Days 60 and 61 of 365 Days Of Low Carbon Living: cooking dried beans in a slow cooker before using them in a quick climatarian, vegetarian, vegan or #MeatfreeMonday meal.
Dried beans are an inexpensive source of protein with a low carbon footprint – perfect for climatarian meals and #MeatfreeMonday. There is a big variety of beans from which to choose.
Being dry, they also can also be stored for long periods without the energy and pollution involved in canning.
Yet cooking them can be fiddly if you use the traditional method of soaking, rinsing, simmering for hours, and then finally rinsing again.
Here’s what I do: Cooking dried beans in a slow cooker
If you have a slow cooker there is a much easier way of preparing the beans.
Why I cook dried beans in a slow cooker
The main reasons for choosing dried beans are because they are much more gentle on our precious earth and atmosphere than meat – and a lot less expensive. They are a great base for a climatarian, vegetarian, vegan or #MeatfreeMonday meal.
I cook dried beans in the slow cooker when the weather is cool (OK, it’s the middle of winter!) and I am in a hurry. This method comes with a raft of bonuses (sometimes called ‘co-benefits’):
1 It’s easy and convenient.
- They are a lot lighter to carry than cans of beans.
- When dry, they take up less shelf space than cans.
- I can cook as much as I like with very little effort.
2 It’s also inexpensive – especially if you cook a lot of beans during the cheapest electricity tariff.
3 It can also mean that your beans come with almost zero waste, pollution and local environmental damage from packaging.
- Cans are made from metal that begins life as rock before being refined, turned into metal and then cans.
- Labels are made from paper that takes energy, trees and/or recycled paper to make.
4 If your electricity is made from clean, renewable energy (like mine is) then you can be sure that cooking the beans is not adding extra damage to our climate. Food in cans is first cooked then, after canning, is processed at high temperatures – and you can almost never tell the source of the energy used.
5 The long cooking time helps warm the house – great for winter!
How I cook dried beans in a slow cooker
1 Put dried beans in the cooker. They will expand 2-4 times their size, so you’ll only need about 1/3 of the final volume you need. Alternatively, just cook some and then use as needed – be creative!
2 Cover well with water. I make sure the water is at least 3 times the depth of the beans – the last thing you want to do is have them boil dry and burn.
3 Cook on low over night or during the day – whichever is most convenient for you and/or uses the cheapest electricity tariff.
4 Test to check that the beans are cooked. Different beans take different amounts of time to cook. Generally, the bigger and older they are they longer they take.
5 When they are cooked, simply:
- drain
- rinse
- add to the dish you are making – just like canned beans.
Here are the kidney beans in the soup I made for today’s climatarian #MeatfreeMonday meal:
(I mainly used vegetables I had in my fridge. Because they were stored well, they were still fresh 3 weeks after buying them, although I would have still used them if they were a bit ‘tired’. And, in this case, I used the last of a (very hard) chorizo sausage for extra flavour and to clean out my fridge.)
6 Serve and enjoy!
Challenge
If you have a slow cooker, try cooking dried beans in it for one meal in the coming week.
If you don’t have a slow cooker, see if you can borrow one from a friend so you can try cooking a batch of beans in it. You may be inspired to use one more often. (Hint: try sharing a cooker or acquiring one by a method other than buying new from a shop.)
Join me!
Any change or challenge is easier if you have company along the way.
So let’s embark on this journey together.
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A problem shared is a problem halved. We’re all affected by the changes to our world so we need to be all in on the action!
Till next time…