If you cook beans from scratch (dried beans), you may have noticed that they sometimes don't get soft no matter how long you cook them. There are a couple reasons that beans might not be getting soft:
- Old beans may not get soft, so use fresh beans. Why? As dried beans age, moisture evaporates, giving pectin time to age and harden the skin, which results in beans that refuse to get fully soft.
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Beans can remain hard if acidic ingredients are added before they get soft. Tomatoes, vinegar, chiles, or chili sauce are all acidic ingredients that, when added before or as the beans are cooked, the acids will prevent the beans from softening. To fix, soak overnight beforehand for best results, drain and rinse beans. Then bring beans to a boil and simmer in fresh water separately until tender, which takes 45 minutes to 2 hours, depending on the bean variety and age. Once they are tender, then you can add the acidic ingredients. Acidic ingredients can also affect other vegetables like potatoes: if you add green chile to scalloped potatoes before they get soft, for example, they won't get as soft and creamy.
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Cooking Methods: We just use a Crockpot or a stovetop pot to cook our beans, but many people love to use pressure cookers which allow for beans to get soft much more quickly, and can work better with older beans (however, beans over 2 years old are unlikely to ever get soft and creamy.)
Try our Classic Pinto Beans Recipe »
Check out all of our Chile Pepper Recipes »
Happy growing, cooking and eating!
