Vegan 101: relieving the pressure of cooking dried beans

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Ah, dried beans. They're low in fat, high in protein and fiber, and they're

also incredibly inexpensive. It seems dried beans have everything going for

them, except for one little thing- the time it takes to prepare and cook them!

 

Though they can be a little intimidating at first, they're actually quite simple

to prepare. In fact, there is a great way to significantly speed up the

process. That is putting them under pressure, literally. Using a pressure

cooker can decrease your soaking time from eight hours to one hour and decrease

your cooking time from two hours to fifteen minutes.

 

Before you begin cooking dried beans in a pressure cooker, you need to have a

solid understanding of the methods required to prepare and cook them. There are

essentially a mere two steps to this entire process.

 

Step 1: Soaking

 

Why do we soak dried beans anyway? The main reasons include increasing

tenderness, decreasing cooking time, breaking down indigestible sugars, and

making more nutrients available for absorption. Not all beans need to be

soaked. In general, the biggest and thickest beans are those that must be

soaked. Those include kidney, chickpea, and Lima beans. Smaller beans that do

not require soaking include lentils, split peas, and black-eyed peas. When in

doubt, soak them anyway.

 

To soak them, there are several methods you can use. One method is just to

cover them with several inches of water and allow them to sit over night.

Alternately, you can cover them with water and boil them for five minutes and

then shut off the heat and allow them to sit for two hours. The quickest way is

to use the pressure cooker by putting the dry beans in, covering them with

water, and pressure cooking them for five minutes. After that, allow them to

sit inside the pressure cooker, off the heat, for an additional hour.

 

After soaking is complete, it is extremely important that you discard the

soaking water and rinse them off. By doing this, you are discarding a huge

amount of ingestible sugars that can cause gastrointestinal distress (gas and

cramps) and you are also removing any dirt and debris that may have been present

on the dried beans themselves.

 

 

Step 2: Cooking

 

After the soaking is complete, now you're ready to cook them. There are several

methods of cooking dried beans. One method is traditional boiling, where you

cover the beans with about an inch of water and bring them to a boil. From

there, you turn them down to a simmer, cover them, and allow the beans to cook

for one to two hours depending on the type of bean. Another method is to place

the soaked beans into a crock pot, or slow-cooker, cover them with an inch of

water and allow them to slow cook for eight hours. As you may have guessed, the

quickest method of cooking happens to be pressure cooking! Place your dried

beans into the pressure cooker, cover with an inch of water and pressure cook

them for anywhere from ten minutes to twenty minutes depending on the type of

bean.

 

There are many resources on the Internet that can be discovered through a simple

Google search that will tell you exactly how long you can expect certain types

of beans to have to cook for. The only true way to know when they're done is to

test them yourself. You can always cook them longer if need be. Keep in mind

that various factors including the age of the beans and certain spices that may

have been added to the cooking water can cause the beans to never fully soften.

The best way to prevent a bad batch is to make sure your beans come from a place

that sells a large quantity of them on a regular basis and to avoid putting

anything in the cooking water. You can always season them later.

 

For more info: Check out the US Dry Bean Council for fact sheets and other

useful information.