Cooking Dried Beans - Crock Pot

Submitted by sugaree

"Buying dried beans is so much less expensive than canned. Cook the beans in the crock pot and then freeze - inexpensive and easy. Found this recipe on a blog - thanks whoever wrote it. Preparation time is initial soaking time."

 

• Ready In: 14hrs
• Ingredients: 2
• Yields: 3 cans
• Serves: 4-6

ingredients

• 1 lb dried beans
• 6 -8 cups water

directions

1. Rinse beans.
2. Pour beans into crock pot and add enough water to cover beans an additional 2 inches.
3. Let beans soak for 6 hours or overnight. DO NOT turn crock pot on.
4. Drain and rinse beans. Return to crock pot and cover with fresh water as above.
5. Cook on low for 8 hours.
6. When beans are cool you can package them in zip lock bags. 1 2/3 cups equals about a can's worth.
7. These freeze beautifully.

Reviews

[ct in ut]

It was easy & worked great, thanks for posting! I "tripled" the recipe & crock potted on "high" for 8 hours. I live in high altitude & used older dried pinto beans.

 

[Clarely]

Great time-saver. Just what I needed: A hands-free, money-saving, better-for-you way to have beans! I've done this with black beans, red beans, kidney beans...all turn out great. Thanks!

 

[samuel]

We have been trying to get away from canned beans. I made a batch of Pinto Beans. They came out great. Thanks for sharing this.

 

[Kathryn M.]

Curiosity brings me here today to see if adding salt to the beans as they cook in the crock pot I had set on "low," would take forever or practically never get tender with the salt added before they reach a "tender" stage. Even so, I assumed the beans were certain to get tender at some point, even if the skin on the beans resists softening and somewhat toughens from added salt. I imagine if the control were set to high, that would speed up the process, but I wanted to keep it on low because I'm in no rush! The thing is, I've always heard, and also know from experience, that adding salt or acidic ingredients to still-firm beans both cause beans to remain firm longer and therefore will prolong the cooking time. But since I had cooked beans in a pressure cooker the last time, and added BOTH salt and oil to the water in which the beans pre-soaked, as per the instructions with that model of pressure cooker (Presto), and the beans turned out surprisingly perfect for using in a batch of refried beans, I since seem to be less wary of avoiding adding salt when cooking beans by other methods, e.g. crock pot, i.e. basic simmering, until the beans are as tender as desired. My pressure cooker instructions advise that it is crucial to add oil and salt to the water the dried beans pre-soak in, as this eliminates the possibility of the beans foaming up too much while pressure cooking which can clog the pressure-gage vent from a slipped-off bean skin. That did happen to me just once when I was taking the liberty to ignore that instruction, and although I had pressure cooked beans many times previously without following that direction-precaution without any clogging problems, it is a risk, and it is better to play it safe so it never explodes and PRESTO! I'm cleaning up another industrial accident! That being said, it is also unsafe to exceed the maximum fill-line with the surface of contents being cooked, which on my model, is about half-full. The beauty part of pressure cooking beans is that pre-soaked beans can be cooked tender in approximately 30 minutes, the fastest method I know of, except for opening a can of beans! So, forgive the long yarn about my preferred way of cooking beans (pressure cooker). I'm using a crock pot today, because that too is absolutely a great, laid back, and highly economical way to cook a generous quantity of beans. And after all is said and done, I resisted the urge to add any salt just as the recipe above is written, and I'm indeed gratified that its poster reinforced my reservations about adding the salt until the end of cooking.

 

[dcs gramma]

Just found this recipe. Thank You for posting it. Trying to get away from canned foods, which often have high counts of sodium in them. <br/>Being able to put them in the crockpot is going to save a lot of time for me as well: no constant watching during the whole process of cooking. Going to try this today!!