Monday, January 14, 2013

Easiest Way to Cook Dried Beans

Okay, second full week of the New Year's frugal challenge. Trying to cook more from scratch and it doesn't get more basic than dried beans. Lower in sodium than canned and much cheaper when you buy them dried.
This week I made my black bean salad. Trying to make healthier options for lunches for hubby.


Bag of dried beans was a $1.56. I can make 4 to five batches of my salad from this where two cans of black  beans is around a $1 if not on sale.


So easy to get the beans ready yourself. The night before I rinsed what I wanted to use and let them soak overnight. I then drained and rinsed again and put them in the crockpot with water cover about two inches about the beans and put on low for about 5-6 hours. My crockpot runs hot so adjust for yours. You may need to put on high.


When I felt they were done I rinsed them with cold water and made my salad. Super easy. No sodium added.


Here is the salad right before I mixed it. Doesn't it look pretty. The recipe for the black bean salad is here.



21 comments:

  1. My mouth is watering. It looks so good. I will be trying this. Thanks for blogging. Happy day to you.

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  2. That is one beautiful salad. Bet it's delicious too.

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  3. It's on my list to do...my crockpot is busy right now making yogurt...but the beans are next.

    Jen

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  4. Yummy! I love black beans. Can you believe we can't get dried ones here? Only canned. But I have lots of recipes I use them for. In fact, I just posted one this evening. Have a great week. Tammy

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  5. Yummy! I love black beans. Can you believe we can't get dried ones here? Only canned. But I have lots of recipes I use them for. In fact, I just posted one this evening. Have a great week. Tammy

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  6. I do the same thing because it's so much cheaper, and then I always have them on hand. I make a huge batch and freeze the ones I don't use. They wouldn't be so pretty in a salad, but work great in chili or a casserole.

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  7. The salad looks great. I love black beans.

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  8. That salad looks yummy! I made taco salad last week with black beans and corn...frugal cooking is the best! I have always cooked mostly from scratch...grew up in a restaurant!Have a great day!!

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  9. Oooh, that looks so yummy! I love cooking with black beans. I recently started cooking dried beans and as long as I plan ahead, it works out great. But that's the hard part for me - planning ahead!

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  10. This looks super-yummy! I will have to try it.

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  11. We've been eating a lot more beans lately, along with quinoa.

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  12. Sounds delicious! Look at all the color in that! You know, the whole "eat your rainbow every day" thing. We used to cook all of our own beans in a pressure cooker. I need to find one of those again.

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  13. That looks good- AND pretty- I hardly ever cook beans- my bad- xo Diana

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  14. Yes, I do like cooking black beans in the crock too--I shall check out the salad recipe.

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  15. I know exactly what you mean! I have been meaning to do that for years now. What I'm wondering is...can you freeze them after you cook them so they are "ready" when you need them? I'd like to cook a bunch of the various types I use in recipes and then have them on hand.

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  16. Wow, I just bought dried blackbeans for the first time ever today (in an effort to quit buying the cans = cheaper groceries) and came home to read your post! It looks yummy

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  17. when I was a kid it was a stable to have dry beans in the house. Saturay night was baked beans always with some beans with breakfast in the morning.
    oh yea home made bread also.
    cathy

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  18. I love black beans, and make great spicy black bean cakes. They're saying lately that black bean have tons of phyto-nutrients that no one knew of before...

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  19. Elaine absolutely love this salad, just wrote it down. Thank you so much!! I also agree about dried beans versus canned.

    Didi

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  20. This looks delicious and I'll definitely be making it. Question for you though: in your post, I see grape tomatoes on top of the salad. But the recipe doesn't mention anything about tomatoes. Did you just add them on a whim? Thanks...

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