How to Cook Dry Beans: Guide to Soaking and Sprouting
Written by MasterClass
Last updated: Oct 4, 2024 • 3 min read
Do dry beans need to be soaked? Sprouted? Do they take hours to cook? Find the answers to all your questions about preparing dried beans below.
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How to Prepare Dried Beans for Cooking
Dried beans are easy to cook, given the right preparation.
- 1. Cleaning: Before you cook or soak beans, give them a quick inspection and a rinse in cold water. Packages of dried beans can contain small stones, damaged beans, or even different beans. It's easiest to remove unwanted stuff from the dry, unsoaked beans.
- 2. Soaking: Soaking beans speeds up the cooking process, allowing the beans to expand to their full size before cooking. There are two main methods of soaking, the overnight soak and the quick soak. The overnight soak involves covering beans with a few inches of water and leaving them on the counter or in the refrigerator overnight. With the quick soak method, you briefly boil the beans in water, then leave them to sit off of the heat for about an hour. Quick-soaking is a great strategy for those nights where you're craving beans but don't have any already soaking.
- 3. Spouting: What about sprouting beans? In addition to soaking, you can sprout your beans (including chickpeas and lentils). To sprout beans, soak them overnight at room temperature, then drain and rinse the beans in fresh water. Continue rinsing twice per day until the beans form sprouts. Sprouted beans, like soaked bans, will cook faster than dry beans.
- 4. Pressure cooking: If you have a pressure cooker, you don't need to soak your beans at all. Pressure cookers work by raising the temperature of boiling water, allowing you to cook beans in a fraction of the time it would take on the stovetop. The only downside to using the pressure cooker is that it's harder to check on your beans, since you need to release the pressure before opening the lid.
- 5. Cooking on the stovetop: You can cook dried beans directly on the stovetop without soaking or sprouting them beforehand, but the unsoaked beans will take much, much longer to cook. Most people find the passive task of soaking beans the night before preferable to simmering beans for hours on the stovetop. Bean cooking time depends on several factors, including the age of the beans (older beans take longer to cook), the type of bean, and soak time.
Simple Recipe for Cooking Dried Beans
makes
2 cupsprep time
10 mintotal time
9 hr 10 mincook time
1 hrIngredients
- 1
Place dry beans in a colander or fine-mesh sieve and rinse under cold water, removing any damaged beans or small stones.
- 2
Place beans in a large bowl and cover them with two inches of water. Cover with a clean kitchen towel and let soak at room temperature up to 8 hours, or refrigerated for 8–24 hours.
- 3
Rinse soaked beans in a colander or fine-mesh sieve, draining off the soaking water.
- 4
In a large pot, combine soaked beans with enough water to cover by at least 3 inches.
- 5
Add garlic cloves, bay leaves, and salt. Cover with a lid and bring to a simmer over medium heat, reducing the heat if necessary to maintain a gentle simmer.
- 6
Start testing for doneness after 45 minutes. Beans should be tender, but not mushy. Taste one bean. If it still feels hard inside, continue cooking beans until tender, checking every 15–30 minutes, depending on the hardness of the beans. If the bean feels tender, taste two more beans. Beans can cook at different rates depending on where they are in the pot and the age of each bean, which is why it's important to taste more than one bean. (If you've accidentally overcooked your beans, you can use the mushy beans to make hummus, refried beans, or mashed bean crostini.)
- 7
When three beans in a row taste tender, remove from heat. Taste the cooking liquid and add salt to taste. To serve, remove bay leaves and garlic cloves. Using a ladle, spoon beans into serving bowls with a little bit of the cooking liquid. Garnish with a squeeze of lemon juice and drizzle of olive oil.
- 8
Store cooked beans with their cooking liquid in airtight containers in the refrigerator, up to 5 days, or freezer, up to several months.
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