Julia Child’s Guide to Cooking Beans (2024)

FAQs

What happens if you don't soak beans before cooking? ›

Modern cooking websites often say it doesn't matter. In a way, they're both right. Soaking beans can help improve the texture of the final product once the beans are cooked and reduce the gas produced when the food is being digested. But it isn't necessary to soak them.

Place soaked beans in a large pot; cover with fresh water and bring to a boil. Reduce heat, cover, and simmer gently until beans are tender but firm. Most beans will cook in 45 minutes to 2 hours depending on the variety. Periodically, try a taste test or mash a bean against the side of the pot with a fork or spoon.

Cooking with the addition of vinegar, acidic produce such as tomatoes or lemons, or citric acid can actually lengthen cooking time and cause unevenly cooked beans.

Place black beans, pinto beans, and kidney beans in a large pot and cover with several inches of cool water; let stand for at least 12 hours. Bring beans and water to a boil in the large pot; cook until beans are tender and heated through, about 30 minutes.

On the other hand, hummus, soup, and chili may benefit from a splash or two of that starchy and flavorful liquid." Registered dietitian Frances Largeman-Roth agrees. " “If you don't rinse them,” she says, “just keep in mind that they've already been salted."

To soak beans the traditional way, cover them with water by 2 inches, add 2 tablespoons coarse kosher salt (or 1 tablespoon fine salt) per pound of beans, and let them soak for at least 4 hours or up to 12 hours. Drain them and rinse before using.

Once boiling, reduce the heat to low and a very gentle simmer. You should barely see the water moving. Leave the lid off for firm beans meant for cold salads and pasta dishes. Cover the pot with the lid slightly ajar for creamier beans for soups, casseroles, and burritos.

If the water level drops below the beans, add more water so the beans are covered at all times. The beans are done cooking when they're all tender; you can test this as they by smooshing a bean or two against the side of the pot with a fork — it should collapse easily, but not be mushy.

The addition of baking soda to the cooking water does two things: It adds sodium ions that weaken the pectin as explained above, and more importantly, an alkaline environment causes the pectin molecules to break down into smaller molecules that greatly weakens the pectin causing the beans to soften much more rapidly.

Is it better to cook beans fast or slow? ›

Cook low and slow—patience is key. To cook on the stove, bring the pot of beans (soaked or unsoaked, with olive oil, salt, and any seasonings plus 2 to 3 inches of liquid covering them) to a boil over high heat, then reduce the heat so that your beans are barely but steadily simmering and cover with the lid.

Dried beans typically have a moisture content of around 16%. However, as they age, moisture evaporates, giving pectin time to age and harden the skin. These beans can often take much longer to soften while soaking and cooking, up to twice the time!

Those aromatics in the pot will revolutionize the beans' final flavor. The aromatics I tend to use are onions, carrots, garlic, and celery, and then heartier, woodsy herbs, like rosemary, sage, and thyme, which marry beautifully with the earthy-sweet flavor of beans.

Beans go well with corn and pumpkin because together they form a so-called "three-sister planting" (also known as milpa) and complement each other perfectly . Savory, cucumbers, cabbage, chard, lettuce, celery, spinach and tomatoes are also good neighbors for beans.

Soaking beans is critical to ensuring a safely canned product. Do not can dried beans without soaking. Cover beans soaked by either method with fresh water and boil 30 minutes. Add ½ teaspoon of salt per pint or 1 teaspoon per quart to the jar, if desired.

"It is also perfectly healthful to consume, so from a flavor perspective there is nothing wrong with not rinsing." Indeed, unrinsed canned beans can be great from a culinary standpoint in dishes like this white bean soup, where the liquid adds a "starchy richness," as the recipe developer Sheela Prakash notes.

You can cook dried green peas without soaking them in liquid, but they will take far longer to cook. Unsoaked green split peas will take approximately 35-45 minutes; unsoaked whole green peas take up to 75 minutes to cook.

“The thinking now is that vitamins and flavor can leach out of the beans into the soaking water you are throwing down the sink,” the bean people explain, before adding, “if you want to, do it. If it seems unnecessary, don't.”