How to Cook Instant Black Beans!

In this post I explored three different ways to cook the Instant Black Beans! The video is a little rough, I had to film it all in one quick take before I picked up my son from school. You can also get the information from the video in the information below it.

Click here to find the Instant Black Beans on the Thrive Website.

  Here is what they look like in the can.
 

This one I had just opened it up.

NOTE: With food storage items you should always leave in that little white packet. It's an oxygen absorber and leaving it in there will help to preserve your food, even after you open the can.

Cooking on the stove top:

The preparation instructions from the side of the can say to bring 6 cups of water to boil, then add 2 cups of beans and simmer for 15 - 20 min. In my case, I halved this and used 3 cups of water and 1 cup of beans.

I simmered these for 17 minutes, so kind of in the middle. They were not completely soft all of the way through yet, so if you want them really soft, then go towards the 20 minute mark.

I simmered on med-low, and that seemed about right, but watch them, because if you simmer too high, then they get too bubbly and you might get beans burning.

I strained out and measured the water afterwards and I got 1 2/3 cup water afterwards, so the beans and boiling took up about 1 1/3 cups water. That means if you are adding these to a recipe that calls for prepared beans, then you should add about 1 - 1 1/3 cups of water per 1 cup of instant beans added.

The 1 cups of dry bean came out to be 1 2/3 cups of prepared beans.

Note: I don't know if you can see it here in the picture, but the stove top method gave the beans a little more of a browned cooked look.

Adding Boiling Water:

The next cooking method I want to talk about is just heating up boiling water, like in my little electric kettle, then I put 1 cup of the beans in a glass/ceramic dish, then added 3 cups of boiling water. Stirred, then covered the dish and let it sit.

Note: Normally, when I cook the Thrive foods this way I don't actually measure the water, because you don't have to, I just make sure that the food is well covered with water. I try to eyeball at least 3 parts water to 1 part food, but always err on the side of a lot more water.

This ended up taking 32 minutes to get the beans cooked. I did check them twice, which did let a little bit of the steam out. The thing I really love about this method is that you can just put these in and forget about them, then come back and you're not leaving anything plugged in or anything heating, it's a lot more safe if you aren't going to be around it.

This method I had about 2 cups of water left, once I strained out the beans, so the beans soaked up about a cup of water.

This way I ended up with bigger, rounder beans. I had almost 2 cups of prepared beans, it came out to for sure the 1 3/4 cup line.

This is the way I would go if you need the beans to look like whole beans when you are done, and you want to cut down on mushed flat beans.

Microwave Cooking

This was by far the fastest way to cook the beans. I microwaved 3 cups of water and 1 cup of the instant beans in a glass covered bowl for just 10 minutes, and they came out quite soft. The great thing about this is you could really microwave these for even just 5 minutes, then let them sit until they are your desired softness, because the steam in the bowl will continue to cook them.

As you can see in the picture, these did boil over in the microwave, so I had to guesstimate a little on how much water spilled over, but the water came out about the same as stove top boiling. I had about 1 2/3 cup water left, so the beans soaked up about 1 1/3 cup water.

I ended up with 1 2/3 cup prepared beans, when I started with 1 cup dry.

Conclusion

In the end, I say go Microwave if you just want them done quick, stove top if you want them to have a browned cooked look, and go adding boiling water if you want them to maintain their shape and be biggest and plumpest.

Also, if you don't have a glass dish with a lid, you can always use a glass or ceramic bowl with a plate on top.

No matter how you choose to cook the Instant Black Beans, they are WAY easier than the hours of soaking and boiling required by regular beans. They also give you the flexibility of just scooping out and cooking exactly as many beans as you want.

October Sales Flyer!

Hello Everyone and Welcome to the OCTOBER SALES FLYER!

I included the Price addendum sheet here on the blog this month, usually I only put that on the emails I send out (FYI contact me below to be added to my email list). This shows prices for all sizes you can order of everything on the flyer. If you want a full price list like this, because you prefer it to shopping on the website, let me know and I will email you one.

I put it on here partly to show that we are still selling ice cream!! How cool is that? Normally, our ice

cream products are only sold in the summer season, but the Neapolitan bites are hanging on. If you are curious, those come as little balls of awesome flavor! They look kind of like that "ice cream of the future" that comes in a bunch of little frozen balls, but these are little freeze dried balls of goodness that can go with you anywhere.

 The SUPER Q-PON this month is Instant Pinto Beans!!

Beans are super good for you and really a very cheap protein, but let's face it, they are often unmanageable to cook and keep around. Instant beans makes using beans simple! No more soaking 8 hours and then boiling another 4! NOW, boil some water and simmer these guys for 15-20 minutes and you have got yourself cooked beans! I'm also going to be working with the instant beans, so watch for a video on the blog in the coming week or so showing you some tips and tricks awesomeness for using the instant beans.

I may update this later with more info, but I wanted to be sure I go this flyer out for this month. As always, contact me anytime if you have any questions or concerns at all!