We love black beans. We buy organic black beans in the can pretty often for about $1 a can. This week we decided to buy the beans dried at our local grocery store. One small bag was under $2 and makes about 3 cans worth. This is a much better deal, people! Make your own beans!
BENEFIT: We put the ingredients we want in them, we don’t have to worry about BPA lining in the cans, and we can even freeze the leftovers.
5 Easy Steps to Crockpot Beans:
- Rinse and sort beans. Take out any rocks, hard pieces, or floating skins.
- Place beans in crockpot, cover with water, and let soak at least 6 hours.
- Empty water, rinse beans again, and cover with water (at least 2 or 3 inches above beans.)
- Place the cover back on and cook on low for 8 hours in the crockpot.
- The beans are done when they are tender.
Optional: add a diced onion and a diced jalapeno for even more flavor. (We do this every time we make beans.)
Voila! Great beans to use in your recipes just like you would use canned. Easy, cheaper, and tastier in my opinion.
We made these for lunch this week, mashed them, and made burritos.
You can also set your slow cooker on high and have the beans cooked in about 3 to 4 hours. You have to watch them more though as they quickly go from tender to mush at this heat, but if you are making refried beans out of them mush is a good thing (LOL).
Thanks for this tip, Victoria. I am going to try it! 🙂
My mom always bought beans and lentils dried, and then planned ahead to soak them before using them in a recipe. I’m afraid that I’m a bit lazy… though I do wonder about the extra salt and other additives when I buy canned goods. Thanks for the tip!
I recently read that lentils don’t need to be soaked. I usually do, but that was interesting to me. I love lentils 🙂 Thanks for coming by!
And of course you can cook your beans, divide them into freezer bags and have them ready when you are! (Or can them, which I’ve done several times and it has been nice.)
Yes, Yolanda, that is such a great tip. I have also seen people make their beans into bean and cheese burritos, and then freeze those.