Herby, Brothy, Cooked-from-Scratch Pinto Beans

This month on TNB, we’re going Back to Basics! All month long, I’m sharing recipes and techniques for how to make pantry staples healthier and from scratch. First up, how to cook dried beans. Plus, a flavor-packed recipe for using up freshly-cooked beans.

As someone who eats primarily plants, legumes (beans, chickpeas, lentils) are one of my main sources of protein. They’re super versatile, cheap, and delicious, and I can happily eat them for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

Although I’m totally cool with canned beans, I do prefer to cook them from dried when I have the time. Canned beans tend to be higher in sodium and just not as tasty. I also don’t love that they just hang out in a can for god-knows-how-long. And I’m not thrilled about the amount of waste aluminum cans add to the world, even if they are recycled.

To Soak or Not to Soak

Dried beans should be soaked for at least eight hours, or overnight, before cooking. Soaking beans helps break down the oligosaccharides – complex sugars in beans that can cause, umm… you know, gas – making them easier to digest.

Soaking also reduces beans’ phytic acid content – a so-called “antinutrient” found in many beans and grains that can prevent our bodies from absorbing certain minerals from those very beans and grains.

Lastly, soaking beans also speeds up their cooking time, helps them keep their shape and cook more evenly, and helps prevent their skins from splitting.

Cooking Time

Beans’ cooking time can vary based on their age. The older the beans, the longer they’ll take. There’s no way to really know exactly how long until you are actually cooking and tasting them as you go. I recommend starting to taste after about 30 minutes of simmering. Sometimes they take just 40 minutes, other times twice as long.

Be sure to simmer beans very gently – if they are boiling too rapidly, their skins will split.

Beans can go from creamy to overcooked pretty quickly, so pay closer attention toward the end. The good news is that overcooked beans are perfect for making pureed, refried, and brothy beans.

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Bean Broth

The broth that’s created while cooking beans is really good stuff – especially if you add aromatics like onion, garlic, herbs, and/or spices to the water. It gives these beans a saucy, creamy, refried-ish texture (hence the term “brothy beans”) and well-rounded flavor. You can also use it as a base for a bean soup instead of vegetable broth.

How to Serve These Brothy Beans

The concept for these brothy pinto beans is super simple. Cook up a pot of beans, drain them, and reserve some of the broth. Then saute an onion with aromatics, add the beans and their broth, and mash them into a saucy texture. Finish with a generous heap of fresh herbs.

These brothy beans are rich, saucy, and garlicky, hitting you with herby freshness and citrusy tang with each bite. I like to serve them with garlic-rubbed sourdough toast, roasted potatoes, and/or a crunchy cabbage salad. You can also pile them on nachos, into tacos and burritos, or slather them on tostadas.

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