Moving away from canned beans -- how to store rehydrated beans?

[Anonymous]

I want to start soaking/cooking black beans, kidney beans and garbanzo beans myself instead of using the canned beans. Ideally, I'd do batches and then freeze the extras, but I'm not sure how the rehydrated beans would freeze -- anybody have experience with this? Any suggestions for soaking/storing beans?

Thanks!

[Anonymous]

I wouldn't suggest freezing beans that you've already cooked. Cooking dry beans doesn't have to be time consuming. Use a crockpot and cook the beans as you need them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I wouldn't suggest freezing beans that you've already cooked. Cooking dry beans doesn't have to be time consuming. Use a crockpot and cook the beans as you need them.

OP here. Here's the thing: I'd like to have beans on hand to throw into things at the last minute. This weekend, for instance, I made split pea soup, but it turned out a little thin. So I chopped up chickpeas and threw them in and it worked out. But I never would have done that if the chick peas hadn't already been ready and waiting in my fridge. Maybe a better question is how long will rehydrated beans last in the fridge?

[Anonymous]

I'm a big fan of dried beans and cook them a lot. Some things I've found helpful:

If you can manage to plan ahead even a little bit, put them to soak in the morning and they'll be ready to cook late that afternoon. Or start them soaking the night before, whenever you realize "Hey, I'd like to make X tomorrow."

I've drained and frozen uncooked beans successfully, then thawed them by simply dropping them into whatever is bubbling on the stove. If you want extra convenience, freeze them on a cookie sheet first, then bag; this way they won't all freeze into a giant clump. Just make sure to mark the ziploc as UNCOOKED, lest you completely screw up your timing and add something that takes 2 hours and not 5 minutes.

In a pinch, you can use the short method: dried beans in pot with water to cover, bring to boil and boil for two minutes, turn off heat, cover and let soak for one hour.

[Anonymous]

I cook dried beans a pound at a time (I use a pressure cooker so it cuts way down on cooking time) and freeze what I don't use. I freeze them in freezable glass containers and either defrost in the fridge or in the microwave as needed. I probably don't keep the cooked and frozen beans more than a month (we eat a lot of beans).

[Anonymous]

I recently froze soaked (but not cooked) beans and then brought them out when I was ready to cook them. Worked fine. I don't see why you couldn't freeze cooked beans, too. I think beans are one of the things that would freeze very well.

[Anonymous]

Freezing beans is fine.

[Anonymous]

these people report it works fine!

http://chowhound.chow.com/topics/542580

http://www.keeperofthehome.org/2009/04/who-says-you-need-to-can-beans.html

[Anonymous]

Freezing beans is fine, especially for stews and soups. Harder for salads bc some may crack or get a little mushy. Use freshly cooked or canned beans for salads and frozen is fine for the rest.