Cooking Dried Beans for Two and Whether It Saves Money

We used to buy four or five tins of chickpeas a week, and every time we saw the bags of dried ones on the bottom shelf we wondered if we were wasting money. Then we tried cooking dried beans for two and ended up with a pan of hard, split chickpeas and a whole evening gone. If you have been in the same place, this is what we have worked out since, including the numbers that convinced Matt it was worth the effort.

Short version: dried beans do save money, they taste better, and they fit a two-person kitchen well, but only if you cook a big batch once and freeze it. Cooking a small portion every time is where most people give up.

Does cooking dried beans actually save money

We checked prices at our usual supermarket. A 500g bag of dried chickpeas costs about 1.30 pounds. Dried beans roughly double to two and a half times their weight when cooked, so that bag gives us around 1.2kg of cooked chickpeas.

A 400g tin of chickpeas holds about 240g once drained and costs 60p to 90p depending on the brand. To get 1.2kg of drained chickpeas from tins, we would need five tins, which is 3 to 4.50 pounds.

Then there is the energy. Simmering on our electric hob for an hour uses roughly 1 kWh, which at our tariff is about 25p. Even with that added, a batch of dried chickpeas works out at about 1.55 pounds against 3 pounds or more for tins. On the 70 pound weekly food budget we try to keep, that difference covers a bag of vegetables.

The savings are bigger with beans that are pricey in tins, like butter beans or black beans, and smaller with own-brand kidney beans, which are already cheap.

How we soak and cook beans for two

Soaking

We soak in the evening and cook the next day. Put the beans in a large bowl, cover with at least three times their volume of cold water, and stir in a teaspoon of salt per litre. Leave for 8 to 12 hours. The beans will swell a lot, so a bowl that looks too big is the right size.

If we forget, we use a quick soak: cover the beans with water, bring to the boil for 2 minutes, turn off the heat and leave them covered for an hour. It works, though the skins split a little more.

Cooking

1. Drain and rinse the soaked beans.
2. Put them in a large pan with fresh water covering them by about 5cm.
3. Bring to a full boil. For red kidney beans, keep them at a hard, rolling boil for at least 10 minutes. Raw or undercooked kidney beans contain a natural toxin that this boil destroys, and a slow cooker on low does not get hot enough.
4. Turn down to a gentle simmer, partly cover, and skim off foam in the first 10 minutes.
5. Start tasting early. Pick out three beans and squash one on the roof of your mouth. They are done when all three are creamy all the way through.

Rough simmering times after soaking:

Old beans take longer, sometimes twice as long. If a bag has been in the cupboard for over a year, plan for a slower cook or use it in a soup where texture matters less. Our notes on stocking a two person pantry explain how we rotate bags so this happens less.

The salt myth we stopped believing

For years we followed the advice never to salt beans until the end, because salt supposedly keeps them hard. Plenty of cookbooks still say this. In our kitchen it turned out to be the wrong way round.

Salting the soaking water gives beans thinner, softer skins and a creamier middle, and they split less in the pan. We now soak with salt and add a little more to the cooking water too. What genuinely keeps beans hard is acid. Tomatoes, vinegar or wine added before the beans are tender can stop them softening for hours. So we cook beans plain, then add them to a tomato sauce or chilli once they are done.

The other piece of advice we ignore is cooking a small amount fresh for each meal. For two people, 100g of dried beans is a sensible portion, but cooking 100g uses almost the same time and energy as cooking 500g. Batch cooking is where the savings come from.

Freezing cooked beans in two-person portions

Once the beans are cooked, we let them cool in their liquid, which keeps them from drying out. Then we portion them into bags of about 250g with a splash of the cooking water. That is roughly one drained tin, so any recipe that calls for "one tin of chickpeas" works without a scale.

Flatten the bags before freezing so they stack and thaw quickly. They keep well for about three months. In the fridge, cooked beans last 3 to 4 days in a covered container. Our wider routine for this is in simple freezer habits that save our weeknight dinners.

Do not pour the cooking liquid away without thinking. Chickpea water whips up like egg white for meringues, and the liquid from black beans makes a rich base for soup.

What we cook with a batch

A 500g bag of chickpeas usually covers four or five dinners for us across a fortnight:

• Hummus for lunches, using 250g of chickpeas, 2 tablespoons of tahini, one lemon and a small garlic clove.
• A chickpea and spinach curry that takes 25 minutes on a work night.
• Roasted chickpeas with paprika as a snack, 25 minutes at 200C.
• Half a bag added to a big pot of soup.

Beans have become one of our main ways to stretch meat and cut waste, which fits the habits in cooking for two without wasting half the groceries.

Frequently asked questions

Do you have to soak dried beans before cooking?

Not always. Lentils and split peas never need soaking, and black beans cook fine without it if you allow extra time. Soaking does make larger beans like chickpeas cook more evenly and in less time.

How much do dried beans make when cooked?

Most dried beans roughly double to two and a half times their weight once cooked. So 100g of dried beans gives about 220g to 250g cooked, which is close to one drained 400g tin.

Why are my beans still hard after cooking for hours?

The usual causes are old beans, very hard tap water, or acid added too early. Cook them plain until soft before adding tomatoes or vinegar, and use fresher beans if possible.