Healthy Deal of the Week: Beans

By now you know that we should all be eating more beans. Well, beans are one of my favorite staple foods, but they can be time consuming to cook and the canned varieties are loaded with sodium. Bush's and Goya both have reduced sodium varieties in the can and it's true that you can rinse them really well and remove about 40% of the sodium. However, at .99 cents per can, they're pricey. Dried beans are super cheap, about $1.49 per 1 lb. bag which yields about 6 cups per bag, and no sodium. Canned beans are about .40 cents per 1/2 cup serving and dried beans are about .12 cents per serving, what a difference! Here are my tips for cooking and storing beans so that you always have them on hand without the added sodium and expense.

Sort through beans and discard any foreign materials.

Soak in about 6-8 cups of water overnight. Rinse beans well and add 6-8 cups of fresh water and bring to a boil.

Then simmer with lid slightly ajar for about 1 1/2 hours. Check beans and add more water if needed.

Kitchen helper #1

Place cooked beans in a pan and freeze for about 1 hour (so they don't clump during storage).

Transfer to a freezer safe bag and store.

Kitchen helper #2

Now you have your beans ready to go. Just defrost as needed and add to salads, desserts (puree, in place of oil), or your favorite recipes!

Happy cooking!!