Cooking Beans

dry red kidney beans

Cooking Beans

Sort the beans and remove bad ones, as well as any rocks or other materials.
 

Soaking: boil 2 minutes, remove from heat, soak 1 hour, then cook. Can also soak overnight without boiling. Don’t soak lentils or split peas before cooking.

Boiling: Add 1 tsp. salt and 1 Tb. fat (optional, reduces foaming) for each cup of dry beans.  Add ¾ tsp. salt for each cup of dry peas. Boil gently, uncovered, until foaming has decreased. Then cover and boil gently until tender. If you have hard water, shorten cooking time by adding 1/8 tsp. baking soda (no more) for each cup of dry beans.

After cooking the beans, you can drain and rinse them several times before adding them to the recipe. Drain and rinse canned beans as well to get rid of some of the extra salt.

Beans freeze well after cooking.

Boiling Guide for Dry Beans, Peas and Lentils

Vegetable (1 cup)	Water (cup)	Time (hours)	Yield (cup)
Black Beans	3	2	2
Great Northern	2 ½	1 to 1 ½	2 ½
Kidney	3	2	2 ¾
Lentils	2	½	2 ½
Lima (large)	2 ½	1	2 ½
Lima (small)	2 ½	1	2
Navy	3	1 ½ to 2	2 ½
Peas, whole	2 ½	1	2 ½
Pinto beans	3	2	2 ½
Soybeans	4	2 ½	2 ½
Split peas	2	1/3	2 1/2

I know there are several family members with experience to share about cooking beans.  Over time we hope to be able to include some of their advice and more recipes!

Melinda's Notes: Old beans take longer to cook than new beans. If that package has been sitting on your pantry so long you had to dust off the plastic bag, plan on adding some extra time into the equation. Since you generally just cook the beans until they are done, it is hard to schedule when the beans will be finished. If you need beans cooked by a specific time, you should cook them ahead of time and warm them up when they are needed.

Are those beans giving you fluffy-tummy? The instructor at my bean-cooking class used that term for the gas producing qualities of beans. :-) Add 1 tsp. chopped crystallized ginger per cup of beans. The ginger is a natural digestive and reduces the intestinal distress that sometimes results from eating home-cooked beans.