A Guide to Soaking, Cooking, and Freezing Dry Beans

Beans are a nutritious and affordable food, full of antioxidants, fiber, protein, vitamins and minerals, even omega-3s. Unfortunately for most people, beans are also the cause of terrible, um.. digestive distress.

The reason is that beans contain large complex sugars called oligosaccharides.

We humans do not produce the enzymes needed to break down these complex sugars, which means that they travel through our digestive tracts without first being broken down into a manageable size, causing us lots of grief as they do.

The solution to this problem is to break down these sugars through careful preparation before we even eat the beans in the first place.

So here we go!

Step #1 – Soak

Place the dried beans in a bowl or pot. I use the same slow cooker that I’ll be cooking them in later.

Make sure not to fill the pot too full. 4 cups of dried beans in an 8 quart slow cooker is plenty! It’s so tempting to add more, but I promise these beans will at least double in size.

Next fill the pot with very warm water, not hot to touch, but very warm. The beans should be covered by at least a few inches of water because they will grow!

For black beans and lentils add a splash of apple cider vinegar or lemon juice to the soaking water.

For split peas add just a pinch of baking soda to the soaking water.

For all other beans, add nothing to the water.

Allow the beans to soak for 8-24 hours in a warm place. If you choose to soak for much longer than 8 hours, make sure to drain, rinse, and add fresh water to your beans halfway through.

When soaking split peas or lentils, I generally allow only 8 hours, even less if I’m in a pinch.

Most other beans I soak overnight.

Pinto beans are particularly difficult for my husband to digest. I soak them for a full 24 hours, making sure to rinse and add new warm water half-way through.

Step #2 – Rinse!

Once the soaking is finished, rinse VERY THOROUGHLY! This is your chance to get rid of all those gas-producing properties that would otherwise wreak havoc on your digestive system. So rinse, rinse, rinse!

Step #3 – Cook

Now put the beans back into the pot and fill with fresh water.

I also add a strip of Atlantic Kombu (a seaweed which contains enzymes able to further break down those troublesome sugars.) This is totally optional, but highly nutritious and it shortens the cooking time a bit too! If a double soak isn’t enough to make bean-eating a pleasant experience for you, definitely get yourself some Kombu and try it out!

I turn my slow cooker to high just until the water begins to bubble. Then I stir well and turn it to low. Each bean will have a different cooking time. I generally let them be until I start to smell that cooked bean smell. At that point I’ll taste a bean every 20 minutes or so, stirring each time until the beans are just tender/not gritty. But keep a good eye on it. At this point they go from cooked to mush pretty quickly.

Step #4 – Rinse Again!

As soon as they are tender, I drain and rinse them in cool water to stop the cooking.

Keep that soggy piece of Kombu!

Once the beans are cool, I chop up the nutrient-dense kombu and add it back to the beans for an extra boost of iodine, iron, calcium, and vitamins. Don’t worry, though it is a seaweed, it has a mild/pleasant taste, not fishy at all. You won’t even know it’s there once it’s chopped up and stirred into the beans.

I set aside any beans that I may want to use in the next few days to be put in the fridge.

Step #5 – Freeze for Later

Now all I need to do is scoop the beans into freezer bags.

Make sure to label your beans. Right now you’re thinking there’s no way you could possibly confuse a black bean with a pinto bean, but I’m telling ya… things get complicated once they’re frozen.

Step #6 – Grab a bag of beans whenever you need it!

Each week or so I cook up a batch of one type of bean. This way I pretty much always have a variety in the freezer ready to go whenever I need them.

To use your frozen beans, simply:

set them out to thaw

set the bag of frozen beans in a bowl of warm water for awhile

put the frozen bean mass into colander and rinse with warm water

or if you happen to be adding them to soup, just drop the block of beans into the hot broth and they’ll thaw in no time.

*** Consider Using Adzuki Beans Instead of Kidney Beans

Kidney beans contain a large amount of a toxic lectin called Phytohaemagglutinin. This toxin can be destroyed by boiling for at least 10 minutes, but we have been advised by our naturopath to choose Adzuki beans instead.

Adzuki beans are small red beans that are more nutritious, easier to digest, and cook more quickly than kidney beans, while also having much lower levels of this toxin, which may not be properly broken down when using the slow cooker to cook beans. Look for them in the bulk section at your local health food grocery store.

A few notes:

Be VERY CAREFUL not to over-soak navy beans. If you do, your kitchen will begin to smell like a horribly dirty diaper. Just don’t do it. Trust me. One overnight soak is plenty for these little guys.

When I cook ham and beans, I soak 12 hours, rinse (very well!), soak 12 hours, rinse (very well again), and then cook with kombu and ham hocks. I do not rinse the cooked beans after they are finished cooking.

Cooking some types of beans in very hard water will yield poor results.

Black beans will stain a white slow cooker! Ours is stained and I don’t really care, but just consider yourself warned!