I’m trying to incorporate more beans into my diet and am finding it quite difficult to get my beans the way I want them to be. I’m curious to hear your guy’s standard bean recipes. Do you guys use canned or dried beans? Stovetop or microwave? Any secret ingredients?
Here’s what I’d call my standard bean procedure.
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First, I start with canned beans. Dried beans are a bit firmer it seems, but I don’t feel like dried impacts the flavor enough to be worth the soak time.
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If I have it, I’ll grate half of an onion into the beans. I don’t like onion crunch.
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Microplane dried mushroom into it for extra protein and flavor
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Salt, pepper, granulated garlic, paprika and chili flakes. I don’t really like how garlic powder works with the beans and don’t feel the need for fresh garlic. Fresh ginger is really fire in it though. I add things on top of this usually for more flavor, but this is just my standard bean.
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Microwave for 3 minutes
I’d do more if it made a difference in flavor, but so far I can’t seem to make anything really make the beans pop. What do y’all do?
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Put em in the ground.
Yell at the ground.
No beans.
Buy baked beans.
Yell at tin.
No open tin.
Buy bag of beans.
Yell for a while.
They go moldy.
They’re soft, I eat, yumThere’s a lot of great ideas here for bean meals. If you have an air fryer, you can make delicious bean snacks as well. I really like this way of cooking chickpeas for a crunchy snack: https://www.myforkinglife.com/crispy-air-fryer-chickpeas/
I’m an avid bean eater, sometimes i have them as a part of every single meal of the day. I recommend building your week around a certain bean you plan on making for the week.
For example i’ll make a big pot of beans, for black and pinto I do: half an onion diced, which I fry for just a little bit then i my spices which are usually smoke paprika, pepper, salt, cumin and bay leaves. sauté that for about a minute then add your beans and water with enough water to cover the beans to your second knuckle. I add 2-3 whole cloves of garlic and I cut my other half of the onion in half(so quartered) and add that as well. I bring this to the boil and then simmer for a couple of hours, just keep tasting and stop them when they have the texture you like, beans tend to not change in texture to much after you turn the heat off so no need to pull them out sooner.
Now that you have your beans for the week you just have to find recipes to add the beans to. It’s not a bad idea to look at the chipotle menu for ideas of how you can switch up serving the beans. Let me know if you want any more specifics or ideas for things to do with other beans. I love red beans and rice for example, and beans and rice is a great combo for any meal.
To perhaps refine OP’s question, and as someone living on a budget who doesn’t cook much, anyone got more specific microwave ideas?
I have a few I can give you, although they aren’t beans. Microwaves get too much hate, they’re essentially steam boxes if you use them right. If you’d steam it, you can probably nuke it.
Rice is easy to make in the microwave. 1.5 cups water to every cup of rice, leave it partially covered and nuke for 20 minutes. Season with whatever you want
Pasta does require some prep beforehand, but is easily one of the best categories of food to meal prep. Boil your pasta, rinse it off in the sink, toss it with oil and throw it in a container. You now have pasta that’s already cooked. Make some sort of sauce to go with it and store it separately. I like mac and cheese or spaghetti sauce. Freeze that in ice cube trays and store those cubes in a freezer bag. Now, you can throw in an ice cube and some pasta in the microwave and have a full meal done in 1 minute.
