How to Soak and Cook Dried Beans
- February 19, 2008 by Fox | Comments: 29
I got some interesting email regarding my post on Ten Reasons Soaking Dried Beans Can Change Your Life. Apparently, I’m not the only fanatic saving money by soaking beans. A few readers emailed to pass wind on different methods for soaking beans. Topics such as “How long to soak” were discussed while some of “the best slow cookers” were reviewed and others shared methods for “no gas pinto beans” and recipes for “white bean chicken chili”. I must admit, I’m a little gassed with all the bean boasting.
But since I’ve found some keener beaners out there, I thought I should expand on the topic of soaking beans. Here are some tips on why you need to soak beans. I’ve also outlined various soaking and cooking methods.
1. Why should I soak these dang beans anyways?
Consistent and even cooking: A soaked bean is more likely to cook evenly. Soaking makes the bean soft and supple and prevents the bean from splitting open or separating from the skin. Who wants a skinless bean with a tough center anyways? Besides, I’m all for keeping my teeth and avoiding the dentist.
Got windy bean gas? No one wants flatulence, especially if you have a windowless office like me. If you suffer from bean-induced, gut-busting, gastrointestinal gusts then you really must soak your beans. Soaking helps to break down all the complex sugars in beans, sugars like the indigestible oligosaccharides. If you’re a very breezy type, you should soak the beans even longer to maximize the amount of sugar dissolved. Ohhh, yea, and please drain the soaking water. Always use fresh water for cooking.
Added nutritional value: A soaked bean is more likely to retain maximum nutritional value. This is mostly due to the shortened time required for cooking. Basically, the longer you have to cook your beans, the less nutritional value will be retained since many vitamins and minerals are obliterated with added heat.
Soaking is frugal: Cooking food costs moolah due to energy consumption. If you soak your beans, you’ll use less energy than those who attempt to just cook a dried tough bean.
2. How to soak dried beans:
There are about three methods for soaking beans:
Method One: Long Soak
The “Long Soak” method is the most common way to soak your beaners. Just put your beans in a large bowl or pot of water and let them sit submerged for 8-12 hours. Soaking actually begins bean germination and promotes enzyme release. The germination process is what breaks down all the complex bean sugars. Breaking down the complex sugar is a good thing as this is what gives us gas. Apparently, soaking beans using the “Long Soak” method can reduce complex sugars by up to 60 percent. I usually leave my beans to soak overnight as this prevents my “better half” from poking them to see if they are done.
Method Two: Quick Or Power Soak
I haven’t tried the “Quick/Power Soak” method. Basically, just bring a pot of water to boil, add your beans, and then let them boil for about three minutes. After boiling, remove the beans from the stove and let them sit in the hot water for 2-6 hours. This method apparently removes 80 percent of complex bean sugars. How does that toot your horn?
Method Three: Quick Cook
This is basically the no soak method where you just throw your dried beans into a pot and cook the heck outta them. This method only really works with beans like lentils and split peas. I wouldn’t recommend the “Quick Cook” method for tougher beans like kidney or chick peas cause you will fart your friends into an oblivion. Just saying….
How to cook soaked beans:
After soaking your beans using one of the above three methods:
- Drain the beans.
- Add fresh water.
- Cook till the desired texture is reached.
Update: I’ve answered many more bean questions in: How to Soak Dried Beans: Your Questions Answered
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Your Two Cents:
What a great website! Any website that offers helpful advice and tips for better food recipes is really wonderful. I can now cook dried beans the right way. I am so excited.
@Better Recipes Thank you for your kind words. I’m always happy to find another keener beaner!
Thanks for this great website, I am soaking my beans as I type… I have talent.. ha!!
I found your website while looking up reasons for soaking etc.. and have to tell you it is a really interesting site and really opened my eyes to dry beans vs. canned..
Have a great day~~
Robin Dawn
Hi!
I got into beans last year, and I love cooking them, but especially eating them. My question is, can you use the water you cooked the beans in, for veggie stock? I don’t eat meat, and thought the broth would be good.
Thanks so much
The Food Faerie
@Patti I’ll pass some wind on your question.
Reusing the cooked bean water will most likely cause some gas. The bean water is full of bean sugars, which in the majority of humans can be hard to break down in the tummy and cause the vapors. If you are one of the few who can stomach bean sugars, then go ahead and blow us away with your veggie broths! 
Is there a difference in the amount of time chick peas soak as opposed to black beans, or navy beans? I am planning to cook them all together and wonder if some will be crunchy and others mushy.
Any ideas?
Thanks!
@Monique I think chick peas and black beans are close enough in size for them to have similar cook times. I wouldn’t recommend soaking and cooking beans like mung and lentils with chick peas though because they will turn to mush before the chick peas are cooked.
I put 1/2 teaspoon of baking soda in a pot of beans this cuts down the gas.
Very good and helpful tips!
Thanks!
Cooking beans without presoaking (and discarding the soaking water) is not recommended. Beans contain toxins called “lectins” which can cause illness.
Additionally, beans – especially kidney beans – should be briskly boiled for 2-3 minutes before putting them in the crockpot, to further reduce the lectin levels. Some crockpots do not reach a high enough temperature to safely cook beans, and if they do not reach a high enough temperature they can, in fact, concentrate the lectins to a dangerous level.
Beans can also be quickly, easily, and safely cooked in the pressure cooker. But again, you still need to presoak (long, quick, or pressure) and discard the soaking water.
You can research this topic by googling “phytohaemagglutinin crockpot”. Phytohaemagglutinin is the kidney bean lectin, the bean lectin we know the most about so far.
Brilliant! Thank you!
Lorraine
It’s also useful for reducing the jet propulsion aspect of eating beans to freeze them, in the water, for eight hours after soaking. Means pre-planning the meal well ahead, but that’s a boon anyway, letting you get a good range of foods over a few days.
Good website – congratulations!
OMG there are *others* who think about beans as much as I do! now I share a shameful secret . . . the skins on my cooked beans invariably come out tough. I soak my beans 6 – 12 hours then cook for as long as it takes. Even when the inside is very tender, skins are tough. I’ve tried salting late–doesn’t seem to matter. pattypan
Cooking your beans with a stamp sized piece of Kombu seaweed also cuts down on gas…. after a long soak of course.
I love my beans in all sorts of recipes but have been slow to convert to dried because I can’t reproduce that lovely consistency of canned beans. Specifically I have tried black beans and chickpeas, both of which I eat a lot of. I soak overnight in the fridge, usually changing the water once. Then they go in the slow cooker for about 10 hours while I’m at work. They always seem to turn out tender enough, but gritty. That texture is still noticeable in soups and homous. I don’t add salt (or anything) when cooking.
I was considering buying a pressure cooker but not sure if this will make any difference.
Any suggestions?!? Please?!?
Anne – yes, a pressure cooker makes all the difference in the world! I could never get beans tender in the slow cooker, no matter how long I cooked them. I think it might be our high altitude. But in the pressure cooker, we can all enjoy all kinds of beans. Even chickpeas or beans that have been stored a long time. Nice and soft!
Hmmmm. I live in Vancouver, at sea level so I don’t get to blame the altitude. Maybe I’ll find a good solution, but otherwise a pressure cooker is my last hope!
@Anne I’ve never soaked my beans in the fridge…I’m guessing this slows down the soaking process and prevents the maximum amount of sugars from dissolving making your beans chewier. Perhaps try to soak them on your counter top at room temperature and change the water a few times.
I just discovered your site. I’ll never be as musically inclined again! Looks like a really fun site. Sign me up.
Brooster
Thanks so much for posting this. I like to make homemade refried beans and thought it may be cheaper to buy the dried beans than the cans. I just bought my first bag of pinto beans and it’s been sitting in the pantry because I wasn’t really sure what to do with it. Thanks for all the great info!
@Monica You’re very welcome. I think many people have a pantry with some dried beans sitting around.
Get soaking!
anybody else notice the chickpeas “pop” while soaking. i thought i had mice until i realized it was each individual bean bursting its skin or something. i live in a studio in nyc and it was unsettling sleeping with this the first time!
Jeff – those things drove me crazy last week too! Kerry was soaking some and didn’t tell me about it. They woke me up at 2:30am. I spent a good 5 minutes standing in the kitchen waiting for something to scurry out from under the stove until I figured out where the noise was coming from!
I probably love navy beans and pinto beans more than anyone else on earth. I have had to give them up because the gas is much worse than before on me. I will try this soaking and I’ll also include the baking soda also. As of now, I can not ever eat dried beans, but I will try again after trying these methods.
is it possible to over soak the beans ? i cant figure out why i soak them overnight, then slow cook them and sometimes they turn out too mushy. is it the soaking part or the cooking part ? thanks !
@alison What kind of beans are you cooking? The general rule is the bigger the bean, the longer soaking times are required. It’s generally the cooking part that makes beans mushy.
If you soak them, it tends to reduce the cooking time, so you are probably overcooking.
I ended up here because I’m listening to my chickpeas pop and wondering why. So if anyone finds a reason I’d love to hear it.
But in the meantime, I followed an interesting recipe in Cooks Illustrated that instructed one to actually brine the beans! They were fantastic. Turns out there’s all sorts of opinions about when to add salt and what it does when you do so, so this method intrigued me. The result were soft, not gritty or mealy beans with skins in tact. The process involved 1 lbs of cannellini beans soaked overnight in a brine of 3T of salt in 4 qts of water at room temperature for at least 8 hours and up to 24-then drained and rinsed. These are then baked at 250 for upwards of about 2 hours with acidic ingredients added towards the end of the cooking, so as not to interfere with the beans texture.
The recipe itself was from the 2009 The Best Of America’s Test Kitchen. So great-I’m going to try brining more often.