys cooking.
If you have answers, please help by responding to the unanswered posts.

jjomall

Assistant Cook
Joined
Dec 22, 2012
Messages
4
Location
Maplewood, MN
So I was trying to cook a baked bean recipe I had used before but with canned beans. The recipe calls for 3 cans of Great Northern Beans, but I wanted to used dried beans instead (less sodium). I tried soaking them which was a 7 hr soak, I put 2 cups of dried beans in about 6.5 cups of water at 9 am and took it out at about 5 pm. Made my recipe and put it in the over at 350 for 1.5 hrs. When I took it out the beans were not cooked, they were still hard, I mean they could be eaten but it was not very enjoyable. I put it in 2 more times totaling an additional hour and the beans still don't seem cooked to me. So let me first say that I think of cooked beans as being something like what you eat after eating Bush's beans, soft but not mush. So now the questions:

  • How do I properly cook the beans so that they get to that soft stage and are not still hard and undercooked?

  • Is it better to soak the beans overnight and then still leave them in the water until I cook that evening or is that too much soaking time?

  • Finally, after my first taste test I looked up dried beans and read that they don't even need to be soaked, what are people's experience with that and how much longer do the beans need to be cooked?
 
Cook the beans till soft before using in your baked bean recipe. The recipe is for beans that are already at the soft stage.
 
Far too little water for soaking. You need to check the water level and make sure the water stays above the level of the beans in the bowl. Then you have to boil them until the skin burst when blown upon.

Soak and keep covered with water, check often, drain, replenish water covering completely, cook with a busy simmer until skins burst upon blowing on them, then make your beans according to your recipe. Any questions only to happy to answer :angel:
 
I cook a pound or two of beans at a time and then I freeze them in 1 1/2 - 2 cup containers so I have the convenience of canned beans without the added salt.

I follow the package directions and do not add anything to them when cooking.

I agree with the others that it is difficult to determine how long it will take to soften them. This seasons beans will cook much faster than old beans that have been sitting on the shelf for several years. I have good luck with GOYA brand dried beans and they are usually a few cents cheaper than other brands.

When I cook up a batch of beans I also make a small pot of soup using the extra been liquid, and whatever else I find in the back corners of the refrigerator!
 
Acid inhibits softening

Old beans sometimes never soften
Yes and yes. And I'll add one more to the list: hard water. Water that contains high levels of calcium or magnesium can also increase the cooking time.

I make dried beans at least twice a month, if not more. It's one of the most economical and nutritious foods you can buy. I just cook them up and keep in the fridge for lunches or adding to other meals and what not.

Great Northern beans are one of the fastest cooking varieties. They should never take longer than an hour and a half - two hours, tops - to cook. I reread the original post, and it sounds like jjomall did everything correctly. He/she soaked, and then cooked the beans before adding to the recipe (or at least that's how I interpreted it). I don't see where any acid was added. So, by process of elimination, the problem is probably old, tough beans.

I've had pretty good luck buying beans from the bulk bins at my co-op. They always seem fresh (for dried beans).
 
Last edited:
I cook a pound or two of beans at a time and then I freeze them in 1 1/2 - 2 cup containers so I have the convenience of canned beans without the added salt.

I follow the package directions and do not add anything to them when cooking.

I agree with the others that it is difficult to determine how long it will take to soften them. This seasons beans will cook much faster than old beans that have been sitting on the shelf for several years. I have good luck with GOYA brand dried beans and they are usually a few cents cheaper than other brands.

When I cook up a batch of beans I also make a small pot of soup using the extra been liquid, and whatever else I find in the back corners of the refrigerator!

Me too AB. My supermarket has an aisle dedicated to the Goya Brand. Because of the large Latin population in our city, there is a constant turnover everday. There are always two workers stocking the shelves in the Goya aisle. The rest of the population are beginning to discover the Goya Brand for a lot of products. And for the same reason. They fly off the shelf. Hence they are fresher. :angel:
 
  • How do I properly cook the beans so that they get to that soft stage and are not still hard and undercooked?
  • Is it better to soak the beans overnight and then still leave them in the water until I cook that evening or is that too much soaking time?
  • Finally, after my first taste test I looked up dried beans and read that they don't even need to be soaked, what are people's experience with that and how much longer do the beans need to be cooked?
-I use a pressure cooker to cook beans. If you are organised and have a slow cooker you can use that but with most beans you should boil them fast on the stove for ten minutes in order to remove toxins that can occur with beans of the kidney bean family. Otherwise, rinse the soaked beans, boil fast for 10 minutes in fresh water then simmer for the time stated on the packet. In most recipes you cook the beans first before commencing the main recipe.

- if you are soaking over night and then leaving them all day it's a good idea to change the water in the morning. Incidentally, don't cook the beans in the soaking water, thereby goes flatulence!

- Personally, I always soak beans and chick peas. Apart from anything else it cuts down the cooking time. Particularly if the beans are rather old they may never soften up if you don't soak them. Incidentally, regardless of what some recipes state, there is no need to soak lentils of any variety (Puy, Egyptian, red, green, brown, etc.).
 
-I use a pressure cooker to cook beans. If you are organised and have a slow cooker you can use that but with most beans you should boil them fast on the stove for ten minutes in order to remove toxins that can occur with beans of the kidney bean family. Otherwise, rinse the soaked beans, boil fast for 10 minutes in fresh water then simmer for the time stated on the packet. In most recipes you cook the beans first before commencing the main recipe.

- if you are soaking over night and then leaving them all day it's a good idea to change the water in the morning. Incidentally, don't cook the beans in the soaking water, thereby goes flatulence!

- Personally, I always soak beans and chick peas. Apart from anything else it cuts down the cooking time. Particularly if the beans are rather old they may never soften up if you don't soak them. Incidentally, regardless of what some recipes state, there is no need to soak lentils of any variety (Puy, Egyptian, red, green, brown, etc.).

Every good cook I have ever known soaks their beans overnight. If your beans are old, no amount of soaking or cooking is going to make them soft all the way through.

After you soak them, drain them and rinse them in a colander. Put in a saucepan and cover with water. Bring to a soft boil and after about ten minutes take a bean out and blow on it. If the skin splits, then it is ready to do what your recipe calls for. Do not salt the beans, it will toughen them and they will never cook through thoroughly. . Salt them at the end of cooking your recipe.
:angel:
 
Every good cook I have ever known soaks their beans overnight.:

Hmmmmm, and here I thought I was a "good cook". Sometimes I soak and sometimes I don't.
:(. Old beans make a difference, but I have never had trouble getting fresh dried beans to cook through, whether I soak or not, and I am famous for my baked beans! ;)
 
Hmmmmm, and here I thought I was a "good cook". Sometimes I soak and sometimes I don't.
:(. Old beans make a difference, but I have never had trouble getting fresh dried beans to cook through, whether I soak or not, and I am famous for my baked beans! ;)

Not too many gray areas with Addie ;)
 
Not too many gray areas with Addie ;)

Bunny and GG, you crack me up! As do you, Addie, :wub:

I must not be a good cook either. If you do beans in the crockpot, it's rare to need to soak.
 
Last edited:
Bunny and GG, you crack me up! As do you, Addie, :wub:

I must not be a good cook either. If you do beans in the crockpot, it's rare to need to soak.

I made Boston Baked Beans for many years in a six quart bean pot every Saturday. I always soaked just as my mother did. And she learned it from her mother and sisters. Soak overnight, beans go into oven at eight a.m., done by five p.m. Nope, no grey areas there. I also make clam chowder the way it was made by the Pilgrims. No corn starch or flour to thicken it. Just some of the potatoes mashed. We like the flavor of the broth. I am a die hard New Englander through and through. And too old to change now. :angel: :wub:
 
Salt does not prevent beans from softening. That's a kitchen myth that's been disproven.

Don't wait till the end to season beans with salt. Cook them with salt.

In fact many people even soak their beans in salted water.

And I'm with Addie -- no flour or cornstarch in chowder!
 
Last edited:
Every good cook I have ever known soaks their beans overnight. If your beans are old, no amount of soaking or cooking is going to make them soft all the way through.:angel:

As do I, Addie, But she was asking specifically about soaking overnight and leaving them until later in the day. My point was that it isn't a good idea to leave them in the same soaking water for more than 8 hours and that she should change the soaking water in the morning. You can, if pushed, speed up the process by soaking in boiling water but I'm not a fan of that as it still takes an age.

I did say "rather old"! if they are getting to the end of their "best by" life they will take more soaking and cooking than if they are very early in their packaged life. If they are really old they are only fit for using for baking pastry cases "blind".
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Hmmmmm, and here I thought I was a "good cook". Sometimes I soak and sometimes I don't.
:(. Old beans make a difference, but I have never had trouble getting fresh dried beans to cook through, whether I soak or not, and I am famous for my baked beans! ;)
The soaking means they cook quicker and it saves gas, electricity or whatever. And with the price of domestic fuel these days every little counts
 
Back
Top Bottom