Cooking dried beans in a slow cooker produces richly flavorful, tender beans that will save you money and taste better than anything you'll ever find in a can.
Don't get me wrong. Canned beans are great in a pinch. I use them often. But, with just a bit of foresight and about 5 minutes of prep work, you can have a pot full of slow simmered beans, flavored with whatever spices you like.
Have an Instant Pot? Here's how to cook any kind of beans in the Instant Pot.
Beans Really are a Wonder Food
Slowly cooking dried beans makes them creamy, flavorful, and delicious. Plus, they're inexpensive, incredibly versatile, and super good for you. Beans are high in fiber and protein, low in sugar, fat, and sodium, and full of slow-burning complex carbohydrates.
Foods containing complex carbs do a couple of really good things for us. They helps us feel full sooner and for longer than eating a bunch of simple carbs.
And, for those concerned with blood sugar, complex carbs take longer to impact blood sugar. In other words, as beans digest, they cause blood sugar to rise slowly, providing steady energy without the highs and lows of foods that cause blood sugar to spike quickly then fall.
Do You Really Need to Soak Beans Before Cooking?
Cooking dried beans is a highly underrated endeavor. Canned beans are a fabulous luxury of the modern age and I almost always have a few cans in the pantry. BUT – cooking dried beans only takes about 5 minutes of prep work, costs a fraction as much as canned, and taste markedly more delicious.
The best thing about cooking dried beans is that you have the opportunity to add herbs, spices, garlic and onions to them while they cook, infusing the beans will all that flavor. Also, the texture of cooked dried beans is much, much better than anything that ever comes out of a can.
The only drawback to cooking dried beans is that the require a bit of forethought. Most recipes, this one included, call for soaking the beans in water overnight. While there’s nothing difficult or time consuming about dumping some beans into a bowl and covering them with water, it does require you to remember to soak them.
But, is soaking the beans necessary? And what do you do if you forget to soak them?
Soaking beans before cooking does three things:
- It reduces the cooking time
- Creates a better texture for the cooked beans, with fewer split-open and burst beans
- It makes them a bit more digestible
If you don’t soak your beans ahead of time, they will still cook. But, you’ll need to extend the cooking time by about 2 hours. (Sometimes it can take even longer, especially if the beans are old.)
This Recipe Will Work with Most Kinds of Beans
This is a general recipe that works for pretty much any kind of dried bean except for split peas and lentils. Use all one type of bean or mix a few different ones together.
The recipe makes a lot of cooked beans - about 6-7 cups. You can certainly cut the recipe in half. But, I've found that it's not that difficult to use 6 or 7 cups of beans in different dishes throughout the week. If there are any leftover, they freeze beautifully and are great to have on hand.
Incorporate whatever flavors you like
Planning to make some chili, tostadas, nachos, or burritos this week? Add some chili power, cumin, and oregano.
Check out this recipe for From Scratch Black Beans that incorporates all of those flavors and more.
Perhaps you're in the mood for Italian or Mediterranean flavors. Add some rosemary, thyme, oregano, basil, and crushed red pepper.
Making some middle eastern or Indian dishes? Toss in some allspice, cardamom, cinnamon, cloves, coriander, cumin, and dried chilies.
No matter what, I like to add some garlic and onion powder. After that, anything goes.
What's the Difference Between a Slow Cooker and a Crock Pot?
A Crock-Pot is a type of slow cooker. So does that mean they are essentially the same thing?
Well, no. Not exactly.
While a Crock-Pot is a type of slow cooker, not every slow cooker is a Crock-Pot. Crock-Pots include a stoneware pot that is surrounded by a heating element.
The term "slow cooker" simply refers to the type of appliance, not the brand. Besides Crock-Pot, there are several other cooking brands that make slow cookers, like Cuisinart.
What's the Difference Between a Slow Cooker and an Instant Pot?
Slow Cookers are appliances that do one basic thing: they cook food slowly at a low temperature. Cooking food slowly in a slow cooker is convenient because you can set it early in the day and then just forget about it until later that evening when you want to eat.
The Instant Pot is a brand name for a multicooker. As you might guess, a multicooker is an appliance that does many things. Even though it can do several things, the primary way most of us use an Instant Pot is to quickly pressure cook food.
Instant Pots work by using pressure to raise the boiling point of water. This allows you to cook things like beans more quickly. If you'd rather cook beans quickly, here's how to cook beans in an Instant Pot.
The cool thing about Instant Pots is that most of them also have a slow cooker setting. I love this option when I'm cooking dried beans.
If I'm going to be out all day, I tend to use the slow cooker option to cook beans while I go about my day. If I want beans to be ready in just a couple of hours, I use the pressure cooker option.
Popular Recipes that use Slow Cooker Beans
One of my favorite ways to use cooked beans, especially when I have some leftover from another recipe, is to toss them into a pot of 30-minute rotisserie chicken soup. The soup is a great way to use up all kinds of leftovers or those random veggies rolling around in your crisper.
Here are other ways to use cooked beans:
- Vegetarian Chili with Chimichurri Sauce and Pico de Gallo
- Creamy Chicken Chili with Chorizo and Roasted Corn
- Cuban Chicken and Rice
- White Chili and Chorizo Tamale Pie
- White Bean and Kale Soup with Wild Rice
- Black Bean Tostadas with Corn Salsa
- Black Bean and Tomato Soup
- Slow Cooker Green Chili Baked Burritos
- Veggie Black Bean Nachos
- Stuffed Poblano Peppers
If you give this recipe a try, let me know! Scroll down to rate the recipe and leave a comment for me, or take a picture and tag it @alittleandalot on Instagram.
📖 Recipe
How to Cook Any Kind of Beans in a Slow Cooker
Slow cooker beans take about 4 hours on high and 6 hours on low. This is a general recipe that works for pretty much any kind of dried bean except for split peas and lentils. Use all one type of bean or mix a few different ones together.
Have an Instant Pot? Here's how to cook any kind of beans in the Instant Pot.
Cooking Black Beans? Try this recipe for cooking Black Beans in a Slow Cooker or on the Stovetop.
Ingredients
- 16 ounces (1 lb) dried beans, any variety
- 1 tablespoon minced garlic
- 1 tablespoon onion powder
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1 teaspoon pepper
- ¼ teaspoon baking soda
- 2 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce or soy sauce
- 8 cups (1892ml) water, or chicken or vegetable broth
- Any other herbs and spices that you like (optional)
Instructions
It's important to prepare dried beans by soaking them in water before cooking - see information in the post above for more about why this is important.
To soak beans in water overnight:
- Rinse beans in a colander set in the sink, then place in a large bowl and cover with water. Put the beans in the refrigerator to let soak for up to 24 hours. Drain and rinse the beans.
Quick-Soak method:
- Rinse beans in a colander set in the sink, then put them in a saucepan and cover with water. Set the pan over high heat, bring the water to a boil; let boil for 2 minutes. Remove the pan from the heat, cover, and let the peas soak for 1 hour.
To cook the beans:
- Pour beans into a colander and rinse in the sink for a minute or so. Pour into your slow cooker.
- Add remaining ingredients plus 8 cups water, or chicken or vegetable broth. Stir to combine, put the lid on the slow cooker and let cook for 4 hours on high or 6 hours on low.
Notes
It's important that the liquid reaches the boiling point during cooking. Here's why:
One reader brought up the importance of cooking beans at a high enough temperature for the liquid to boil (see her comment below), and I thought her point was important enough to deserve some additional commentary.
All legumes and most grains have high amounts of a natural compound called lectins, which can be toxic in high doses and red kidney beans have the highest amount of it.
In most cases, lectins are killed off during the soaking and cooking process. If you follow the method described in this recipe to soak the beans, discard the soaking liquid and give the beans a rinse, then cook them all the way through, you should be good.
The one caveat is if your slow cooker, when set to “low”, doesn’t cook at a high enough temperature to bring the liquid to a boil.
Most slow cookers will eventually bring the contents to a boil even when set on the lowest setting. However, I imagine there might be exceptions.
If the low setting on your slow cooker does not bring the liquid in the pot to a simmer, turn the temperature up. The beans need to cook in liquid that has reached the boiling point in order to ensure that any lectins are killed off.
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Nutrition Information:
Yield:
14Serving Size:
½ cupAmount Per Serving: Calories: 51Total Fat: 0gSaturated Fat: 0gTrans Fat: 0gUnsaturated Fat: 0gCholesterol: 0mgSodium: 266mgCarbohydrates: 9gFiber: 3gSugar: 0gProtein: 3g
Pete says
Lectins can be removed without boiling. Looks like 80°C for 2 hours is enough. Here is what I found from the Journal of Food Science.
RebeccaBlackwell says
Thanks Pete!
Stacey says
Tried this today. It cooked on high for 6 hours. Is it supposed to be watery? It looks like clear broth soup? Was thinking it would be a bit thicker?
RebeccaBlackwell says
Hi Stacey! The "sauce" the beans cook in can vary in consistency depending on how much liquid the beans absorb. There are a couple of ways you can thicken it up to make the liquid saucier: If the beans are tender, but can stand to be cooked a bit longer, simply remove the lid on your slow cooker and turn the heat up to high. As the liquid simmers, excess water will evaporate leaving you with a thicker sauce. Alternatively, strain the beans from the liquid and pour the liquid into a saucepan. Set the saucepan on your stovetop and bring it to a boil over high heat. Let the liquid simmer on the stovetop until the excess water has evaporated and the sauce is the desired consistency. Then pour it back into the beans. I hope that helps but please let me know if you have any other questions!
Stacey says
I let it sit in the walk in fridge all night and re cooked it today.... thickened up nicely! I think because I used a very large cooker and doubled the batch it just didn’t boil long or hot enough the first time. I spiced it up a bit and now My young daughters have tried it and both give it a big thumbs up!! No more buying canned beans for this mama!!
Thanks.
RebeccaBlackwell says
I'm so happy to hear this Stacey! I felt the same way the first time I cooked a batch of dried beans in the slow cooker! Thank you so much for writing back! xo
Charles says
Nice article, hope to try it this week, but the bean mix I purchased has some split peas in it (not a lot). What adjustments do I need to make? Also, can I add a hamhock to the brew?
Thank you!
RebeccaBlackwell says
Hi Charles! I wouldn't worry about the split peas. They do require less cooking time than other beans, but they'll just break down as the beans cook and contribute to the overall flavor of the dish. No adjustments necessary. Cook the beans as long as needed for all the beans to become soft and tender, allowing smaller beans like split peas to break down and flavor the whole pot. And adding a ham hock to the mix is a great idea! Add it right from the beginning. The hock will flavor the beans from the inside out as they cook. Please let me know if you have any other questions!
Sonja says
Hi Rebecca!
I'm new to the world of beans and I'm an incredibly busy mom. I have a daughter who doesn't like most proteins and I would like to try beans.
I LOVE the spices in this recipe as I cook with these spices already and I'm confident my daughter will like this recipe the most.
I'm a little intimidated of cooking beans from scratch at this point and I'm wondering if there is a way to use canned mixed beans? What size of can(s)?
RebeccaBlackwell says
Hi Sonja! My husband and I eat a lot more beans than we do animal protein so I can say with confidence that everything about them is easy and adaptable to pretty much anything you want to do. A couple of pieces of advice...
1. Try cooking them from scratch just once either using this recipe for cooking them in a slow cooker or (if you have one) this recipe for cooking them in an instant pot. You'll find that cooking dried beans is ridiculously easy and never be intimidated by the process again. 🙂
2. Canned beans are fantastic. There's a lot of benefits for cooking dried beans - it's more economical, the beans are more digestable, and you have 100% control over the amount of salt and flavoring. BUT, caned beans are a godsend for those times when you want to add beans to something right now. We always have a couple cans of black beans, garbanzo beans, and white beans in our pantry and I use them all the time in salads, soups, mashed up to spread on bread for veggie sandwiches, to to make one of our favorite meals - white beans and greens on toast. You really can flavor canned beans any way you like and use them in pretty much anything.
Canned beans are already cooked, so there's no need to do anything to them except heat them up if you like. If you want to flavor them with dried spices, this is a simple delicious way to do that: Add a tablespoon or two of olive oil to a skillet and add a handful of chopped onions. Heat over medium heat until the onion is soft and translucent. Add minced garlic and whatever dried herbs and spices you like and cook for 2 minutes, stirring, to cook the garlic and toast the spices. Add the beans, stirring them around in the pan to coat them in all the flavors in the skillet. That's it.
Does that answer your questions Sonja? Please let me know if you have any other questions! xo
Alice Sahagian says
We make our own bread, and one time I had experimented with making my own tofu from soy beans. So I was left with a LOT of soybean 'mush' that I did not want to throw out, so we added some to (1/2 - 3/4 cup) to our bread dough.
It made no difference to the flavor, BUT it made a huge improvement to the shelf life of the bread! It remained incredibly fresh tasting right until the last piece! We now do this every time we bake bread.
Most likely any kind of baked bean 'mush' would do the same.
RebeccaBlackwell says
What a fantastic idea Alice! Thank you so much for sharing!
Kandy says
Can I cook beans in a stock made from smoked cured ham or will the salt content make my beans hard. I want to make ham and beans in a crockpot but am undecided as to when I can add salt/seasonings or tomatoes paste etc as I've been told adding salt to beans before they are cooked and tender will result in hard beans. Any advice or comments would be welcome.
RebeccaBlackwell says
Hi Kandy! I think cooking beans in a stock made from smoked ham sounds incredible! The idea that salt keeps beans from cooking is actually a myth. It's one of those things that just keeps getting passed around and written into recipes, but it isn't actually true. The truth is that adding salt to beans at the beginning of cooking will make them more flavorful and even more tender. So cooking beans in salty ham stalk should result in a flavorful, tender, delicious pot of beans. Please let me know if you have any other questions! xo
Jane Kelly says
I have a question about slow-cooker size for cooking beans. I usually only cook for 2 people, but I am a vegetarian and we use lots of beans. I have been using a smallish/medium size slow cooker and find it's just not big enough for the amount of beans I want to end up with. I just took a new 8 cup cooker out of its box and it looks bigger than I expected. Am I being impractical to get such a big one for two people? I'm wondering if I should exchange it for a smaller one. Can anyone give me any advice or your opinion on this? Thank you so much, Jane Kelly
RebeccaBlackwell says
Hi Jane! My personal opinion is that you'll love the larger slow cooker because it will allow you to prepare more food at once that you can freeze or refrigerate to use later. I feel this is especially true when it comes to beans. I am usually just cooking for my husband and I as well, but there are certain things I make in large quantities, then portion out and put in the freezer. Beans are one of those things. I also like to cook grains in large quantities and then use them in different ways throughout the week. Other favorites are marinara sauce, and things like pork roast and green chili. Anyway, that's just my two cents! Great question! xo
KAREN says
Hi Rebecca,
Great recipes, but one piece of information is misleading. Lectins are not alive, so they can't be "killed". Lectins are chemical compounds. Specifically, they are proteins that fulfill a function in a living plant.
Proteins are denatured (lose their functional shape) when heated. The matter they are made of will still be nutritionally available, but the lectin will no longer be chemically active and able to irritate/sicken the consumer.
Here's a good source for more information.
https://www.samhealth.org/about-samaritan/news-search/2020/10/13/are-plant-protein-lectins-bad-for-you
RebeccaBlackwell says
Thanks for that clarification Karen! xo
Sherry Melhorn says
Where does the 23 gm of sugar come from.your recipe doesn't indicate any sugar laden ingredients
RebeccaBlackwell says
Excellent question Sherry. I use a nutrition counting program for those values and I think it was miscalculating because I didn't specify the type of beans in the recipe. When running the recipe through the counter with specific types of beans (pinto, black, kidney, etc.) it removed the sugar. To make sure the values were accurate, I also ran them through a couple of other nutrition counters. So, I believe the values you see now are accurate. Thank you so much for noticing that and taking the time to ask the question! I really appreciate that! xo
Jessica says
I tried this yesterday but, while my kidney beans, garbanzo beans and black-eyes are cooked through, the little soya beans and larger black beans are not. By the time.the uncooked o es are done, the rest might be mush. Any thoughts/tips welcome.
RebeccaBlackwell says
Hi Jessica! It looks like you left this comment last night, so I'm curious about whether or not you decided to keep cooking the beans a bit longer? That's my advice - to keep cooking them until all the beans are soft. The beans that are cooked through might start to break down a bit, but the overall flavor should still be delicious. One of the tricky things about beans is that it's nearly impossible to determine how old they are when you purchase them. If you used a mix of beans, it's likely that some were older than others, a factor that can contribute to them requiring different cooking times. If this happens again, just keep cooking them until they are all cooked through.
xo
Opal Barker says
Good Morning Miss Rebecca, I too love beans, they are almost the perfect food. When I cook them, I always soak them overnight in the refrigerator. In fact, some days they are in the refrigerator for up to 3 days. I change the water every day. I have a slow cooker and a pressure cooker - no need for me to purchase an instant pot. I have learned that for me, the best way to cook them is stove top at a low boil for at least 1 hour, then I transfer them to the slow cooker along with sauteed onions, spices and what ever will go in the slow cooker with them. Now I will admit that this might be necessary due to the age of the beans, I seem to keep them for a while. Doesn't mater to me, why, this is the way I cook beans and it works for me. I always saute onions and other vegetables that will go into the slow cooker, I think they have a better flavor then simply putting them in with the beans uncooked. What I like about cooking and baking is that any recipe can be adjusted to please the cooker and eater. Keep up the good work.
Sue says
Hi Rebecca,. I might have missed it but aren't you supposed to boil kidney beans first for ten minutes to kill off a protein toxin... And then cook them? Thanks a lot.
RebeccaBlackwell says
Hi Sue! Great question. All legumes and most grains have high amounts of a natural compound called lectins, which can be toxic in high doses and red kidney beans have the highest amount of it. However, nearly all lectins are killed off during the soaking and cooking process. If you follow the method described in this recipe to soak the beans, discarding the soaking liquid and giving the beans a rinse, then cooking them all the way through, you should be good.
The one caveat (and I'm glad you brought this up) is if your slow cooker, when set to "low", doesn't cook at a high enough temperature to bring the liquid to a boil. Most slow cookers will bring the contents to a boil even when set on the lowest setting. However, I imagine there might be exceptions. So, I'm going to add a note in the recipe about the importance of cooking beans at a high enough temperature to bring the liquid to a boil. Thanks so much for taking the time to leave a comment with this questions! xo
Helen says
Hi all!
I do dried beans with a can of tomatoes and herbs etc, and a piece of bacon on top. Not cut up - the salt in the bacon would make the beans hard - but it is ok to leave all day in there, often I do it at eight AM and come home at six PM. You flake the bacon joint up into the food (I cut it in two, to help it cook faster, and make pea and ham soup with half later) and serve with crusty bread. Delish. Tomorrow's evening meal!
PS for UK readers the baking soda is bicarb.
My Morphy Richards slow cooker is now over 20 years old and still going strong. Only has three settings, low, high and auto. The auto is high at first, then low, which is good for mince to kill any bacteria in there. I'm cooking our Sunday roast in there this weekend, a large free range chicken. The water I surround it in turns into fabulous chicken stock and the chicken is moist beyond belief. I can get a lamb shoulder in there, just. That makes good stock too.
richard lehman says
Ms. RebeccaBlackwell, Greetings.
I for one enjoy Crock Pot prepared food more often than not. It reminds me of the food flavor of my mother and grandmothers cooking, I think because of the more flavorful, slow and extended cooking process that was typical in my childhood. I love to cook and I’m better than average, but because I’m still working in my older age, I’ve become too lazy to spend the necessary time that used to be more available for some reason. I want to make a tender roast with beans and a few vegetables but would like your opinion on slow cooking the dried beans along with the roast. It seems that since slow cooking on low is the direction for both, why not together ? In Hawaii, very few people eat beans and I crave them often and in variety.
Thank you much for your help.
RebeccaBlackwell says
Hi Richard! I don't see any reason why you couldn't cook a roast along with the beans. The only thing you'll want to pay attention to is timing. Since beans take roughly 6 hours on low to cook through and get tender, I'd suggest using a smaller roast, 3 lbs at the most. (A 5 lb roast will take about 7 to 8 hours on low to get all nice and tender.) Aside from making sure the roast is well seasoned, simply add the roast to the pot with the beans and you should be good to go. If you want to add vegetables, add them later, after the roast and beans have been cooking for 3 hours or so. This will allow them time to cook without overcooking them and ending up with mushy vegetables.
I hope this helps! Please let me know if you have any other questions!
xo