Cooking with Canned Beans

[flowerbug]

My family has never cooked with dried beans. We have one recipe that we make, and I will say that Grandma's Baked Beans and Ham is one fine meal. However, beans are nutritious, cheap, store well and easy to grow, so I would like to be able to add more beans to my menu.

Anyone willing to share their recipes for using dried beans? What do you like to make with canned beans?

OK, I will admit to putting beans in my chili - wow, 2 recipes in my recipe box that use beans.

saying beans around me is asking for it (check out TEG's bean threads for growing and a bunch of different varieties)...

the most basic thing i do with beans is cook them plain with water.

sort and rinse dry beans, cover with about 2 & 1/2 times depth with water, bring to a boil and then simmer (as low as you can get it to bubble a bit) until done, stirring every half hour.

when the beans are done if we are doing a big batch (once a month or more) we will drain them and pack most into quart jars and put those in the freezer so we can eat them as needed until they are gone.

most of the time these are mixed beans of a bunch of different kinds so they work for burritos, adding to salads or soups or whatever really.

when i make smaller batches of single beans it depends upon what kind of bean it is as to what we might do with them after cooking them. since i really like beans the most simple way of eating them might be with a bit of butter. i don't want much covering up the texture or flavor of them. cheese, garlic salt, spices might get used but not as often as i eat them more on the plain side.

for bean soups with ham, the basic ingredients to start with are the softening up some celery and onion and perhaps some garlic, then adding the carrots ham and dry beans, i don't add acidic things to this like the tomatoes until towards the end after the beans are cooked. using pre-cooked beans (like what we make in big batches and then freeze) is fine too since the texture isn't often that important. the beans go in as good filler.

for chili beans i have some smaller very firm beans which can be cooked for hours and they won't fall apart. they're my favorite chili bean. i'm not all that much into the common red or dark red kidney beans nearly as much as i am into trying the new varieties i can find just for something different. this is the same with the most common beans grown and used around here (Great Northern and the Navy Pea Bean (often just called the Navy Bean)) i've eaten so many of those already in my life that i don't mind not eating any more and that isn't because i don't like them it's just that there are so many more other beans to grow and try out instead.

this year i planted about 44 bean varieties. i'd plant hundreds more if i had the room and time for them. i can't grow out my entire collection each year nor the many experiments and new varieties so i have to figure out each season what i'm working on next and see how that goes.

 

[baymule]

shoot, we lived on beans when I was a kid, pinto beans.
beans and potatoes are good, especially in the summer when your working outside all day. heals you for the next day and prevents cramps.
we usually make a pot of beans and then turn it into chili the next day.

I can alot of beans using the no soak method. 2/3 cup of dry beans per pint, cover with boiling water, 1 inch head space and process at 10lbs for 75 mins. they taste as good as slow cooked beans from the crock pot.

I have a bucket of beans i need to use, this sounds like a great way to make it easier to grab a jar and heat 'em up!

 

[moxies_chickennuggets]

I learned to cook a mean pot of red beans & rice, when I lived 90 miles out from New Orleans. omg....soooo good!!

 

[Daisy]

I dont know if I am talking about the same sort of beans, because I dont can my own but buy them canned from the shop. I swap out mince meat and use kidney beans very often in my cooking, spaghetti bolognase, lasagne, nachos, burgers.

I sometimes fry up chick peas with chicken stock and kale from the garden to have with rice. Chick peas with powdered chicken stock can sort of substitute for chicken. Chick pea and tuna patties are yum, freeze well and are easy to reheat for lazy meals or snacks. Hummus or bean dips are easy too.

I am terrible at following recipes, and make most of my food up as I go along haha. The net has all sort of recipes it can be so overwhelming.

 

[Lazy Gardener]

View attachment 14250

baked beans

I dont know if I am talking about the same sort of beans, because I dont can my own but buy them canned from the shop. I swap out mince meat and use kidney beans very often in my cooking, spaghetti bolognase, lasagne, nachos, burgers.

I sometimes fry up chick peas with chicken stock and kale from the garden to have with rice. Chick peas with powdered chicken stock can sort of substitute for chicken. Chick pea and tuna patties are yum, freeze well and are easy to reheat for lazy meals or snacks. Hummus or bean dips are easy too.

I am terrible at following recipes, and make most of my food up as I go along haha. The net has all sort of recipes it can be so overwhelming.

all of those ideas sound yummy.

 

[flowerbug]

i've never had a mince meat pie in it with actual meat of any kind.

the meat pies i'm familiar with are either the pot pies of youth that were bought frozen and baked and were ok, but not my favorite and then the pastys from up north (cornish pasty) which were always very good as this one lady made them for many years for a local small store. both her meat and vegetarian pastys were excellent and when she finally retired from making them i never found ones i liked nearly as much. some things are better left for memory. i don't really need to make them myself. i'm not a huge fan of crusts in pies or meat pies either.

mince meat pies were not common and still aren't, but i would have a piece of one if they were around for Thanksgiving dinner. me and my Dad were about the only people who'd even have some.

 

[wyoDreamer]

Awesome recipes!! I will have to give these a try.

Thank you for your responses!

 

[flowerbug]

I dont know if I am talking about the same sort of beans, because I dont can my own but buy them canned from the shop. I swap out mince meat and use kidney beans very often in my cooking, spaghetti bolognase, lasagne, nachos, burgers.

I sometimes fry up chick peas with chicken stock and kale from the garden to have with rice. Chick peas with powdered chicken stock can sort of substitute for chicken. Chick pea and tuna patties are yum, freeze well and are easy to reheat for lazy meals or snacks. Hummus or bean dips are easy too.

I am terrible at following recipes, and make most of my food up as I go along haha. The net has all sort of recipes it can be so overwhelming.

i cook like that too, just make stuff up as i go along. recipes are only starting points for variations upon the theme as far as they go for me. i rarely make things exactly the same each time unless it is something i might share with other people. so at least i know what they can expect. for myself, i'll eat about anything so ...

i cannot get Mom to eat hummus, she had some that someone else bought at the store and hated it. she likes beans though, so what was the problem? they put roasted red peppers and hot peppers in there which of course she wouldn't like. i make mine rather plain most of the time with just a bit of mayo, garlic, lemon, olive oil added to the chick peas, and skip the tahini and salt. so i guess people would probably call it bean dip and not hummus, but it is close enough for me.

 

[flowerbug]

I dont know if I am talking about the same sort of beans, because I dont can my own but buy them canned from the shop. I swap out mince meat and use kidney beans very often in my cooking, spaghetti bolognase, lasagne, nachos, burgers.

I sometimes fry up chick peas with chicken stock and kale from the garden to have with rice. Chick peas with powdered chicken stock can sort of substitute for chicken. Chick pea and tuna patties are yum, freeze well and are easy to reheat for lazy meals or snacks. Hummus or bean dips are easy too.

I am terrible at following recipes, and make most of my food up as I go along haha. The net has all sort of recipes it can be so overwhelming.

i think what you mean by "mince meat" is ground meat? here "mince meat" is actually an ingredient in some desserts.