Dried Beans Cooked From Scratch Tasting Worse Than Canned Beans?

Question

I've been trying to cook beans, primarily black beans, "from scratch" in my electric pressure cooker for the past couple years now - playing around with cooking times, and seasoning the cooking liquid, etc... but for some reason I end up preferring the canned variety - anyone else running into this problem?

The canned ones for some reason taste creamier and more flavorful out of the can than the ones I cooked myself from dried beans.

Right now, for black beans, I'm cooking them for 35 min on high in a pressure cooker (15 psi), with 2 cups of beans to 6 cups of water, and about 3/4 tsp of salt to start off with. Texture wise they seem OK right after cooking, but when they rest in the fridge they firm up and dry out a bit, and nothing like a can of black beans that I've opened, drained, rinsed, and stored in the fridge for a day or so.

I know some people say to not add any salt when cooking dried beans because it supposedly interferes with their water absorption, but other people say that's not the case and it's fine to season the cooking liquid. If I skip any salt while cooking them from dried, then season them afterwards, they are still very bland and flavorless.

I'm wondering if I should go more aggressive with seasoning the cooking liquid instead and/or reserving some of the bean "liquor" and adding it back to the cooked beans afterwards? One thing I really love about making the black beans from scratch is the really deep dark color they have vs. the lighter brown of the canned variety.

Answer

If you like the canned ones better, why not just use them? And I've never found canned black beans to be anything but very dark -- actually darker than dried, which tend to turn sort of purple.

Answer

Soak them in salted water.

Beans need salt.

No acid!!

Maybe store them in the cooking liquid like canned,

And I have also never found cooked dry beans to be dark. Canned beans are dark,

Answer

Kenji at Serious Eats has some ideas on cooking black beans: http://www.seriouseats.com/2014/09/soaking-black-beans-faq.html

Answer

obviously not for vegetarians, but you can also cooked the dried ones in chicken stock or add a hunk of ham or bacon in the cooking water. Cooks Illustrated debunked the myth about not adding salt and in fact I think recommended soaking them over night in water with a bit of salt (kind of like brining meats or shrimp). I don't have a pressure cooker so I don't know specifically for your situation, but I do soak overnight (because it's easy for me) or do the quick soak (bring water and beans to boil for three minutes or so and then soak for just a bit). I do add salt now and have never noticed a problem with it.

I often use the slow cooker once soaked and add onion, garlic, carrot, celery, not diced, just in 3 inch pieces or halved in the case of the onions. Always have had excellent results.

Also, do you have a source for fresh - er dried beans? Some supermarket beans in bags have been around for years. 

If I am not going to use within a day, I refrigerate in the cooking liquid. Or freeze in the liquid, since I tend to make large batches. And if I'm not going to use the liquid in the dish, I drain and freeze to use for the next batch.

Answer

The short answer is "use more salt." You're using much less salt than producers of canned beans use. If you purposely want to keep the sodium content that low, you could try a potassium chloride-based salt substitute (I personally can't stand them, but many people don't mind them), or use some of the suggestions elsewhere in the thread like adding other seasoning ingredients. (Keep in mind that using ham, especially smoked ham or ham hocks, or canned broth will both add sodium.)

The only seasoning in most canned beans is salt. If you prefer them, then no small part of the reason is probably that the .75 ts per 2 cups of dried beans you're using (assuming it's table salt) is only about half the salt used in canned beans. If you're using kosher salt, you're using even less than half. (Coarse salt weighs less per teaspoon than more finely ground salt.)

I don't have a can of their black beans on hand, but as an example, the can of Goya Small Red Beans I'm looking at while I type this post contains 1260mg of salt in the can, which according to the label contains approximately 1.75 cups of beans. Your 2 cups of dried beans yields approximately 6 cups of cooked beans. So the rough equivalent to your pot of beans is 3.4 cans, with a total sodium content of 3780mg, or about 9.4g salt, which is roughly 1.5 ts of table salt (or differing, but larger, amounts of kosher salt depending on the brand.)

ETA: I just found the sodium content of Goya's canned black beans on the web, and they have even more salt than the small red beans (460mg per half-cup serving vs 360mg.) So their canned black beans have the equivalent of about 2.4 tsp per 6 cups cooked beans.

Answer

While I have cooked various beans from scratch, these days I mostly used canned. Largely because it's easier when I just need a cup or so of cooked at the last minute. And I'm happy with the quality of canned beans (mostly TJ's, though I also get some from Grocery Outlet).

The exception is Peruanos (canary, yellow), which are easier to find dried than canned. Also I cook lentils from scratch.

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Dried Beans Cooked From Scratch Tasting Worse Than Canned Beans?

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