We have done this for some many years and continue to save money making beans from dry packaging that in a crockpot overnight is super simple and does all the work.
Dried beans never seems to get soft enough just soaked in water, but the slow cooker method does the trick so they come out perfect every time.
IF you love beans try my 20 Beans Recipes, there's something for everyone here.
We still sort them and make sure they are free from all the impurities so rinse, sort and fill your slow cooker with water, set it an forget it till they're nice and soft.
Keep it on low if it's an overnight process, the beans will soften within a four hour period on high.
Easy Steps
If You Don't want to read this whole post:
- clean, sort, rinse whatever beans you liked
- fill the slow cooker with water
- add the beans
- place on low for up to 6 hours or on high for 4 hours
I am amazed at how much food has gone up. Dealing with high cholesterol, high blood pressure, and rising food costs, gave me just a few of the many reasons to use dried beans instead of canned.
Easy to do and so much healthier knowing it's not canned and full of salt.
It's easier than I thought.
I bought several varieties, washed and sorted them then in the crockpot at bedtime they went in the pot.
Ten cups of water to a bag got up in the morning the house smelled wonderful, drained them.
Took what I needed, and into the zip locks, bags went the rest, and then to the freezer!
Wow, how simple. No salt, no mess, inexpensive, the crockpot did the work. What is better than this.
Not only did they taste better, but they were also easier to store than cans and no recycling!
So, I bought red beans, black beans, lentils, northern beans, kidney beans, garbanzo beans.
Wow, the money I am going to save and can make so many wonderful meals with these. I thought this was going to be such a chore.
Chili has never been easier, a package of dried beans cost $1.29 and made a full 4 quarts of beans.
Can you imagine the amount of money we spend on all those cans? So it just takes the night before to prepare the beans that will last you a long time in the freezer for up to 3 to 6 months depending on what kind they are.
So, before you go to bed, just wash the dried beans in water, add water to the crockpot and when you wake up.....oh boy do you have beans....lots of them, perfect and ready to add to that special dish your going to make.
Nothing to it!
So here are the many reasons I have found to use dried over canned any day of the week!
Price the purchase of dried beans, they are so inexpensive.
You get a significant amount of more beans by forgoing the canned varieties.
What a difference in price! Sodium-free, you can add what you want, and salt is so bad for your arteries or in general for you.
Canned beans are loaded with salt!
Healthier for sure, and I can tell you dried beans in a package have to have a longer shelf life than cans, and you don't have to worry about botulism in these beans.
No chemicals no preservatives!
.
Much tastier.
My husband woke up to this incredible aroma in the house, after cooking in the crockpot all night, it was amazing how great those beans smell through the house.
Plus slow cooking dried beans is far tastier than eating precooked canned beans.
There is no waste and nothing to worry about throwing out, cans, etc. so it's even good for our recycling! No cans!
So many kinds to chose from.
You may find in the dried bean section several you can't find canned.
It’s awesome to try new varieties every now and then and bypass the canned bean aisle with the same old stuff.
You can use them for the freezer for soups, chili, rice dishes, so many uses. The control in how firm, juicy, or mushy the final bean will be.
Personally, the less I expose myself to chemicals the better.
You can store stacked in the freezer which requires less space than storing canned beans.
Fast and easy prep. So why not try this, it just makes perfect sense. At least you will wake up with a wonderful mouth-watering aroma.
