The past few months, I’ve gotten a LOT of email from readers asking if I can offer any help regarding cooking with beans. I love this question and oh boy, do I have help to offer. With grocery prices showing no signs of dropping, this is likely a good time to practice our bean cookery—they’re easy to work with, so affordable, and a healthy way to feed your family. Read on for how bean cookery is made brilliant!

First and foremost is my recommendation to get and use Rita Bingham’s book, COUNTRY BEANS. Rita, the daughter of the author of the timeless preparedness classic, PASSPORT TO SURVIVAL (Esther Dickey), is the pioneer of the original black bean brownie recipe and was the first to introduce bean flours to the world. She truly is the “Mother Superior of All Things Beans!”

Next, I suggest knowing your bean arithmetic:

• A pound of beans measures about 2 cups dry, 6 cups cooked (although some varieties only double in volume).


• Use 3 cups of water per cup of dry beans for soaking.


• 1 pound of dry beans makes about 9 servings of baked beans, 12 servings of bean soup.


• A 1-pound can of cooked beans measures about 1 2/3 cup.


• 1 pound of dry beans ground to a fine flour measures approximately 5 cups.

From here, it’s good to be familiar with the three bean-soaking processes. Dry beans, whole peas, and split peas (unless used in soup) need soaking before cooking. Lentils do not.

OVERNIGHT SOAK: Wash and sort beans; place in large bowl or sauce pan with 6 cups of water per pound of beans. Let stand overnight.

QUICK SOAK: Follow above instructions, but bring beans and water to a boil and cook 2 minutes. Remove from heat, cover, and let stand for 1 hour. Then proceed making your recipe.

CRACKED BEAN QUICK SOAK: Coarsely crack 2 cups of beans using a hand grain grinder, blender, or small coffee grinder. Place cracked beans in a large bowl or sauce pan; add 4 cups boiling water. Cover and let stand 10 minutes; rinse (in strainer), drain, and proceed making your recipe.

By the way, whole soaked beans can also be frozen, uncooked, to be used later.

Finally, you want to cook soaked beans slowly over low heat to prevent broken or floating skins. And if you add a tablespoon of oil or butter during cooking time, you’ll have much less problem with foaming and boil-overs.

Now for relief to your grocery budget and dining pleasure, here is one of Rita’s bean soup recipes that we love this time of year because it uses whole kernel corn. See what you think:




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    Alice Osborne
    Weekly Newsletter Contributor since 2006
    Email the author! alice@dvo.com