How to Prepare Dried Beans

Here are some easy instructions on preparing beans.

1. Sort them

 Before you use dry beans, especially larger beans, you need to sort through them to make sure there aren't any stones or clumps of dirt in them. Even mechanically cleaned beans will have a few stones in them.

 Because beans are dry, they need to be soaked for at least 12 hours before you cook them. A good rule of thumb is that the beans will double in size when they're finished soaking, so if your recipe calls for 4 cups of cooked beans, start with 2 cups of dry beans. 

Put the beans in a bowl and cover them several inches deep with water and leave to stand overnight. You can soak them for up to 24 hours. After that, rinse, drain, and cook them until they are tender, if you're not ready to use them you can put them into the fridge. They'll keep for about another day.

You can buy beans through our local Co-op.

Visit our store to have beans shipped directly to your door.