Beans are absolutely and without a doubt one of the cornerstones of our cooking. Light summery pastas, hearty soups, potluck salads: you name it and we'll put beans in it. With so many bean dishes coming through our kitchens, do we make our own or rely on canned?
We thought we'd do a three-way comparison on this one. Let's take a look at Goya canned black beans, Goya dried black beans, and Rancho Gordo midnight black beans. Goya is our preferred brand of canned beans and their dried beans are inexpensive and readily available in most grocery stores. Rancho Gordo beans are more gourmet and expensive, but their beans are some of the easiest to cook and our favorite to eat.
All costs were taken from Peapod Online Grocery except for the Rancho Gordo beans:
• Peapod Online Grocery
• Rancho Gordo New World Specialty Food
We'll also use our oven-cooking method for cooking the homemade beans. One pound of dried beans gives us about five cups of cooked beans.
• How to Cook Beans: The Fast, Foolproof, No Soak Method
COST BREAKDOWN:
• Goya Canned Black Beans:
TOTAL: $1.00 for a 15.5-oz can
PER SERVING (1 cup): $0.50
• Goya Dried Black Beans:
TOTAL: $1.65 for a 1-lb bag
PER SERVING (1 cup, cooked): $0.33
• Rancho Gordo Midnight Black Beans:
TOTAL: $5.50 for a 1-lb bag
PER SERVING (1 cup, cooked): $1.10
If adding bay leaf, garlic, or other aromatics to your pot of homemade beans, increase the total cost by roughly $0.25.
TIME BREAKDOWN:
• Goya Canned Black Beans: 0 Minutes
• Homemade Beans: 1 1/2 - 2 hours, almost entirely inactive
CONVENIENCE:
Beans are easy to make. Put them in a pot with some water and cook them in a 325° oven until they're tender. Stir occasionally and add more water as needed. Other than needing to be in your home during the cooking time, they don't require much labor or attention. The hardest thing is remembering to cook the beans ahead of when you'll need them; dried beans certainly can't be instantly turned into a quick weeknight meal!
Once cooked, those beans will keep for about a week, during which time you can take just what you need as you need them for dinners and lunches. Beans also freeze very well. Frozen in one-cup portions, homemade beans are just as convenient as popping a lid off a can.
TASTINESS AND HEALTHFULNESS
Canned or homemade, and other than the sodium in canned beans, the healthiness of beans is about the same. Personally, we think that homemade beans taste better and have better texture. Canned beans often pick up a tinny taste from the can, are too salty (or sometimes not salted enough), and get too mushy.
With homemade beans, we get to add just as much salt as we want, along with aromatics like bay leaf and garlic. We can also control the cooking time, making sure our beans are cooked to the exact level of doneness that we want.
One other thing to consider: dried beans do have a shelf-life, albeit a long one. If you have a pot of beans that just doesn't seem to soften up, the likely culprit is old beans. You're more likely to get old beans with mass-produced dried beans like Goyas that have been sitting in the store or in a warehouse for who knows how long.
This is why we tend to pay a little more to buy beans like Rancho Gordos, which we trust to be fresh (plus we can find so many more varieties than in the grocery store alone!). Food co-ops or grocery stores with bulk bins can be a less-expensive source of reliable beans since they tend to have more frequent turnover of stock.
MAKE OR BUY?
We're going with "make" on this one. Homemade beans are easy enough to make and taste worlds better than the canned version. Plus you get the pot liquor, which is an entirely different thing from the goop packed with canned beans! Even if you feel like you don't eat enough beans to justify cooking up a whole batch, the fact that you can easily freeze the extra still makes this a good choice.
That said, we'll always have a few cans of beans in our pantry for those emergency situations when we didn't quite get our act together or plan far enough ahead. Canned beans lack the depth of flavor of homemade, but they're perfectly fine to use in almost any recipe.
OUR VERDICT: Make!
What do you think?
Related: Burritos to Bean Dip: 10 Bean Dishes for Warmer Weather
(Images: Goya/Peapod and Faith Durand)
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I use both. I make a big pot on a Sunday and then portion it off in container to be frozen. I also buy the canned kind, mostly ones not frozen, such as kidney beans, and pour them into my meals.
Another grand benefit of dried beans - which we uncovered when we went carless: they weigh far less than canned and go "farther" for the space they take up in the bike bag. One 15-oz can of beans is the component of one dinner dish; one 16-oz bag can make three or four.
And for cooking beans from dried, nothing beats a pressure cooker.
I was a canned-bean enthusiast for years, but once I started planning better for meals with beans and got into the habit of soaking and cooking dried ones, I am a convert. It's hard to beat canned for convenience, but I just try to plan well enough that I have pre-cooked beans ready on nights when I know I won't have the time to come home from work and start the process then unless I want to eat at 11pm (which has happened before).
Dried beans are especially compelling now that I've been using Rancho Gordo beans for a few years now; they really are that good.
I tend to buy the canned ones. It is just so much easier. You can also use them in slow cooker recipes without fear of death (a bit dramatic? yes)
When I use the canned ones, I ALWAYS rince them for a while to try to decrease the saltiness. I do not really notice the tinny taste but that could also be because I almost always cook them in the pot for a bit.
With all that said, I will look into using the pressure cooker. Maybe that could give me the convenience of canned with the benefits of fresh.
At Walmart, a 2LB bag of dried black beans is $1.82. This would almost halve the cost of dried black beans.
I have to agree with what was posted, canned for emergencies literally in my earthquake stock of items and I make homemade once a week, being a vegetarian its a staple.
Both. We make and freeze batches regularly (there are always 5-6 kinds of cooked beans in the freezer), but for those nights where you dash in and need a quick dinner, we also have some cans around.
Both. Canned when I haven't planned and dried when I'm not lazy & have several days of meals worked out ahead of time.
I've toned down the canned foods in our house since the BPA/canned foods connection was reported. I still buy them to have on hand, but I'd like to stop using them altogether once I perfect a system for always having a few different types prepared (we're vegan and eat beans daily).
I have a pressure cooker, so 20 minutes I go from a bag of dry to fully cooked without all the salt of canned. And you really cannot beat the price, I stock up when a pound goes on sale for $0.88 (black and pinto I buy in bulk for less than that). People really don't realized just how cheap it is to be vegan when you don't go for all the fancy specialty items, which you don't need anyways.
Both, too. Like kariwk & others, I usually have some cooked and frozen (Sundays is often crock-pot beans day), but will use the canned on weeknights from time to time. And agree that Rancho Gordo are fabulous!
My local market just started carrying Zursun Idaho Heirlooms, http://www.zursunbeans.com, and I really like their products so far.
I mainly use dried beans, which I pre-cook, dole out into smaller containers, and then freeze.
But I also have a can or two of beans in the cupboard just in case I've gotten distracted and haven't noticed "oh, crap, I used up the pintos already?"
I use dried if the beans are the feature of the meal (black bean soup, red beans & rice), but I use canned if they're a minor extra (minestrone soup, beans on salad). It saves me from feeling guilty in two ways: 1) when the flavor really matters, I'm getting the best available and 2) when I'm eating less of the beans, I can live with the higher sodium.
But I am flexible... I have been known to make Real Simple's black bean soup from a can (plus a can of Rotel) when I know that would be better for me than eating Mac and cheese.
Another health issue that was not addressed is the BPA that you get from the plastic liners in ALL canned foods sold in the US. I love my home-cooked (pressure cooker) beans, such better flavor.
Another option is dried beans. I used to be able to get big cans of dehydrated bean flakes (from the Mormon church, even though I'm clearly not a member). They were the tastiest beans ever. But my source is gone, and so I use my pressure cooker to fill the void.
Both for me too! I keep some cans on hand for an emergency--or laziness. But I also have dried beans that I'll soak and throw into a pressure cooker. And, since I discovered Rancho Gordo last year--and "pot liquor"--I've been in love! I ordered several different kinds of beans as Christmas gifts this past winter!
I almost always use dried. Canned are easier but dried are more sustainable (less packaging, especially if you buy in bulk, and cheaper/easier to ship). Another important factor is the plastic lining on cans; most have BPA and can leech chemicals.
I always buy dried beans for economic reasons, and it's also nice to know that I won't be dealing with the risk of BPA.
Both: if I have the time and quality dried beans on hand, I'll go the dried route. If not, its canned all the way.
I'm from a country where our traditional staples are rice, beans, tortilla and cheese. You can be dirt poor, but you always had beans, tortilla and cheese to eat. I grew up with my parents only buying dry beans (we eat the small red beans kind) and boiling the whole bag at once. The pot (or rather in a container) is kept in the fridge and only the amount that will be eaten is cooked or used at a time.
I've had the canned kind for convenience, but they are way too salty. Besides, the great thing about boiling a pot of beans is that you can drink a cup of the bean water as a supplement. In my home country, anemics or those lacking in iron will have a cup of boiled bean water as supplement. It's tasty in the sasme way a traditional bean soup is.
I'm with clode et al about the BPA. I don't have easy access to stores that might sell canned BPA-free.
Also, I've been cooking dried beans a la Alice Waters' Art of Simple Food -- that is salting them AFTER cooking -- and they are so tender and delicious. I think the salt was toughening them although I have no scientific reasons to believe that (just experience with tough dried beans after long hours of cooking). I am trying to incorporate beans more in my diet. My fave way to cook them is to add to a big pot of (any kind of) greens with some olive oil & fresh herbs. YUM, the perfect lunch to take to work.
I've always used canned because I really didn't grow up eating beans. I've been very curious about home made beans, however, and this is encouraging. I had no idea they'd last so long in the fridge or could be frozen! The incentive to make a big batch now and then is now much higher.
Charlotte, were salting them during boiling? We always salt the beans during boiling when the beans begin to soften up.
can anyone recommend a good cookbook for bean recipes? thanks
Prefer to make (via the no-fail Parson's Method and yes, Rancho Gordo beans are completely and incomparably delicious!
But sometimes I resort to canned in a pinch and they're never as tasty. Even the cheapest bulk dried beans from the co-op yield a deeper, more complex dish than any canned bean I've ever used. Let alone the difference when you're putting some Rancho Gordos up against packed supermarket beans.
By the time I was old enough to remember, my mom always used canned beans for the convenience. I started using dried when I got married, but after more failed attempts than successes, I switched back to canned so that my husband wouldn't go hungry or order pizza. :-)
I'll have to try it again, especially because I still have dried beans in the cupboard. If I had a bigger freezer and got consistent results, I'd probably switch completely!
I use both like many of the posters before me: dried when I plan and canned for quick meals on the fly (I have 4 kids, so this really saves me, since we don't eat fast food/frozen, convenience foods).
But I was unaware of the BPA issue or the Rancho Gordo beans, so thanks, everyone! This will really influence my future meal planning & shopping!
canned. into a colander and rinsed to death.
Matthew and Molly just did a podcast about this! spilledmilkpodcast.com
I use canned mainly for one specific recipe, just for the portion size... 1 can black beans, 1 can garbanzos, 1 can corn (all drained). add a bit of olive oil & red wine vinegar & a inch of kosher salt if you desire. mix it up & either serve or refrigerate. the flavors marry up in the fridge, but it's still yummy at room temp :)
I mostly use canned because I like to have 5 or 6 varieties to choose from and it's not feasible for me to make the time and space to cook 6 lbs of beans.
If i'm making a batch of chili or black bean soup, then i'm more likely to cook the beans myself.
I use canned for the same reason as FelicityBoston - I want more than one variety available, but with only two in the house, we get so sick of beans if there are multiple homemade batches that need to be eaten.
Also, I know meal planning is important, but I'm too busy right now to spend excess time and energy making up (a) batches of beans and (b) creative recipes to put them in. Also, cooking beans for hours on the stove is a big pain when you have a curious kitten with no sense of self-preservation. I could try the oven method, but it's still wasting energy compared to opening a can and rinsing. Waste a can vs. waste energy, it seems to be a toss-up for me; at least the can is recyclable.
Both! I prefer homemade but my goal is just to get more of them IN my diet so in a pinch I use canned.
I have transitioned to only using dried beans over the last couple of years. I found a great natural food store that has a huge variety of organic dried beans at really low prices, and the quality is so much better than canned beans. I usually do one big batch a week, either in the crockpot or in a small stockpot in my large toaster oven. I keep the cooked beans in the fridge and use them in a variety of ways over the next week or two. I add to pasta dishes, puree to use as dip, sandwich spread, or pizza sauce, and make bean burgers. If I don't have any cooked beans on hand and need a quick dinner, I'll just cook lentils (cooking time is under 30 minutes and no soaking).
One thing I am very interested in learning more about is sprouting the beans before cooking...I've tried a few times with mixed results, and would love any tips on how to do this!
Canned. Dried beans are not exactly an impulse meal, and to work for one person, that person has to really like seeing the same beans meal after meal. I can barely stand leftovers for lunch the next day.
Just curious, how much does it cost to run the oven for 2 hours?
The best of both: I pressure can dried beans. This gives you the convenience of canned, the economy and selection of using dried, organically produced beans, plus NO salt and no taking up freezer space. I use 3/4 cup of dried beans per pint jar, soak the beans overnight, top up with hot water and process them at 10 lbs. pressure for 75 minutes. The beans cook while being canned. :-)
PS - and you don't need to worry about what chemicals were used in the lining of the commercial cans when you use your own glass canning jars. Although the lids of most conventional canning jars in the US still contain BPA, it's a much smaller surface than an entire can with interior coating.
Eden foods canned beans are BPA free.
One thing that no one has mentioned is the environmental impact of canned beans vs. dried. I do sometimes use the canned ones in a pinch, but think about the extra energy and waste that goes into producing, shipping, and then recycling all those cans. On the green scale, dried beans are the clear winner.
I'm a big Rancho Gordo fan (and, full disclosure, a friend of the founder). One thing I've learned is that dried beans on the shelf can be up to ten years old. The RG are much fresher, so even if you don't buy them, try to purchase your dried beans someplace with good turnover. Health food bulk sections are always a good option.
We bought a pressure cooker and switched entirely to dried beans when we became concerned about BPA exposure. With a pressure cooker you can even skip soaking overnight if you need beans in a pinch, though the end result is never quite as good.
In a pinch or for convenience, we will sometimes purchase Eden canned beans, but after cooking our own for some time canned just can't compare!
I also get the canned beans from Eden. Besides being bpa free, they also are never too salty because they don't use salt. The ingredient list is beans and kombu.
Honestly, most nights, canned beans can mean the difference between getting a meal on the table and getting takeout again.
Dried, definitely. With a pressure cooker. They take minutes, and they're cheaper, environmentally friendly, better for you.
http://missvickie.com/howto/beans/howtobeantypes.html
That is a pretty good little chart about cooking/soaking times with a pressure cooker.
i try to make them ahead of time but my roommate wont touch them and i cant eat that much before they go bad....have you ever smelled spoilt beans before?