cooking dried beans – Twice as Tasty

I dare you to make the recipe for baked beans in this week’s Twice as Tasty column for the Flathead Beacon and tell me you can’t taste the difference between it and a store-bought can of baked beans. That can might be convenient, but it has nothing on the flavor and texture of beans you bake yourself in the oven. The canned version probably wasn’t even baked; instead, it was boiled or steamed before being tossed in sauce and sealed.

Good baked beans are a multilayer process. The techniques I shared earlier this month for Brined and Seasoned Pot Beans help to speed up the steps and intensify the flavor of the final dish. I pair these with my favorite shortcut when cooking dried beans at home: using one pot of cooked beans as the base for several distinctly different meals.
Learn to make Vegan Oven-Baked Beans

When people tell me they never cook dried beans, their most common excuse is that it takes too much time. I get it. When I need a quick dinner, I often pop open a store-bought can of beans. But the more I cook dried beans, the more I savor the improved texture and expanded variety compared with commercially canned beans. The techniques for preparing dried beans that I share this week in my Twice as Tasty column for the Flathead Beacon play a big part in my preference for home-cooked beans.

I make the best beans when I soak them for at least 6 hours in a cold-water brine and then simmer them on the stovetop. They keep their plump shape and have a consistent, creamy interior once cooked. I sometimes quick-soak them in warm brine or cook them in a pressure cooker, but only when I don’t mind that the skins will split.
Learn to make Brined and Seasoned Pot Beans