Batch {Bulk} Cooking Black Beans, ect…

Hello dear readers. I’m back to share with y’all another batch cooking session. This week I’ll share with you the benefits of cooking dry beans and show you different ways to use them in your cooking. I washed, sorted, and cooked a 1 lb. bag of beans in an electric pressure cooker. I did this with two different types of beans (separately of course).

First I want to share with you that I learned the hard way about cooking beans in the pressure cooker. I normally do them in a crockpot LOW and SLOW. One day I decided I wanted to give the pressure cooker a try. I cooked two different kinds of beans: red kidney beans and black beans. I cooked them each separately. I learned that it’s best to put around 2 Tbsp. of oil in with the water (or chicken broth) and the beans when cooking in a pressure cooker. I had not done that when I cooked mine so I had a huge mess to deal with. There was bean juices spewing out all over the place. It sounded like my pressure cooker valve had gotten stopped up and it caused a big mess for me to clean up. Unfortunately the juices from the black beans left a noticeable stain on my wall :(. Adding the oil helps the beans to cook right so I’ll keep doing that way for now on.

From a 1b. of dry beans I can get several cans worth of cooked beans. Once the beans were done I separated them into 2 cup portions with 1/2 cup of the bean juice (can be rinsed off when thawed and ready to use). I pour the portions into quart sized labeled “Ziploc” bags. I ended up with the equivalent of 6 cans of both the red kidney beans and the black beans. I  flatten them to get out as much air as possible to freeze flat on a baking sheet.


I’m sorry for the way the black beans look in the picture. The bags had a lot of condensation going on inside so I couldn’t get a better picture.  Now what can I use these bags of beans for? If you did not season them up to eat by the bowl, you can do anything that you like using canned beans for. Here are some suggestions if you can’t think of any:

Meal ideas to serve Red Kidney Beans in, or with:

* Chili

* Red Beans and Rice

* Minestrone (Italian)

* any Soup

* and Stew

* Make Bean Dip or Hummus

* Make a Bean Salad (with red kidney beans, black beans, and white beans)

Meal ideas to serve Black Beans in, or with:

* Add to Soup, Chowder, or Stew

* Add to Chili

* Make Hummus or a Bean Dip

* Make Cuban Beans and Rice

* Make veggie burgers

* Tacos (or taco salad)

* Burritos/bowls

* Enchiladas

* Flautas

* Quesadilla

* Tostadas

* Mexican casserole

* Make bean and corn salsa

* Serve with nachos

* Mix into Brownie batter

These are just some examples of the many things you can do. Other types of dried beans can be pressure cooked too. I’ll have to try more soon. If any other things come to mind, I may come back to add to this list later. What can you think of that I haven’t added to the list? Please fee free to let me know in the comments below. I will be back with you in two weeks with another bulk cooking session. Thanksgiving is fast approaching us. Turkey Day will be here next week. There is so much to be thankful to our Heavenly Father for. I pray you take time out to give Him thanks. May you and yours have a blessed Thanksgiving Holiday!