It’s Time to Cook the Beans
This is a great time to be a bean, or rather a supplier of beans. In addition to the popularity of a particular club of exclusive beans , current conditions have made beans – both dried and canned – an in-demand product.
Beans are easy to cook. It’s not even difficult to prepare them well, but some strategies are more successful than others. Luckily, at Skillet we love beans a lot, and we have a lot of beans-related tips, tricks, and recipes.
Soak them if you have them
It’s not fun to wait, especially if I’m waiting for dinner. Keeping the soaked beans in the refrigerator drastically shortens the cooking time, which means you can eat on the table in less than an hour:
All you have to do is place the beans in a bowl, pour a few centimeters of cold water over them, and add a little salt if desired. (I do, and I use half a teaspoon per gallon of water.) Cover tightly with plastic wrap and refrigerate for up to three days, although I suspect they will last even longer. If you forget about beans for most of the work week, like I do, a quick scent check will ease your mind. If they smell good, the only difference you will notice is the cooking time.
If – God forbid – you run out of soaked beans, don’t cry. You can always use the Instant Pot, or try the no-soak 90-minute method . It will take a little longer, but this is just an excuse to grab a snack.
Love them dearly
I like my beans to be obscenely tender; if the beans had bones, I would like their pulp to fall off of them. The aforementioned steeping helps speed up the cooking process, but real bean heads know that the alkaline environment of a clay pot is what makes the beans truly tender. Even if you don’t have a pot like this, you can create the same pH by literally adding a pinch of baking soda to a batch of beans:
It does work: even a measly 1/8 teaspoon added at the start of cooking will noticeably soften the skin of the beans, which can take a long time to reach, especially if you’ve sat for a while before cooking. Depending on how much baking soda you add – and when you add it – you can further enhance the softening power of the baking soda. I recently soaked some dry chickpeas with a teaspoon of baking soda and plenty of salt overnight. Before cooking, I drained the soak water and added half a teaspoon of baking soda to the cooking liquid. They cooked super tender, but also, mmm, mostly naked; the skin immediately slipped off and partially dissolved. We already know this method is great for hummus , but I bet it will also make the creamiest roasted beans . (I used my bare chickpeas in the soup like a complete dolt.)
Treat them like pasta
Keeping inspired can be tricky, but the beans are as versatile as a bowl of noodles. If you put it on pasta, you can put it on beans:
When it comes to pairings of sauces, each bean lends its own character to the dish and there really aren’t any bad combinations. A fried tomato sauce checkbox will play very differently than a garbanzo or a giant royal crown (the absolute unit of white beans), but it will be fine. Even the creamy lima beans – an unfairly maligned legume – are delicious with a sauce like this. If you find it difficult to choose beans for the sauce, start with cannellini. Plain white beans are native to Italy and go great with any sauce you add. If you want to taste bolder beans, start with simple tomato sauce or the aforementioned cacio e pepe, notice how the flavors interact with the sauce, and then move on to bolder sauces like vodka sauce, carbonara, pesto, or a combination of sardines, breadcrumbs. rusks, fennel and raisins, which you will find in con le sarde pasta . I personally look forward to trying the black eyed pea puttanescu as I think the green beans can stand in a bowl of garlic, capers, and anchovies.
Beans are not only great for making sauces, but they can also be used as a sauce . Just cook some chickpeas with lots of flavor and then rub with cooking fluid until smooth and silky.
Canned food can be used
Canned beans generate a lot of hate, especially from the members of this trendy bean club, but they just need a little touch up to make them shine. We’ve got an entire tutorial on this topic , but I’m a big fan of stewing canned beans in olive oil with lots of herbs and spices:
Drain the beans – I love the dark blue beans for that – and add them to a saucepan with enough olive oil to coat them . Add a few cloves of garlic, some salt (depending on how much of the beans were seasoned in the jar) and your favorite herbs (rosemary, thyme, and tarragon are mine) and simmer over medium heat until hot. across. The creamy, flavorful and aromatic legumes are ready to be mixed with plain pasta, or to make thick toast with a bit of wilted greens.
In fact, you don’t even need to heat the oil to make the more luxurious grains – a quick marinade can work wonders as well.
Hug the black-eyed pea
In my southern heart, black-eyed peas are second only to lima, the perfect bob I don’t do much with. (I love my lim with a little oil and salt — that’s all.) However, unlike lima, I find black-eyed peas insanely versatile. They make a great hummus and can be fried again for a fabulous sauce or side dish , but my favorite app for them is the ridiculously simple three-way stew, which pops a lot harder than it should:
This is the perfect lazy pantry dinner. I almost hate calling it a “stew” because it doesn’t take that long to stew. All you need is a can of black peas, a couple of canned plum tomatoes, and a tablespoon of butter, and any seasonings you want to add. If you have leftover fried vegetables or grains, add those too; all are invited. Tomato juice is mixed with butter to create a rich, savory broth perfect for hearty breads. It is assembled in less than 15 minutes, very satisfying and takes much longer than it actually is.
Could you use other legumes? Perhaps, but precisely because of the spicy, almost meaty qualities of black-eyed peas, in my opinion, the dish really turns out.
Don’t ignore the liquid
Much like pasta water, bean pot fluid is full of healthy starches and proteins. You can use it to emulsify the sauce , or you can mix it with some whole boiled beans to make a (vegan) sauce (a method that black and southern chefs have been using for some time):
You can and should try this with any beans and any fat. The possibilities are seemingly endless: black beans with sour cream and a little lime juice, white beans with brown butter and sage or rosemary, kidneys with coconut milk and warm spices, or pinto with bacon fat and a little beer – all sound damn damn good for me. Next time you cook a large pot of beans, add a cup of each of the beans and cooking liquid, add 3 or 4 tablespoons of fat, and blend with a blender. Season to taste, top with rice and beans, and marvel at how luxurious a bowl of beans can be.
Chickpeas are especially valuable here, as their cooking liquid can be used as a surprisingly spicy golden broth . If you’re using canned chickpeas, the liquid can be used as a vegan egg substitute (even in smoothies!).
How did you all cook the beans and what are your favorite bean tricks? Does anyone else love Limas as much as I do?