21
votes
Bean recipes?
Spouse fell in love with Rancho Gordo's premium dry beans, and got a subscription.
We're now swimming in beans, but I'm not a bean lover - they usually taste bitter to me unless huge amounts of spice and vegetables are added. I prefer Asian cuisine flavor profiles, and dry beans don't seem to figure in much Chinese, Thai, or Vietnamese cookery.
But I'm game to try anything - please hit me with your favorite bean recipes. Vegetarian or vegan for preference, but I'll look at recipes that include animal products for flavoring and come up with my own alternatives.
All the recipes that I know of are for wet beans, but to make dry beans into wet beans you just soak them overnight.
I like to cook a pot of rice with chilis and garlic, roast some broccoli, onions, sweet potatoes, and chickpeas and add a fried egg on top. I drizzle with spicy mayo (sesame mayo + sriracha) and honey mixed with soy sauce. It's extremely delicious, and has lots of protein, fiber, and important micro nutrients. It also microwaves very well the next day, aside from the egg.
You can also add just about any bean to a chili without messing up the flavor profile.
If you're impatient (uhhh... me!), an electric pressure cooker will get you from dry to "wet beans" in ~75 minutes!
One of my beany go-tos is frijoles, although that recipe is a little simple. Cook the beans in stock until they are nice and soft, I like to then fry the onion with cumin and whatever chilli I'm enjoying at that time before adding in the cooked beans. Drench in paprika and garlic butter just before serving. Works with any sort of bean but black beans are a classic. Adjust spices to taste - butter beans cooked in beer with fennel seeds and ginger was a nice one.
Beer as a base cooking liquid, gotta try that! Thank you!
Also vegetarian here!
Basically any soup is great with beans. Besides the obvious bean soups and chili, almost any soup is improved by adding them. Blend in some white beans into a cauliflower or potato soup for some nice buttery smooth texture and heartyness. I usually just use ATKs recipes for those and then add beans they never call for.
Vegetable soup obviously you can just throw whatever is in your fridge into, and just about any bean would be good. Mushroom soup as well goes really well with beans.
Just yesterday we had leftover beans because I had cooked too many in the instant pot for one meal, so I stuck them in the fridge and made refried beans for breakfast and turned that into a burrito.
If you have any of the giant ones, I do like those cooked in a nice broth and they served on a salad. I always keep the cooking broth to throw into something else next, just like a stock. You can go all out with the salad, or just have like a cucumber/tomato salad with them.
If you have the time, cooking them and then roasting them on a sheet tray can make some wonderfully delicious crispy snacks. You can eat them like popcorn or toss them on top of a fried rice or anything you want a bit of crunch on.
Obviously choosing which bean for each of these is a challenge, as the rancho Gordo can be very different from one another. I just finished the Vaquero beans, which I found too flavorless for most things, but were good in the refried beans. Meanwhile I loved the flavor of the cassoulet, which is better used where it can shine.
**Edit: combining recipes into sections. I initially did separate comments to not make things too long.
Vegan black bean soup
Ingredients
1 pound dried black beans rinsed
1 large onion peeled and diced
2 medium red bell peppers seeded and diced
2 quarts vegetable broth
1/3 cup Franks Cayenne Hot Sauce
6 cloves garlic minced
2 bay leaves
1 tablespoon ground cumin
Salt and pepper
Possible Toppings:
Chopped scallions
Cilantro
Jalapeno slices
Shredded cheese
Lime wedges
Sour cream or plain yogurt
Slow cooker
Place all the ingredients in a large slow cooker and season with 1 teaspoon of salt and 1/2 teaspoon ground pepper. Turn the slow cooker on medium, cover, and cook for 10-12 hours. (You could soak the beans in water overnight to reduce the cooking time by half, but it's not necessary.)
Once the beans are tender use an immersion blender to blend the soup until two-thirds of the beans are pureed and the soup is thick. Salt and pepper to taste, then serve warm with fresh toppings.
Instant pot
Cook on high for 45 minutes with natural release. Then blend as directed above.
Notes
I use vegetable beyond bouillon to make the broth and lots of extra garlic. Just combine the beyond bouillon and water in the pot. Also, you can add a little bit of sugar to counteract the bitterness of the beans if you don't presoak, but I don't.
Vegan "prepper" chili
Ingredients
1 cup white beans
1 cup pinto beans
1 cup dehydrated corn
1 cup lentils
1 tbsp ground cumin
1 tsp ground peppercorns
2 tbsp granulated garlic
4 tbsp dehydrated onion
1/2 cup better than bouillon
12 oz diced tomatoes
6 oz tomato paste
8-12 cups water, depending on desired consistency
Instant pot
Combine all ingredients and cook on high for 45 minutes with natural release.
Notes
It's called prepper chilli because all the ingredients are shelf stable, but you can substitute fresh ingredients and reduce the water accordingly. It's nice because I keep large bulk stores of all of these things so I always have what I need for this recipe.
Refried beans
Ingredients
1 lb dried pinto beans
5 cloves garlic
1/2 diced onion
1 tsp ground cumin
4-6 cups water
1 and 1/2 teaspoon salt
Instant pot:
Combine ingredients and cook on high for 45 minutes with a natural release. Blend with an immersion blender until the desired consistency.
Notes: can be made with granulated garlic and dehydrated onion. I also often add extra garlic. Oils or fats can be added at the end of desired.
Thanks for these!
Can you clarify "data" here? Thanks again.
Ha! My phone autocorrected "fats" to "data."
*And just a pinch of 5G to balance the acidity.
Thanks and sorry if I came across as snarky. I love all these recipes and am hoping to try them all. I always look back on my old replies and worry I came across as bad faith. Sorry if so. Thanks for clarifying
No, not at all, I didn't think you were snarky at all! I thought it was a funny typo is all.
Have a great day!
Yeah not a lot of "Asian" dishes are going to use the kind of beans you'll get from Rancho Gordo. I think if that's the flavor profile you want, try Korean/Mexican fusion dishes.
Any sources or recipes you'd recommend? I love Mexican food, so you have my interest!
Limited experience, but I feel like I've seen either literally korean and mexican foods intermingled on menus, or korean flavours in taco form. In the spirit of the topic, I can see that being easily veggied by doing a mushroom+bean 'bulgogi' taco, with whatever toppings sound good.
The more I think about it, i can think of a few korean dishes that could probably be adapted to more mexican/texmex flavours by swapping the sauces/spices and some veggies, like japchae or bibimbap.
On the topic of fusion foods.. I've seen (but not had the chance to try) birria ramen, which sounds decadent.
I actually had this once...but it was weak. The version I had was akin to instant ramen with birria, so I don't know whether a better version would be any good.
Huh, well this quells any fomo I might have had over not ordering it when i had the chance :)
I've got some ideas for substituting gochujang for adobo now, thank you!
I thought about homemade fermented black beans, but haven't found a source for black soybeans yet. It's easy to throw edamame in everything since they're commonly available frozen, and they don't seem to have the flavors I dislike.
We also use Rancho Gordo beans and find them to be really good in recipes. I suggest the cookbook Cool Beans by Joe Yonan. He also suggests using RG beans in his recipes. I know Joe said that it's best to soak your beans. He also had some recipes using kombu, but I didn't care for the flavor.
My husband makes the Tacu Tacu (Peruvian rice and beans, crisped like a paella) out of the book, and I have made few others.
Like others have said, soups are a great way to use the beans. Get creative!
Curious what qualities you note in RG beans that you don't find in typical cheap off-the-shelf dried beans? Or qualities that you perhaps don't notice?
Legitimately curious.
I buy mostly their more exotic types. Although I have had their pintos, black beans and chickpeas in the past, I can't really justify the cost. Their appeal is that they are freshly harvested then dried, so not much shelf time when you purchase. Didn't really note a difference compared to store bought on common varieties. There's only 2 of us, so a few pounds of beans lasts quite a while, but can't beat Kroger's cheap ass dried beans.
Thanks!
Say more about the exotic types?
They have a giant bean variety called "Royal Corona" with a flavor that's meat-adjacent. The skins are tender when soaked and cooked, and they're very satisfying. There's a local restaurant which uses them in a salad, and I'm hoping to find the recipe.
I've tried their Alubia Blanca, Cranberry bean, Vaquero and one other heirloom (can't remember the name). All of them were tasty in the recipes I had.
Thank you for the recommendation!
Spouse had already borrowed Cool Beans from the library, and there are some interesting recipes in there. He also picked up Grist, which has a huge number of variations on each base recipe, even if the preparations are generally more elaborate.
I've come to the conclusion that I don't care so much for tough-skinned beans, like kidney beans and navy beans. I'm more partial to cannellini, lentils, and well-processed chickpeas or black beans. I'll come back and post if we find anything outstanding.
Excellent! Will have to look for Grist.
Hilariously there was a topic about this a lil over a year ago, if you need more ideas! I don't know why I remembered this but hopefully there's some different things in there too!
Thank you - I should have remembered that since I put the Pasta e Fagioli recipe in there too!
Lately I cook up a couple pounds of beans at a time using Rancho Gordo's basic recipe (onion/celery/carrots/beans). I intentionally leave them pretty bland, then freeze them in quart bags. It's fun to bust out a bag for dinner and spice it up according to my mood(s). Depending on how you season them each time it's like a completely different dish.
Some favorites:
other stuff
another edit to add:
You can pull out a cup or so of beans and blend them to paste and it makes the broth super creamy w/o adding fat(s)
Are the Rancho Gordo beans in particular bitter to you? You might just not like the taste of low quality beans.
Do they have soybeans? Because if so you can make a number of Asian bases from scratch like soy milk, tofu, or a number of bean pastes.
Lentils are great for filling out the flavor and textures of soups and are the base of any number of vegan chili recipes.
Chickpeas can be made into hummus, but perhaps my favorite thing to do with them is to make a “chicken salad” out of them: https://plantbasedcookingshow.com/2023/07/09/vegan-not-chicken-salad/
Look to Latin America for bean recipes, because they have a number of really good recipes that are rich in spice. There are actually too many to recommend but I don’t have a specific recipe for any of them. Feijoada is probably the one that foodies would recommend the most but it is a meat-based stew, so I would probably go with a Cuban style black bean soup.
I think I've just got bad memory associations with the flavor of beans. Canned beans, flavorless recipes from Seventh Day Adventist vegetarian cookbooks, and genuinely dire financial situations.
I've had a few bean recipes that I thought were really delicious, like Martha Rose Schulman's Pasta e Fagioli, a black bean burger or two, a great Channa Masala, giant bean salad, foods with edamame and soybean products, etc. But ordinary legumes and cumin-heavy dishes don't really do it for me.
Cuban Black Beans (from Reddit)
Onion – 1 Large
Red/Green Bell Pepper – 2
Garlic – Lots
White wine - Semi-sweet – 1 C
Black beans – 1 lb (?, 1.5 times volume of veg)
Cumin (ground)
Oregano
Goya SazonBadia adobo, don't buy Goya productsBay leaves
Lime
Sriracha
Oh my friend, it's called Cuban Black Beans. REAL Cuban black beans, not that shit they serve in restaurants.
You get a lot of diced sweet onions and peppers (red is best balance of sweetness to price) and you cook them over medium heat in a lot of olive oil. How much olive oil? Say you have one big onion and two decent sized peppers, then I say at least a half a cup. Once the onions are softening up, you add garlic. How much garlic? ALL THE FUCKING GARLIC.
Then you cool it down with some white wine (not too sweet, something middling). Let it steam off for a minute. What you're doing is killing the rest of that raw garlic taste and letting the alcohol in the wine bring out the rest of the flavors.
Then you add black beans. I use canned, un-drained straight beans (don't get the kind that's labeled "black bean soup"). Some will tell you canned isn't as good. I say bullshit. I use one and a half times as much by volume as I have of the onion/pepper/garlic mixture.
Simmer the beans for a bit, low-medium. Then you will add an ounce of ground cumin, a shot glass' worth of oregano, and a packet or three of Goya Sazon (if you don't know what that is, look in the Mexican/Spanish/Ethnic section and look for little boxes that say Goya). If you want to be a boss, add three or four bay leaves, but don't forget to pull them out later -- no one wants to eat a bay leaf. Mix it in well.
Either move it to a crock pot or put it in a 225* oven. Check it every once in a while -- you want the beans to be soft. You do not want this to burn, so scrape the bottom. I'd sooner eat your shit than burnt black beans, and so would you.
Now after a few hours taste it. More flavor? Add more cumin and Goya. Needs a kick? Add some lime. You know what? FUCK YOU, ADD LIME ANYWAY.
Traditionally, this is served over rice. FUCK THAT. I serve it in a bowl. Maybe throw some shredded pork on that bitch. FUCK ME.
If you use enough onions, peppers, and wine, these will be surprisingly sweet. (My Abuelita accused me of adding sugar, that bitch.) The beans, cumin, and oregano will give it a rich, earthy flavor. Goya is just magic. And the wine and lime will give just a hint of tartness. The beans, slow-cooked, are almost meaty (in a braised meat sort of way, not in a fuck-yeah-cow-meat kind of way). Once they cool down a bit, it will have a thicker texture, so let it sit for a little bit.
Best? Eat it the next day after reheating. We make this in a four gallon vessel and gorge for a week.
Now let's say you're having a party. You will get a bunch of dried peppers, chop them fine, and soak them in that wine (simmer it!). And you will add this goodness to the mix after the saute stage, so they soften and diffuse. And maybe some Sirracha, but only if you want to guarantee getting laid that night. Dip your immersion blender in there for a little bit -- get it half blended. Then you'll let it cool. And you will dip chips into that motherfucker and you will come back and thank me.
http://www.reddit.com/r/AskCulinary/comments/10kvz7/i_would_like_to_get_more_protein_from_beans_but_i/c6ef6fp
FYI, Rancho Gordo beans are a small purveyor growing both common and more exotic beans. We buy them and they have always been stellar in recipes.
I've been using "Fabulous Beans" by Barb Bloomfeld for years. If you can't find a used copy at a reasonable cost it is more than old enough to be in your library system.
Adam Ragusea's Red beans and rice is solid.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UOtE_mrV3SY
Adam Ragusea's Fire Beans is nice if you like spicy.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cqfbcskdiCE
(I don't like beans either, but my kid loves both Adam Ragusea and beans)
My wife actually hated beans when we got married, but I turned her opinion around after a week where every dish had canned beans!
This recipe tastes a little beany, but it's a totally different texture and flavor profile than usual. It convinced my wife that she actually liked beans in some things: https://www.seriouseats.com/cheesy-mashed-white-beans-with-kale-parmesan-fried-egg-recipe
Beans are just a side here. I regularly use this basic recipe when I want some black beans in a burrito bowl or a tortilla:
https://www.joshuaweissman.com/post/2-dollar-burrito-but-cheaper
Absolutely delicious chili where the beans just blend in (there's also a pressure cooker version which cooks even faster!):
https://www.seriouseats.com/white-chile-turkey-chicken-recipe
Quick, easy, one-pot weeknight meal:
https://www.seriouseats.com/30-minute-pasta-and-kidney-bean-soup-pasta-e-fagioli-recipe
My favourite bean soup! The flavour profile is distinct, and you can easily experiment to find your preferred texture:
https://www.seriouseats.com/30-minute-black-bean-soup-recipe
Edit: Forgot the vegetarian part. In that case, consider making the ultimate vegetarian chili: https://www.seriouseats.com/best-vegetarian-bean-chile-recipe
Any tricks for getting rid of metallic and off flavors from canned beans? I've used frozen beans if I'm in a hurry, and that's not a bad solution, but the varieties are limited.
I haven't any issues with canned beans having off flavors, but I always cook/boil them for a bit. You could try rinsing or thoroughly draining them to see if it's the brine causing the off flavors? I'd also recommend trying different brands. I usually just use the cheapest store-brands (sometimes spiced black beans for Mexican food).
There's already lots of info posted but I'll add this in case you're still searching. Also here's a quick tip that helped me a lot since canned beans are more expensive where I am - add a small amount (1 tsp will do) of baking soda to your soaking water, and again to your cooking water (though I think that can be skipped) will leave you with super tender beans.
Anyways, beans can be substituted in to any braised dishes easily so long as you're not demanding traditionally prepared dishes. You can do a Ma Po Tofu using beans with or instead of tofu - just look up some recipes online. You can add a bit of sugar using most beans in place of adzuki beans to make Japanese bean dishes or red bean paste. If you're really not super picky, you can do a white trash version of red bean buns by making the filling and wrapping it in a pre-bought sweet bun (cut a hole in the side, and make an impromptu pipette by putting the paste in a plastic bag and cutting off the corner) or make a super white trash version by wrapping in wonder read - most of Asia uses sweet, heavily processed bread for a lot of things.
Korean stews IMO benefit from adding beans and become very filling.