Question:Pasta Fagioli Soup

[sharethetable]

Pasta Fagioli Soup do you drain the kidney and great northern beans first?

[DrGaellon]

I would drain and rinse them. The liquid the canned beans are packed in is usually thick and slimy. It also contains a lot of the oligosaccharides that make beans give you gas - if you get rid of that, they will be much gentler on the stomach. You can always add more water or broth if the soup looks thick.

[Zeldaz]

www.ars.usda.gov/SP2UserFiles/Place/12354500/Articles/EB11_DrainedVeg.pdf
A USDA study determined that rinsing canned beans can reduce the sodium content between 9 and 23%. Other nutrients, of course, can be rinsed away, too. I've been pressure-cooking dried beans for the past year and always use the liquid from them, it carries a lot of flavor and isn't thick like the liquid in canned beans, but I recognize that not everyone is able or willing to do that.