I recently went to a cooking class hosted by a woman who runs a Mexican restaurant, or so she claims. This woman stood in front of all of us who were there to learn something, or to drink wine, and told us not to salt our beans before they are fully cooked. I wanted to pull a Kanye and interrupt her, “Listen, imma let you finish, but I just need to let the wine girlies here tonight know that you can salt your beans before they’re cooked, and they will be the best beans of all time!”
I love beans, all the beans. I love to try new beans, different beany textures and tastes. I like bean salads, bean soups, beans as a side dish, beans refried with lard, beans in my chili, all the beans. I feel good after I eat beans; they make me feel wholesome and nourished and strong. They recall for me my youth when dinner was often a pot of beans, long-simmered in a crockpot with green or red chile.
The New Mexican crockpot
I do use mainly dried beans rather than canned, for a few reasons. One reason is that I have the same objection to them as I do to many groceries: the costs of packaging and shipping a lot of water. Another reason, though, is variety. There are so many more kinds of beans you can get as dried beans than as canned beans. I do can my own beans, so I do have those for convenience, but I don’t can all of my dried beans, because it’s a lot of work and they take up more space once canned.
Everyone said I should get an Instant Pot for being able to cook beans quickly, without advanced planning, but the fact is that I don’t like the way they turn out in the Instant Pot very much. I still use my Instant Pot, although I mainly use it as a rice cooker, an auxiliary crockpot, and a yogurt maker. But I don’t like to cook my beans in the Instant Pot.
So, there are the canned beans, that don’t need much advanced planning. I can have refried beans in a lunchtime burrito spontaneously, because of my canning. But then there are the dried beans, and for a long time, I did find them daunting.
But I learned a secret: you can just cook beans before you know what you want them for, and then let your cache of already-cooked beans guide you.
About once a week, I take a pound of dried beans out of storage and put it in a bowl of water to soak overnight. The next day I drain the beans and put them into a vessel — either my bean pot or the crockpot, although I prefer cooking them in the bean pot on the stove, as I think it makes a superior bean broth that way — and cover them with fresh water. I add salt, usually a tablespoon, and two bay leaves. I cook them until they are done. How long this takes depends on which method I use to cook them and what kind of bean they are. It’s unattended cooking, so it doesn’t matter much how long it takes, most days. If I’m not going to be in the house, I use the crockpot, so it can be entirely unattended.
Now I have cooked beans. If the bean broth is really good, I will probably make bean soup, adding whatever vegetables and grains seem likely at the moment. Today I had cooked some large purple-ish beans and their bean broth was good, so I just decided to add lime juice, garlic, and cilantro to these already cooked and seasoned beans and call it soup for lunch.
If the beans are sort of al dente and don’t seem inclined to become mushy, I’ll probably make a bean salad. Bean salads are great, because they benefit from some time marinating in the dressing in the refrigerator, and also because my whole family likes them. Sometimes I soak beans on a Monday, cook them on a Tuesday, assemble a bean salad on a Wednesday, at whatever odd moments during the week that I have, to eat a bean salad on Thursday and Friday for lunch. This helps me fit cooking good and economical meals in when I have the time.
If I’m not sure yet what I will want the beans for, I just put them in the refrigerator, usually with their broth, until I do decide. They will last that way for several days and, in the meantime, I might find I wanted a few beans for this and a few beans for that, and by the end of the week, there might only be a few left, even if I never planned a meal around beans.
In short, to make good beans, salt them as they cook, and to make dried beans fit into a busy lifestyle, just cook them. Cook them whenever you do have the time. Beans take a long time to prepare, but actually they take very little active time, so cook them when you have the time to do the little bit of work they need, and then the passive time will be less of a burden. Cook them and then figure out what to do with them. I guarantee this is easier than trying to remember to soak them and cook them for specific purposes and meals.