When do you add salt to your home cooked beans?

Question

When do you add salt to your home cooked beans? I've read that it's best to wait till they are done so that moisture uptake won't be inhibited.
Any thoughts?
SPencer

Answer

Yes, you heard correctly. Do not salt until they are finished cooking. A salted pork product, like a ham hock can go into the beans from the beginning, but adding too much salt will cause them to remain crunchy. 
 
Also wait until they are cooked to add acidic ingredients like tomatoes--acid toughens the skins and keeps the beans crunchy as well.

Answer

This bugs me. Too many old wives tales.
 
Harold McGee hasn't studied it, nor has anyone else printed a laboratory study.
 
That leaves lots of opinions, but no facts.
 
Personally I've cooked both ways, with both aged/soaked and fresh beans and noticed no difference, but I've never taken a bag of dry and done a test (or split shelling beans).
 
Until that is done I reserve judgement.

Answer

I also wonder if this is a wive's tale but I generally hedge my bet by salting about 2/3 of the way through the cooking. This seems to allow the beans to soak up some salt. which I like.

Answer

I've tried this every which way, over more than twenty years. My experience has been that if you salt at the beginning they won't get soft, but if you salt after they are done you can't get them salty enough. Now I wait until they've been cooking an hour or so. Take a few out, blow on them, if the skins split and they are getting soft it's OK to add salt then.
 
I usually wait and add salt meat at this point too. They have at least two more hours to simmer, so that's plenty of time for them to absorb flavor from the meat.
 
I haven't noticed whether the presence or absence of tomatoes makes a difference; will have to investigate that.

Answer

When I first started cooking legumes I'd add salt and tomatoes up front and they turned out fine. Later, following the same method, I'd cook them for four hours and they'd still be half raw.
 
While watching Mario Batali one day he advised never salt or add any acid before the legumes are fully cooked because doing so will _sometimes_ result in underdone or tough beans. I've followed his advise and haven't had any more problems with tough beans.
 
Lentils seem to be an exception to the rule.

Answer

I soak the beans in salted water before cooking (as mentioned by C.I.) and then add more if needed a t the end. Great flavor and no problems with bean staying hard.

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I soak them in just plain water and add salt only after they're done cooking.

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melinda lee of melindalee.com says to salt after cooking or they will split. I have listened to her radio program every weekend for years and subscribe to her magazine and follow her advice.

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It doesn't matter. I use a smoked ham product and it goes in at the beginning. Plenty of salt in that. But like others have mentioned, you don't want too much salt if you are reducing the liquid.

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I invariably add salt early in the cooking process. Never had a problem with tough beans.

Answer

Harold McGee must have been following this thread because he DID investigate the matter, and found that beans cooked best, and required less salt, if it was added as early in the process as possible. If you pre-soak the beans (which he also says is not necessary) then you should salt the soaking water. Nowadays I always do the quick-soak thing - cover the beans with plenty of water, bring it to the boil, boil for two minutes and then soak covered for an hour or more - and salt the water first. Then when the beans are cooked I add a bit more salt if necessary. It usually isn't.

Answer

Kenji at the Serious Eats Food Lab also did a side-by-side comparison of beans salted from the beginning and beans salted after cooking. Both batches softened at the same time and the salted beans even retained their shape better.
http://www.seriouseats.com/2010/01/how-to-make-the-best-chili-ever-recipe-super-bowl.html

Answer

I have included links to 3 articles on this subject. One is even by Chow.com.

http://www.chow.com/food-news/54972/does-salting-dried-beans-make-them-harder-to-cook/
http://ruhlman.com/2011/03/how-to-cook-dried-beans/
http://www.seriouseats.com/2010/10/the-food-labs-top-6-food-myths.html

Most recent articles seem to go with salting early or soaking in salt water. Mostly for flavor. It makes sense that if you salt early the salt will flavor deeper into the bean. 

A lot of the articles I read, seemed to indicate a different texture of the bean when you salted early and when you didn't. At least a few of the articles I read indicated that salting early resulted in fewer exploded and disintegrated beans. I suspect this is the source of disagreement. When I cook beans, I want a good portion of them to break down and help form a creamy broth like with Ham Hocks and beans. I would be very disappointed if I got a clear broth. Some people, however want a clear broth, more like a soup. I assume these people are looking for tender individual beans in a fairly clear broth. 

I suspect that if you want creamy beans that do break down, you should not salt your beans until at least half way through. If you are looking for tender individual beans that hold their shape and have not exploded or disintegrated, you should soak your beans in salt water or at the very least salt early. 

By the way, there seems to be controversy on whether to pre-soak for 24 hours or boil for 2 minutes and then steep for an hour before cooking or to just start cooking, it will just take longer without a pre-soak. I suspect this controversy is rooted in the same basic disagreement about your individual preference in texture. 

So, do you want beans that have retained their individual integrity or do you want beans where a lot of them have broken down and helped formed a creamy colored broth?

Answer

I add salt to the soaking liquid and then salt the fresh water when cooking. The soaking brine has been shown to decrease cooking time. If I ever get hard beans (rare) it's because they were old not because of the salt.

Answer

Its important to figure out not just what works best in a laboratory setting, but what works best for you and how you use the beans. In my case, it makes sense to (pressure) cook a larger batch of beans and then season smaller portions on a daily (or more frequent) basis. Its energy efficient, the portions can be frozen, and you avoid waste because you got tired of eating beans exactly the same way before you get through a 1/2-1lb of beans. In this case I prefer not to salt the beans, regardless of how they cook, because its more flexible, and just use a small amount of bay leaf. I can easily cook the beans down as desired, I can add bacon or bacon skin to a portion, I can use the same garlic paste with salt I just prepared in the mortar/pestle for rice, or I may want the less salty with garlic, onion, marjoram, and olive oil. You could use a fairly light touch with salt, but for me that is more effort than its worth and I often do cook it down because I want enough water in the pressure cooker (and if you follow their guidelines it will be watery) particularly if its the venting type. The big exception is I do like to cook salted meats (pork hocks, tails, beef ribs) with the beans so in that case I will often make an exception but usually some of the salt is removed first. I do like to boil the beans a few minutes before putting them under pressure, although that is also sometimes dispensed with.

Answer

I don't usually, and I don't have a ham shank this time so this question poses a problem for me, so I looked it up and this link is what I found, with great info. I think I'm gonna salt this time and see how it goes. http://www.finecooking.com/item/9162/cooking-beans-in-salt-water

Answer

America`s Test Kitchen adds them at the end of cooking.

Answer

There are people who will disagree, but IMO salt should never, ever be added to beans before they're properly cooked. They'll "sieze" on you, and you'll have a big pot of crunchy beanage.

Answer

From Christopher Kimball at ATK:

"We found that three tablespoons of salt per gallon of soaking water is enough to guarantee soft skins."

Answer

I figure people sometimes get beans that just don't cook because, e.g., they are old and attribute it to salt, figuring that's the only thing it can be.

Answer

Salt early.

Acid inhibits softening. Salt does not. It's important to season early when cooking anything.

Answer

Before, and if necessary, after. The theories on beans with salt vary madly. I prefer to make sure they don't have that sodium- free taste. some things need salt, beans are right up there on the list.

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It is my opinion that the reason we were taught not to salt beans is that usually a piece of salt pork or salted ham hock was added to the beans at the beginning of cooking. Therefore, waiting until the beans were cooked to determine if additional salt was needed. I usually test to see if additional salt is needed about an hour before they are done and add salt then if it is needed. Many times, it is not needed due to the cooking with salt pork or salted ham hock.

Answer

I forgot to add Salt at the beginning to my 13 bean soup cooked in a slow cooker. I added all seasonings except tomatoes at the beginning. When done the soup looked like the pictures you see in sunset magazine. My slow cooked bean soups always look like there's no beans in there just a broth with vegetables.

Tasted liked crap. So added salt later. Yummy. A happy mistake that resolved my "what am I doing wrong here"

Chef amaturo.

Answer

Thinking of my mothers famous GREAT TASTING and PERFECT beans... As i would watch her clean the beans and but them in the pot.... (She would say a little prayer)... and then She would place them UNCOVERED on a Medium Flame... When they came to a boil, she would add the salt, quick stir and lower the flame to the lowest possible, (Add water if needed), and then COVER them at that time... and about another Boil, again stir, taste, to see if a little salt is needed (which she had it down pat... No more salt... unlike my sisters and myself... a quick stir if you add more salt) recover and keep an eye on until they are done to your softness... Honestly... I think it was her Faith in the LORD, that made them perfect all the time not to mention the LOVE that came from my mothers heart for everything she would do for us!!!

Answer

Salt immediately, wait on acids. Beans need salt to taste good.

Answer

Salt the soaking water and the cooking water. You should be aware, as the liquid reduces the salty flavor can become stronger, so don't OVER salt. You can always add a bit more if you need it, but taking salt away cannot be done. Not to my knowledge anyway.

Answer

We advanced to the age of science and reason long ago. :) There's no reason to guess at this or to consider it an either-or issue when it's been so well studied. I didn't soak my beans for years to avoid supposed gassiness since I served them often enough that our systems could metabolize them comfortably. At least that was what I was told and it seemed borne out.

I now soak most types, though, so they cook evenly without bursting, putting a happy end to mushy outers and hard inners. Not always necessary, perhaps, this is almost always my preference and it works reliably. If it wasn't I wouldn't spend the time. I salt the soaking and cooking water so the salt is drawn into the beans with hydration, but would salt later if I didn't want that. 

Happy beans.

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