OldSalt - Member - The Prepared

Discussions

Reply to: Surprise! The dry beans you stockpiled a pain to cook. Use these tips, tricks, & best practices Posted December 16, 2024

If you still have power, save the stove when using the liner and doing the quick soak for instant pot cooking. Prep beans as you normally would, add the salt and a little baking soda – like in a little – place it in the instant pot, add lit, open the valve, select sauté and boil them for the prescribed time. The Instant Pot is on sauté while building pressure anyway. When cooking, the water temp gets up to the allowable pressure – yes, temperature. As water heats under pressure, its boiling point rises thereby cooking the food faster – it then maintains the allowable pressure based on water temperature. Check online for the cook times on various dried beans and stockpile plenty of those that cook fastest: Great Northern’s, I believe, are the fastest. Lentils are a good protein and cook very fast. If you cook Mexican-style, add a Tbsp of bacon grease, a bit of dried onion and a little dried or fresh epazote for a great flavor boost for any bean, especially pinto and black beans. If you add cooked rice on the plate with beans, it forms a more complete protein, more easily digested and less gas. Epazote helps there too. But, with epazote, a little goes a long way. Add too much, and you have what tastes like beans cooked in gasoline. ‘Redneck’ (below) has great advice for upping the flavor too.

No activity yet.

Reply to: Surprise! The dry beans you stockpiled a pain to cook. Use these tips, tricks, & best practices Posted December 16, 2024

If you still have power, save the stove when using the liner and doing the quick soak for instant pot cooking. Prep beans as you normally would, add the salt and a little baking soda – like in a little – place it in the instant pot, add lit, open the valve, select sauté and boil them for the prescribed time. The Instant Pot is on sauté while building pressure anyway. When cooking, the water temp gets up to the allowable pressure – yes, temperature. As water heats under pressure, its boiling point rises thereby cooking the food faster – it then maintains the allowable pressure based on water temperature. Check online for the cook times on various dried beans and stockpile plenty of those that cook fastest: Great Northern’s, I believe, are the fastest. Lentils are a good protein and cook very fast. If you cook Mexican-style, add a Tbsp of bacon grease, a bit of dried onion and a little dried or fresh epazote for a great flavor boost for any bean, especially pinto and black beans. If you add cooked rice on the plate with beans, it forms a more complete protein, more easily digested and less gas. Epazote helps there too. But, with epazote, a little goes a long way. Add too much, and you have what tastes like beans cooked in gasoline. ‘Redneck’ (below) has great advice for upping the flavor too.