Pre-op, the Bush’s baked beans and a can of chili beans in my chili was usually the extent of my adventure with beans. Post-op, I’ve been trying to branch out. Mild in flavor, versatile, and packed with protein (13g per 1/2 cup serving!), soybeans have definitely become one of my favorites.
You can find them in the grocery stores… sometimes. One local chain has them for about $1.75 a can which has about 3.5, 1/2 cup servings (in other words about 1 3/4 cups when drained). Most places I’ve seen the same size can runs $.2.25 and up, cause they tend to only carry “organic” brands.
Or you can hit the local co-op or Whole Foods and get dried beans for about the same cost per pound. One pound of those dried beans is going to be just over two cups… but like Ball Park Franks, they plump when you cook them so you end up with nearly 3 cups, and they about double in weight.
Cooking dried beans can seem daunting. Do some searches online and they all talk about how long they need to be pre-soaked, and how you can use a pressure cooker to speed the time, and soybeans, well heck, they take the longest to cook of just about any bean out there! Sounds like a pain in the butt, no?
Not really… if you use the right tool. And in this case, that tool is a Crock Pot, or slow-cooker.
You’ve heard the pitch, “Set it and forget it”? Well, the slow cooker is the original. And as Alton Brown pointed out in one episode, a slow cooker is basically a bean pot with an electric warmer, so why not use it that way?
I use a 2quart model the most, you could do about 2-3 cups of beans at a time in here. Just measure out the soybeans, add three times as much water as you do soybeans, turn it on low, and come back in about 4-1/2 to 5 hours. Drain, rinse under cold water, and bada-bing, you have cooked soybeans ready to go in to all sorts of different recipes.
Ok, there is a tiny bit more to it than that. But not much really.
When you drain them, you can drain the water into another pot or bowl and save it. It can be frozen and used as a vegetable stock that has a protein kick to it.
Dump the beans back in the crock and rinse them under slow running cold water. This will stop the cooking process, and as you do so, run your finger through the beans (wash your hand first!) and loosen the hulls. They’ll sort of float to the top… yank ‘em outta there. Post WLS, we tend to have enough issues with gas. The hulls don’t digest well and will only up the ante there.
After you rinse, let them drain well. You have a few option here now.
Put them in an air-tight container and store in the fridge for about a week. Or toss them in a zip-lock type baggie and freeze them. Put them in a large enough bag so you can freeze them in one layer. Or I suppose you could spread them out on a tray and freeze them, then bag them. They’ll keep for months in the freezer, and can just be tossed frozen in to soups or such later, or thawed before using in various recipes.
Another option is to re-dry them… slightly. Getting rid of some of the moisture will give them a bit of a meatier texture and change the coloring from a pale white to a slightly yellowish color. To do this, spread them out on a tray and throw in the oven on the lowest setting you can (mine was about 170) for about 90-100 minutes, giving them a gentle stir every 20 minutes or so.
Then let cool and put in the fridge or freezer just like before.
You can see the slight difference here… in the right side of the bowl are those that were just cooked in the slow cooker and then stored in the fridge. The left side of the bowl are beans that I “cooked” a bit in the oven.
You can do this with other beans too, but cut the cooking time by about half or you’ll over cook the beans… which if you’re making something like a black bean hummus may not be too bad, but if you want them for black bean salsa, you don’t want them that mushy.
I’m still a carnivore, but especially in these early post-op months where some meats are just hard to digest, beans (especially soybeans) have been a cheap, easy, and decent tasting way for me to get the protein I need.
Glad to see the crock-pot being put to healthy use. I just cooked refried black beans in the slow cooker for my site. You might like some of the recipes (especially as a former fat dude.) Most are lower in fat, many are vegetarian. There are a few heart-stoppers, but overall I cook light.
Cheers to a fellow slow cooker!