Dried beans...I've bought them and tried to cook them, but they stayed hard as a rock.

[raccoon]

Can anybody shed any light on this?

[Warpy]

1. I live at 6000 feet

but have found that 15 hours in a crockpot will do it for well soaked kidney beans. Other than that, it has to be a pressure cooker. Chickpeas need the pressure cooker, period.

The tricks are soaking them overnight in the fridge to make sure they're hydrated all the way through plus long, slow cooking or cooking under pressure.

Sea level bean cooking wasn't as big a problem. 8 hours in the crock pot would do them nicely, even chickpeas, although I usually used a pressure cooker because I didn't want to wait that long.

[raccoon]

4. Alas, I have neither a crockpot nor a pressure cooker. I guess I better stick to the canned variety.

I prefer frozen, but I've never seen frozen pintos.

[Warpy]

5. I got my crock pot at a thrift shop for two dollars

Yes, it's 1970 avocado green, but it works just fine.

[livetohike]

2. Soak them over night in the fridge and don't add salt

until they are soft. I usually cook all dried beans in the crockpot (a hangover from when I worked and would start them in the morning before leaving home). I start them on High for an hour and then turn down to low for the rest of the day. Chickpeas have always been a problem for me. They seem to need more time.

[Tesha]

3. If you have hard water...

you can boil forever and they will never soften.

"Hard water contains lots of minerals and it causes a chalky white or gray spots or residue on the inside of your cookware whenever you boil water. This is caused by high concentrations of minerals, like calcium and magnesium, which interferes with chemical and physical changes that are supposed to occur in beans during soaking and cooking"


I lived in a house once with hard water.. we ate canned beans.:shrug:

[Warpy]

6. NM uses deep well water which is hard as a rock

and contains every mineral you can think of.

However, I've found that the 15 hours minimum in a crock pot renders my beans soft but not mushy. If I want mushy, I use the pressure cooker.

The advantage to cooking them myself is that I get to add epazote, a Mexican herb that smells vaguely of kerosene but which does magical things to a pot of beans.

[proudohioan]

7. Yes.

Soak the beans overnight first, or you can "quick soak" them (in a pinch, but doesn't work too well at high altitudes) by covering the bean with cold water, bring them to a boil and let boil for 2 minutes. Remove from heat, cover, and let stand for an hour.

I have found that not adding salt or anything acidic (like tomatoes) until the last hour of cooking helps keep the beans from staying hard.

I used to live in Denver (don't know if you are high altitude or not), but when making navy bean soup, I would soak the beans all day while I was at work. After dinner, I would drain the beans, and put the beans and fresh water in the crockpot, and cook the beans all night. The next morning, I would add whatever veggies and seasonings and let cook all day long in the crock pot.

Fortunately, I don't have to cook navy beans nearly that long in Ohio.

Good luck!:)

[Warpy]

16. That's the schedule I use here, in the other mile high city

to the south, soak during the day and crock pot overnight. They're usually done about noon, which is when I want them for my soups, stews, loaves, burgers, refried beans, or whatever the hell I'm doing.

I just had a memory jog: health food stores sell bean flakes, beans that have been rolled flat so that they cook rather more quickly. They're good for refried beans, soups, burgers and loaves. They're weird as stew beans or anything where you want the bean to hold together.

[Liberal_in_LA]

20. quick soak didn't work for me. Overnight soad does, followed by cooking them for hours

Love black beans

[yellerpup]

8. I had that problem with beans that had been in the cabinet

for a couple of years. It took two days for them to become edible, and they weren't all that tender even then. I don't know if we had any nutrition out of them, but they worked great as fiber....

[kestrel91316]

9. The nutrition (minerals and fiber) were still there. Beans don't really provide much in

the way of vitamins, maybe one of the B vitamins is all?

[yellerpup]

10. I wondered if the antioxidants were still in them after long storage.

I wondered which B vitamin was prominent in kidney beans and found this on a bookmark I go to often to check nutritional values. For a one cup serving of boiled kidney beans, this is the breakdown.


Vitamins Amounts %DV

Vitamin A 0.0IU 0%
Vitamin C 2.1mg 4%
Vitamin D~ ~
Vitamin E (Alpha Tocopherol) 1.5mg 8%
Vitamin K 5.8mcg 7%
Thiamin 0.3mg 19%
Riboflavin 0.1mg 6%
Niacin 1.0mg 5%
Vitamin B60.2mg 11%
Folate 230mcg 58%
Vitamin B 120.0mcg 0%
Pantothenic Acid 0.4mg 4%


The chart also said that beans are a complete protein. You are right. It looks as if Folate is the prominent B vitamin, although nice to see that they have a good shot of K as well. :hi:

On Edit: I did a lot of fancy spacing so you the chart would be clear but when I posted it was all stripped out. The three columns are Vitamins/Amounts/%DV

[kestrel91316]

11. You're gonna be getting most your antioxidants, presumably, from FRESH

fruits and vegetables anyway......if the few in dried beans are lost in long-term storage, who's gonna notice?

[yellerpup]

12. Good point.

Fresh fruits and veggies are the bulk of our diet. :hi:

[alfredo]

13. Try Lentils. They cook much faster and are easily digested.

[Beacool]

14. Like others mentioned, soaking them overnight should solve the problem.

I don't know anyone who doesn't soak them, unless they are using a pressure cooker. Most beans need to be soaked, that's why I prefer lentils in a pinch. No soaking needed.

:-)

[grasswire]

15. I read something somewhere this year about checking the beans...

...to see if they were old. The cook held each one between the forefinger and thumb and rotated it as people do with a cigar, and if it made a crinkly noise it was discarded because it would never get soft. I wouldn't do it with each bean, but testing a few in your stash might be useful.

[EFerrari]

17. What kind of beans? I always have a pot of beans on a back burner.

Lentils only take about 30 minutes, red beans, pintos and black beans take longer & I never soak anything.

They smell good when they're cooking though. :)

[MrMickeysMom]

18. I have really good luck with dried Pinto beans

I soak them all day, rinse them a bunch of times, then cook them with the water over their surface until they get tender for refried beans.

Getting ready to do that soon, matter of fact.

[canetoad]

19. Cover with cold water

Soak overnight, rinse and discard water. Teaspoon of bicarb in the cooking water to help soften.