Beans – you either love ‘em or hate ‘em.  I have to admit that I wasn’t always singing the praises of beans.  In fact I avoided them like the plague when I was growing up.  I regularly picked them out of any dishes that contained them.  Since becoming a dietitian, I have learned to appreciate them for their nutritional value and the heartiness they add to any dish. Once I learned how to cook dry beans in the Crock Pot, beans started making an appearance on our menu regularly.

There’s no denying that beans are a food that should definitely find a place in your diet.  Packed with protein, complex carbohydrates, vitamins and antioxidants, the humble bean is a powerhouse of nutrition.  With an amazing 11 to 17 grams of fiber per serving, eating beans regularly can help lower cholesterol levels.  In addition, the regular consumption of beans can lower your risk for developing cancer, heart disease, and diabetes.

When I first started adding beans to my diet, I relied mainly on canned beans.  Since they are already cooked, it is such a time-saver.  You just need to warm them.  However, a can of beans contains, on average, 400 mg of sodium per serving.   Salt is widely used in processed foods as a preservative.  For the most part though these processed foods don’t taste salty.  So you end up adding more salt to the finished dish.  Using canned beans can add a lot of sodium to your diet, unnecessarily.  In addition, the majority of cans used in canned goods contain BPA, which has been linked to breast and prostrate cancers,  as well as infertility.

If you are making an effort to ditch canned food for health reasons, you really should learn to cook dried beans.  Why not try out the Crock Pot method?

Cook Dry Beans in the Crock Pot Tutorial

You will need

• 1 lb dried beans of your choice
• 1 tbs apple cider vinegar
• water
• a crockpot with a low setting

Cooking dried beans from scratch requires a little bit of advanced planning since you need to soak them overnight before cooking them.  However, you can cook up a whole bag of them and then freeze the extra.  It’s just as easy as using canned that way!

Start by picking out any broken beans.  Sometimes you may come across small pebbles or sticks.  Those need to be thrown out too!  Rinse the beans and then put them into a large bowl.  Cover with water.  You want to have water 2-3 inches over  the top of the beans, as the beans will expand and absorb the water during the soaking.  It won’t hurt to have extra water in the bowl, but if you have too little the soaking won’t be effective.

Add 1 tablespoon of apple cider vinegar to the soaking water.  The vinegar helps to neutralize the phytic acid present in the beans.  Without getting into a bunch of boring food chemistry, phytic acid is an “anti-nutrient”.  Basically, it keeps your body from fully absorbing the minerals the beans contain.  So soaking your beans with a little bit of acid in the water (the vinegar) helps to improve the nutritional content of the cooked beans.

Now you need to allow your bowl of beans to soak overnight.  Soaking them longer won’t hurt, but it is probably best to cook them within 24 hours.

In the morning, you will need to drain and rinse your beans.  Add them to a crockpot and cover completely with fresh water.  (Again 2 inches over the top is a good idea.) Cook on low 4 hours and then start checking to see if they are done.  Take a bean and see if you can squish it easily between your fingers.  Or taste one.  Exact cooking time will depend on the type of beans as well as the hardness of your water.  I’ve had beans be done in 3 hours, or take as much as 6 hours.

Drain the beans and allow to cool completely. They are now ready for use in your favorite recipes. You can freeze any extras in 2 cup portions for use later.

See I told you it was easy to cook dry beans in the Crock Pot! Now that you know how to cook dried beans with little mess or fuss, do you need some ideas for bean recipes?  Katie over at Kitchen Stewardship has written a wonderful bean cookbook – The Everything Beans Book.  I purchased a copy a couple of months ago and couldn’t be more pleased with the variety of recipes.  Keep an eye out for a review coming soon!

Linking up this Cook Dry Beans in the Crock Pot Tutorial to these great link parties and here!

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