Baked Beans Recipe on Food52 (2024)

FAQs

What is the secret to soft baked beans? ›

If the beans are too dry, add some hot water—or leftover bean-cooking water, if you still have some—until they're just saucy enough.

They also contain minerals such as iron and zinc, and are a good source of B vitamins such as folate. Including beans and pulses in your diet is also associated with a lower cardiovascular risk and may help balance blood sugar levels.

These beans can often take much longer to soften while soaking and cooking, up to twice the time! Baking soda can help significantly since it increases the pH of the water, disintegrating that pectin and allowing beans to soften quicker.

Soaking. Soaking your beans helps them cook faster and more evenly, and it can also make them easier to digest. If you add salt to the soaking water (in other words, make a brine), your beans will cook even faster; the salt helps break down their skins.

Overcooking your beans

Signs that your beans are overcooked include them being very soft and mushy. Tender beans are ideal, but if they lack firmness and don't keep their shape, they have probably simmered for too long. Overcooked beans will also start to lose their flavor, leaving a flat taste.

Smell: If the beans have a foul, sour, or rancid odor, it means that they have gone bad and should not be consumed. Taste: If the beans have an unusual or off flavor, or if they taste sour or bitter, it's likely that they have gone bad.

Ketchup: I slather the top of the bacon with ketchup which caramelizes in the oven while the beans bake low and slow. It not only adds to the gorgeousness of the dish, but the flavor too.

What can I add to baked beans to prevent gas? ›

The one tried and true method she taught me to reduce the gassy effect of beans, is this: add a tiny amount of baking soda to the pot half an hour or so before you're ready to serve them to “release” the gasses from them. Be set to stir down the violent reaction. This works no matter how you've seasoned them.

Yes! "Eating beans, including canned beans, every day is one of the best things you can do to help increase nutrients [that you may fall short on] and substantially improve the quality of your diet," says Papanikolaou.

Pulses, beans, lentils, and peas have been shown to significantly lower blood pressure in people with high and without high blood pressure. Beans are packed with fiber and protein, which have been shown to naturally help reduce blood pressure.

The Bottom Line. Baked beans are high in protein, fiber, other nutrients, and beneficial plant compounds. They may improve gut health and cholesterol levels.

Beans and barley require different cooking times, so it's a good idea to cook them separately, then combine them and adjust the seasoning. You don't say how long you cooked them for, but if they're still tough, they most likely weren't cooked long enough. The older beans are, the longer they take to become tender.

The addition of baking soda to the cooking water does two things: It adds sodium ions that weaken the pectin as explained above, and more importantly, an alkaline environment causes the pectin molecules to break down into smaller molecules that greatly weakens the pectin causing the beans to soften much more rapidly.

Use the power of baking soda to get dried beans to soften up faster. Rinse and sort your beans. Place them in pot and cover with water, sprinkle on a tablespoon or so of baking soda and bring to a boil. Boil for 10 minutes.

Before cooking, all dried beans need to be rehydrated by soaking. The 10- to 12-hour overnight soak is the easy and always effective method, but you can quick-soak beans by bringing them to the boil for one minute, then covering the pan and letting them sit for one hour.