Boil beans with soda. Cooking red beans: recipes, quick cooking methods

The beneficial and nutritional properties of beans have long been described and described in many sources. But many housewives refuse to cook beans. Why? Because no one likes the tedious task of long soaking and hours of cooking.

However, there are a few secrets that allow you to quickly cook beans without soaking.

Granulated sugar

The washed and sorted beans are poured with cold water at the rate of 1 cup of beans per 4 cups of water. And add 1 tbsp. l. granulated sugar. Place on high heat. After boiling, reduce the flame to medium. The beans will become soft very quickly. You can try red after 30 minutes, white and black after 40 minutes.

Advice. Don't use brown sugar. This is unnecessary. The most ordinary white will be enough.

Cold water

The grains are sorted and washed thoroughly. Pour in cold water until it just covers the beans. Place on high heat and bring to a boil. When the bubbling is at its strongest, add cold water to stop the gurgling. As soon as the water boils again, the operation is repeated. After the third time, the beans are left on medium heat for 40 minutes. If necessary, add more water. The main thing is that it is no more than 2 cm higher than the beans.

Advice. Instead of cold water, it's even better to throw in ice cubes.

Sea kale

Place bean grains in a saucepan, add a small leaf of dried seaweed and pour in cold water. Bring to a boil over high heat, then simmer on medium for 40-50 minutes. Usually by this time the grains are already quite soft.

Advice. If you don’t know where to get a dried seaweed leaf, take an ordinary sheet of nori for sushi and rolls. It's the same thing.

Soda

Bean grains are filled with water at the rate of 1 kg 3 liters. Add a pinch of ordinary baking soda. Boil over medium heat for 45 minutes. At the end, add half a teaspoon of lemon juice or citric acid. As soon as the reaction takes place, the grains must be washed. And the beans will be ready by then.

Advice. Don't add more soda. Otherwise, all your culinary preparations will go in the trash. Even scavenger dogs won't eat it.

Freezing

If you know you'll have to cook beans often, but aren't sure if you'll have time to soak them, then do it that way. Divide the grains into portioned bags and put them in the freezer. Let them lie there until cooking time.

When you need to quickly cook beans without soaking, simply place the beans in cold water. Turn the heat to high and bring to a boil. Then cook over medium flame. For such beans, it takes an hour to cook completely.

Advice. These beans are not defrosted before cooking.

No salt

The usual cooking time for white beans in salted water until fully cooked is 4 hours. If you do not salt the water at all, then it is quite possible that the grains will be soft after 2 hours. Therefore, salt any beans only at the very end of cooking.

Advice. Red and variegated beans will cook even faster, because initially the white beans are denser and harder than the colored ones.

Microwave

Modern technologies are a great help for housewives in the kitchen. Using a microwave is quite possible to reduce the cooking time of beans to 30 minutes. To do this, you will need special cookware suitable for use in the oven. Grains are placed in it and water is added. Set for 10 minutes at maximum power. After the timer beeps, the beans are mixed and put back in the microwave. Now for 18-20 minutes. After this time, the grains will be ready for further consumption.

Advice. It is best to take glassware. If you don’t have a special bowl, then a regular jar will do. The main thing is that it fits into the microwave while standing and can spin around freely. You cannot cover the vessel with a lid!

Pressure cooker

A pressure cooker allows you to reduce the cooking time of beans without soaking to 40 minutes. Just follow the usual proportions of grains and water: 1 to 4. Time must be counted from the beginning of boiling. It is not advisable to add salt.

Advice. Follow normal safety precautions.

Multicooker

The invention of the technical industry, already loved by many housewives, will help out here too. Just put the beans on sauté mode. You can even add plenty of salt. The timer is set to 40 minutes. Take note of this.

Modern selection

Bean varieties have already been bred and thoroughly tested, which are completely ready for consumption 30 minutes after cooking. Information about this should be found on seed packets or on the Internet.

  1. To prevent beans from changing color during cooking, never cover the container in which they are cooked.
  2. Some varieties of beans taste distinctly bitter in the finished dish. To prevent this from happening, it is advisable to change the water in the saucepan to clean water at least once. It's better to change twice.
  3. Do not cook beans in broth intended for soup. It will become cloudy and smell bad. Cook the grains until fully cooked in separate water, and only then add them to the soup.
  4. How to taste beans to see if they are done? You can taste it with your mouth, but few people like the taste of half-raw grains. Therefore, it’s enough just to catch a couple of things from the water and try to crush them with two fingers. If the beans are ready, they easily yield and knead. Accordingly, damp ones will spring back.
  5. Be sure to carefully sort and wash the beans before cooking. Even if you collected them yourself on your own plot. This is much easier than trying to catch unwanted beans in a saucepan.

How to quickly cook beans without soaking? By following our recommendations, you can easily and simply reduce your cooking time by more than half. To avoid stomach problems and increased gas formation, it is better to soak the bean grains. Of course, not for 12 hours; during this time it can germinate and become unsuitable for food. But at least for three hours. This will allow you to fully enjoy its wonderful taste and beneficial substances.

Video: how to quickly cook beans without soaking in water

How to quickly and easily cook beans for soup? Thousands of housewives ask this question. But relatively recently no one knew about these legumes. Beans began to be grown on a large scale in Europe at the end of the 17th century, in Rus' in the northern regions - in the 18th century, and in the southern regions - only in the 19th.

Varieties of beans

In total, there are about 97 species of the legume family, but most people living in our latitudes know about five varieties of beans:

  • Red
  • White
  • Capsicum
  • Black
  • Yellow, waxy

Cooking times for popular types of beans

To make it possible to compare different beans, the cooking times are indicated without pre-soaking the beans.

Dark beans, namely red and black ones, take the longest to cook, because... have a thickened shell, unlike light varieties.

Cooking time depends greatly on the size of the beans; the smaller they are, the faster they cook.

Green beans are young, soft, green sprouts with small bean germs inside. The length of the sprouts is usually 12-15 cm.

By pre-soaking, the cooking time is reduced by approximately 1 hour. Beans should be soaked for 8-10 hours in plenty of water.

Methods for quickly cooking beans

  1. The easiest way to soften beans is to add a pinch of baking soda while cooking. With this approach, you can cook beans in 40-50 minutes. This method is attractive in its simplicity, but there is a risk that the beans will burst and turn into mush.
  2. Soak the beans in boiling water for 30-40 minutes, then drain the water and add 3 tbsp. sunflower oil. Add boiling water again so that it completely covers the product and place on the stove. This will shorten the cooking time and make the beans softer.
  3. Another good method. Pour cold water over the beans and let them cook. As soon as the water boils, drain it and add cold water. The procedure can be repeated 2-3 times. The beans should be cooked in 1-1.5 hours.
  4. This method is similar to the previous one, only it has its own subtleties. Here you need to pour cold water into a pan and place it on the stove. When boiling, the water should boil for 10 minutes, and then cold water should be added to the pan. These steps must be repeated at least five times.
  5. The best way to cook beans quickly is to cook them in a pressure cooker. It only takes 20 minutes to soften dried beans without soaking. And all because the cooking takes place with the lid tightly closed, under pressure.

Whatever quick method you choose, remember that cooking beans using the classic method, with soaking, better preserves the vitamins in them.

The benefits of beans and their harm

Beans are a high protein product. There are 22.3 grams of vegetable protein per 100 grams. A true meat substitute for vegetarians! The calorie content is 308.9 kcal.

Another strength of the legume crop is its high potassium content - as much as 1100 mg per 100 grams of beans. Potassium has a beneficial effect on the functioning of the cardiovascular system and prevents the development of diseases.

In addition, legumes contain a high content of B vitamins, zinc, phosphorus and sulfur, which has a good effect on immunity, brain activity and skin condition.
Everyone should know that raw beans contain toxic substances. Eating raw beans can lead to stomach problems and diarrhea. But not everyone can eat ready-made beans.

Beans are contraindicated for the following diseases:

  • gastritis
  • pancreatitis
  • colitis
  • cholecystitis

This product should be used with caution in the elderly, pregnant women and children under 12 years of age.

What kind of soup to cook with beans

Bean soups are especially popular in South America. They like to make them spicy and thick. A good example of such a soup with a step-by-step recipe is presented, you can check it out.

In familiar first courses, such as borscht or cabbage soup, you can replace meat with beans, a good alternative during Lent. The soup turns out nourishing and rich.

Cook for fun and be healthy!

Beans are a product with an incredible arsenal of useful minerals, various elements and vitamins. But it is not consumed raw, and it takes the lion’s share of time to cook the beans until soft. It’s good if you managed to soak the beans in advance. But if this was not possible or you simply forgot to do it, then the beans will take hours to cook. But we have several effective ways to speed up the cooking of beans, which we will discuss later.

How to quickly cook red beans without soaking?

Ingredients:

  • dry red beans – 215 g;
  • filtered water – 1.9-2.3 l;
  • salt.

Preparation

Temperature changes artificially created during cooking will help you cook red beans quickly. Initially, fill the product with clean water so that it just covers the grains; after the first boil, we begin to add additional portions of ice water and wait for the next boil. This way the skin will soften faster, and the grains will become soft within forty minutes. Don't forget to rinse the beans thoroughly before cooking.

The product should be salted only at the end of cooking, otherwise the salt will thicken the beans and they will take much longer to cook.

How to quickly cook white beans without soaking?

Ingredients:

  • large white beans – 215 g;
  • filtered water – 720 ml;
  • soda – 5 g;
  • salt.

Preparation

Large white beans are denser in nature, and therefore take longer to cook than red beans. In this case, we recommend using an even more effective method of preparing legumes. Fill the washed bean grains with water and immediately add a little alkaline environment will speed up the process and help the beans become soft in thirty to forty minutes.

Salt the beans only at the end of cooking.

How to properly and quickly cook beans without soaking them in the microwave?

Ingredients:

  • any beans – 220 g;
  • filtered water – 720 ml;
  • salt.

Preparation

Owners can use it to cook beans without soaking. With the help of this unit, in just thirty minutes the beans will be ready. To implement this idea, we wash the bean grains under running water, fill it with the required amount of water and put it in the microwave oven. Please note that the utensils used to prepare the product in this way must be appropriate.

Set the timer for ten minutes and turn on the microwave, setting it to maximum power. After the signal, mix the beans and extend cooking for another fifteen minutes, after which we add some salt to the dish and turn on the microwave with the beans for another minute.

how to quickly cook beans

How to quickly cook beans:

method one

Pour the beans, after sorting them out and clearing them of debris, into a saucepan and pour boiling water over them for about thirty to forty minutes. After this time, drain the water and add salt and two or three tablespoons of sunflower oil (or any other vegetable oil that you have on hand). Pour boiling water over again until it covers all the beans. Place on the fire (small) and make sure there is enough water in the pan. When it boils, you can add liquid, but not much.

How to cook beans quickly:

method two

Use the tools and devices available in every kitchen today. For example, a pressure cooker, microwave oven, convection oven and other electrical appliances that are useful and necessary for every housewife, making our lives much easier. Information on how to properly cook beans in such devices can be gleaned from the instructions for them, as well as from the World Wide Web.

Third way quick cooking of beans

With this option, baking soda is used. You just need to take it literally a pinch or on the tip of a knife. If you overdo it with the amount of soda, you can end up with mush rather than beautifully cooked beans. If a lot of soda is added to the water, the beans simply burst and become boiled.

How quickly cook beans: method four

In this method of cooking legumes, beans are poured into water and brought to a boil. Then the water is quickly drained, and the beans are again filled with cold water and cooked until fully cooked. This method allows you to reduce the cooking time by half.

How to quickly cook beans: the fifth method,

method six

Preparation:
1. Soak the beans overnight.
I was taught (taught by a Georgian, and who better than them would know how to cook legumes correctly) how to quickly cook beans without soaking (and without consequences in the process of digesting them!!!): Pour the beans in cold water, cook, let it boil, cook 2 more -5 minutes, depending on the mass of the food being prepared. Drain the water, wash the beans in cold water, pour cold water into the pan with the beans and set to cook again, this time until tender with salt and spices. This method is really very fast and no one has ever complained about the consequences for the digestive system! It is suitable for cooking any legumes, and I also cook rice VERY quickly.

Cooking beans is a slow process, so it's best to plan ahead. In addition to the hour or two that the actual cooking will take, you need to take into account the time for soaking. The good news is that you won't have to do much.

How to prepare beans

The first thing to do is check the expiration date. Beans that have been sitting for more than a year are likely to have dried out. Such beans will not become soft and tender, no matter how much you cook them.

Sort through the beans (don't worry, it's quick) and discard any shriveled or suspicious beans, as well as stems and other debris.

Then rinse the beans thoroughly in a colander under cold running water.

The next step is soaking, and there are several good reasons for this. First, pre-soaked beans cook faster. This, by the way, is not the main reason: without soaking, the beans will cook longer by only 15–20 minutes.

Secondly, during soaking, oligosaccharides are partially dissolved, which cause increased gas formation in the intestines.

Thirdly, there is an opinion that during soaking beans lose so-called antinutrients - compounds that interfere with the absorption of nutrients. In particular, legumes contain phytic acid, which interferes with the absorption of zinc, calcium, magnesium and iron.

How to soak beans

There are two ways to soak beans:

1. Slow or cold method

Proponents of this soaking method claim that it eliminates the unpleasant side effects that legumes are notorious for. However, keep in mind that it takes time. Place the beans in a large saucepan, cover with cold water and refrigerate for 12–24 hours.

For 1 cup of beans you will need 5 cups of water.

2. Fast, or hot, method

If you don’t have time for long soaking, then simply pour the dry beans into a pan and add water in the same proportion as in the previous method. Bring the water to a boil and cook the beans for 2-3 minutes. Then remove the pan from the stove, cover and let sit for at least 1 hour.

Please note that the volume of beans after soaking and cooking will increase 2-3 times, so choose a larger pan.

By the way, some housewives claim that with this method of soaking the dish turns out tastier.

How to cook beans

After soaking, drain the water and rinse the swollen beans under running water. Then place it in a large saucepan and add water so that it completely covers the beans. Bring the water to a boil and add a tablespoon of sunflower oil or so that there is less foam.

Simmer the beans over low heat. You may need to add water to the pan from time to time during the cooking process. Depending on the type of beans, their shelf life and water hardness, the cooking time can range from 0.5 to 2.5 hours.

During cooking, the beans do not need to be stirred, and the pan does not need to be covered with a lid.

To know if the beans are ready, mash one with a fork or your fingers. Ideally, the beans should become soft, but not mushy. If the beans are still crunchy, then leave them to cook further and check for doneness every 10 minutes.

Subtleties

There is a fairly common myth that salt gives beans body and toughness, so you need to add it at the end. In fact, salt has no effect on the consistency of the beans, unless, of course, you are going to pour handfuls of them into the pan. Herbs can also be added at any time.

If a recipe calls for adding acidic ingredients such as lemon juice, wine, vinegar or tomatoes, do so after the beans are cooked. Otherwise, the beans may not turn out as tender as you would like.

Cooked beans can be stored in the refrigerator for up to 4 days. It is recommended to use flat, shallow containers for this.

Do you have your own secrets for cooking beans? Share them in the comments.