- Is the extra effort of
cooking dried beans worth it or are home cooks better off
sticking with canned beans. Today we're diving headfirst into this classic culinary debate and to answer this question
we'll explore three key factors, cost-effectiveness, convenience,
and culinary enjoyment. We can dispense with the first
two factors pretty quickly in terms of cost effectiveness, dry beans are the clear winner. At my nearest chain grocery store here in Southern California, a two pound bag of dried
beans cost $3 and 30 cents, and that yields 12 cups of beans. That's a lot of beans. It would take eight cans of beans to get to the same amount
for total cost of about $12. In other words, dried beans are more than three times
cheaper than canned beans. Let's say you and your family have four eat 10 cups of beans per week. In a given year, you could save over $350
by choosing dried beans. And if you're a real bean freak who eats 20 cups of beans per week, you'd save over $700 per year. Moving on to the convenience factor, there's one very clear winner, canned beans that takes
30 seconds to drain and rinse a can of beans, whereas it can take 10 hours
to cook beans from scratch if you include the time
it takes to soak them. A lot of that time is inactive, but it is still a lot less convenient, which brings us to our final
factor, culinary enjoyment. Now since there are so many
diverse ways you can use and enjoy beans, I've decided to cook
five different recipes using both canned beans and dried beans and see if I can taste a difference in a series of blind taste tests and ultimately determine
whether dried beans are worth the extra effort. Before I get to that, I would be remiss if I didn't mention the inspiration for this video. While I have been thinking
about this question for years, the idea to turn it into a YouTube video comes from a fellow creator
here, Ethan Chlebowski, who has used this format to look at a lot of different
interesting cooking questions. So I will link his channel
in the description box below. Okay, let's begin our first test. For our first test, we're making a very
simple pot of chickpeas. In addition to canned
chickpeas and dried chickpeas from the grocery store, we're
adding one more contender, a fancy bag of dried chickpeas. These fancy beans are from Rancho Gordo, which gross, unique
heirloom bean varieties. Their beans however, are more expensive than
standard dried beans something to keep in mind. Per cup, they cost roughly
as much as canned beans. I'm starting by covering both
varieties of dried chickpeas with a generous amount of
cool water to soak overnight. Soaking helps beans cook
quicker and more evenly, and it can help with digestion as it allows the oligosaccharides in beans to dissolve into the soaking water, making it easier for your
tummy to break down the beans. Science, I'm also adding
two teaspoons of kosher salt to the soaking water. Some folks will tell you that
adding salt to your beans makes it harder for them
to cook, but they're wrong. The brilliant Kenji Lopez-Alt
conducted an experiment on this very topic over its series eats and found that adding salt to soaking resulted in
creamier more flavorful beans. Again, science. As for actually cooking the chickpeas, I wanna keep this process
as simple as possible, just water and salt. I want the flavor and texture of the beans to be the true focus of this first test. I'm letting the beans
cook at a rolling boil for the first 10 minutes,
get them off to a good start. You start to see any foam, which you probably will with chickpeas. Use a ladle or spoon to skimm it off. Then turn down the heat until
you have the gentlest simmer or talking really gentle. Just an occasional bubble is fine. Both the fancy beans and supermarket beans were done after just 40
minutes of simmering, which is pretty fast. Thank you soaking. For canned beans, I simply open the can and
rinse them under the sink. Really can't beat that
in terms of convenience. As you can see, I've got my three bowls
of very plain chickpeas in front of me. I can definitely notice
a visual difference between the canned chickpeas and the chickpeas that
were cooked from scratch. But let's see if I can
taste the difference and to make sure I don't
know which bull is which. I'm going to get a blindfold. My blindfold, I mean a sleep
mask 'cause that's what I have. Max says I look like a bug in this, obviously I cannot tell,
so lemme know the comments. Bug or no bug. I'm going to try to move these around without breaking anything. Ah, my heart's racing. I don't know why. Bowl, one, it's nice. That's all I have to say. Is this Bowl two, it's not
good. I don't wanna eat it. No, I have to eat it 'cause I can't see and I can't go to the trash can. It has absolutely no flavor. It kind of feels like chalky in my mouth, like, oh, can I get some water? I feel like it's gonna
compromise the next taste test. Have a glass somewhere. All right, bowl three. I think I like this one the
best, but this one's fine too. They're both so much better than this one. This one is horrible. I'm confident this is canned chickpeas. Da da da, canned chickpeas. These have zero flavor. They don't have the best texture
as you can see in the bowl. They're kind of already like split. They're like mushy and
dry at the same time. Now, let's see which bowl is which. Rancho Gordo with the win. I think the reason I liked the
Rancho Gordo chickpeas better is that they had a little
more chickpea flavor. It felt like I was getting
the essence of chickpea. This bowl was still really nice though, so definitely better than your
canned chickpea alternative. So for sure dried beans are
worth it In this instance. That said, I would never
eat beans this plain. This is just like too bland for my taste. I'm not the kind of person
who can just have plain beans on rice and call it a day. So I'm going to turn
all of these chickpeas into my quick and delicious
10 minute chickpea salad and I'll see if the
addition of other flavors makes a difference across
the three batches of beans. This is a recipe I
developed for another video I did on mezza platters. You can check it out right here. I love this recipe because it features just
a handful of ingredients, all of which I always have
in my fridge and pantry. And with canned chickpeas
it takes just 10 minutes to throw together. So it's perfect for busy weeknights. I really like this recipe as is. So I'm curious to see
whether dried chickpeas will make a noticeable difference. Once the vinaigrette is ready, we'll divide it evenly between our three batches of chickpeas for taste test number two. Okay, time for the chickpeas
salad at taste test and visually, I can't really
tell the difference this time. They're pretty well coated
with all the good stuff. So let's get this bra sleep mask on. Bowl one here we go. The marinade flavor is nice, but if you really focus
on the chickpea interior, there's not a lot going on there. Bowl two, I feel like this one could use more marination time,
but it's nice, it's good. Bowl three, also nice. This one's definitely
closer and more difficult. Can I take this off? - [Videographer] It's your show. - Oh, I have to start by saying
I liked all three of them. They're all nice and
I've actually been making this chickpea salad with
canned chickpeas pretty often. 'cause it's like a 10 minute recipe. It's very easy. That said, I think this
is the canned chickpeas. The texture is a little bit mushier and the flavor of the marinade is really nice on the
outside of the chickpea, but once you bite into the chickpea, it kind of tastes a little
bland, almost a little watery. Between these two, which are the dried chickpeas
cooked from scratch, it's a bit harder. I think I like this one better. It has almost, I think a creamy texture. When I bit into it, that could be because I
cooked them in different pots and different burners. So I don't know if
that's totally decisive, but it also had more of
a savory chickpea flavor. Like I could just taste
it inside of the chickpea. And so this one wins,
although this one's also nice. Let's see which one the winner is. Rancho Gordo, okay, not
entirely surprising. So this is the grocery store
brand of dried chickpeas. In summary, the canned
chickpea version was nice. The grocery store cooked
beans from scratch were a bit better and the fancy chickpeas were even a little bit better than that. I'm gonna have a few more
bites of the chickpea salad. Probably this one and then this one. And then I'm gonna start
soaking our next batch of beans. Next up, we're making refried beans, which are beans that
have been cooked mashed, and then reheated on the stove. It's a staple in Mexican
and Tex-Mex cuisine, though you can find it in some other Latin American countries. My assumption for this test is that because everything gets mashed up, the dried beans won't have
much of a textural advantage and we'll add some good flavor
to the beans along the way. So I'm not sure there will be a huge flavor advantage either. I'm using pinto beans today, but you could also use black beans, in addition to our standard lineup, canned beans, supermarket dried
beans and fancy dried beans, we're adding a fourth
contender canned refried beans. Since those require no work
whatsoever, I figured why not. The dried beans are
getting the same treatment as the chickpeas and test
one at least initially. The one big difference is that
we're adding some aromatics to the cooking water. If you're gonna go through the effort of cooking dried beans, I think you should
always add some aromatics to the cooking water. It takes two minutes and
adds quite a bit of flavor. I didn't do that in test one only because I didn't
wanna make it too easy to be able to tell the difference between the dried chickpeas
and the canned ones. Boil for 10 minutes, skimm off any foam and bring this down to
a very gentle simmer until they're nice and soft. These took just 35 to 40 minutes to simmer and I stored the beans covered in some of their cooking liquid because one, the bean broth tastes amazing and two, it helps keep the beans moist. Now that the beans are cooked, it's time to fry them
up with a few aromatics. I've got some olive oil
heating up in a large saute pan over medium heat. Add in some chopped garlic and jalapenos. Cook that for one or two minutes and once the garlic starts to turn golden, you'll add in your spices,
oregano, chili powder and cummin Cook for just 30 seconds. Making sure to stir frequently
so the spices don't burn. Go ahead and add the beans. And for the batch made with canned beans, I also added the liquid
from the can of beans. And for both of the dried bean batches, I used the bean broth they were cooked in to see if it would intensify the flavor. Get the beans at a rapid simmer and cook for about five to seven minutes until they're saucy and
the mixture has thickened. Remove the bay leaf and
take it off the heat. I'm using a potato masher
'cause I like a more rustic texture to my beans. But if you want a super smooth texture, you could use an immersion blender. Now it's time to briefly refry the beans, add your pan back on the
stove and cook the beans for a few more minutes. And if they start to dry out, go ahead and add some more vegetable
broth or bean broth. I finished these with a
squeeze of lime juice, but I forgot to film it so
you'll just have to believe me. And for our refried canned beans, I just added them to a pan to reheat. They already look really freaking weird. So I am very glad I'll
be wearing a blindfold for the taste test. I gotta say refried beans are
not the most attractive food, but they can be very tasty. So I am intrigued at how
this taste test will go. I can see some visual differences here, so I'm gonna get my
blindfold slash sleep mask and mix these bowls up. All right, I am sufficiently confused, so I'm going to leave it there. Start on the left. Hmm, that's tasty. Add a little too much pepper
to that one is in my nostrils, but I really like that one. Have a sip of water. I think
I have some water here. Hmm. I also like this one. I think I might have salted
this one a little too much. Whoops. Oh, oh. This is one of the worst
things I've ever eaten. It has the worst chemically
taste and it's super smooth. It's like baby food. Well that's the Luther
for sure. This one's fine. It's definitely not as good as these two. It feels a little flatter in flavor, but so much better than that third one, which I will never speak of again. I would never serve
this to my worst enemy. This is not human food. I definitely like these two the most. They have more flavor, more richness. This one's almost meaty, which is surprising because
it's just beans bean broth, garlic, jalapenos, and spices. This one's also good, but less
rich, less depth of flavor. Favorite, next favorite, next favorite and the world's worst ever. Okay, yes, as suspected, I can tell this is the pre
refried beans in a can. This is my worst nightmare. The flavor really just tastes industrial and it's so smooth that it's again, it's like baby food
going down your throat. So we are eliminating this one. This one I suspected was the version made with canned pinto beans. I imagine that if I put
it in a taco or burrito it would be really nice alone. It's a little underwhelming though, still like a thousand
times better than that one. I would absolutely take
the extra 10 minutes or whatever it was to make
this than to buy those. Yes, canned whole beans. These two, as I suspected
were the dried beans. They have a lot more richness and depth of flavor than this one, slightly even more texture, which depending on how you
like your refried beans, is a good or bad thing. I think the starchy liquid
from the canned beans actually did a nice job of
making these creamy and thick, but not like dried out. These ones have a little more just like bean texture to them. These were my favorite. They were really meaty, savory, earthy. And I'm gonna check what the winner is. Rancho Gordo. Not surprising, I promise. This video is not
sponsored by Rancho Gordo, but Rancho Gordo, if you're
listening, I'm interested. And then these are the grocery store beans that I cooked from scratch. So if I were to eat these
plain, like with rice, I would say it was worth it to
cook the beans from scratch, take that extra time. But I don't normally eat
refried beans plain like that. I put 'em in a burrito
or quesadilla or taco. So that's what I'm gonna do now. I'm gonna make a quesadilla and see if it's still worth
it to cook the dried beans or if you can't tell much of a difference. I'm not going to make
a quesadilla with these because I will never put
these in my mouth ever again and I don't wanna waste any more food. The first component of our
quesadillas is a vegan queso. This is the same fan favorite queso I use in my buffalo chickpea quesadillas, Crunchwrap Supreme,
nachos and taco salads. It's super simple to whip up. Just add your ingredients to a blender and let the machine do
all of the work for you. This stuff tastes ridiculously good, even non-vegan go crazy for it. I've linked the recipe in
the description box below if you wanna try it out for yourself. Now we're ready to
assemble our quesadillas. Lay a large flour tortilla flat and cover one half with the queso. Then spoon the refried
beans onto the other half of the tortilla. I had some leftover sauteed onions, so I added those to the
side with the queso. Fold the tortilla over and
voila, our quesadilla is ready. I normally pan fry quesadillas
for the best texture, but I didn't want to do
that here because one, I don't have three large frying pans. And two, I didn't want any of
the quesadillas to get cold during the taste test. So instead we're gonna
bake them in the oven at 425 degrees Fahrenheit, 220 Celsius. This worked better than
I thought it would. The quesadillas even
got a little bit crispy, but I did kind of struggle
to flip the first one over, resulting in some breakage. Thankfully there was an undamaged corner, so I just used that
portion for the taste test. I'm super excited about this taste test 'cause I love quesadillas. This is my first time
trying a baked quesadilla. Let me get my sleep mask
and then it's time to eat. All right, I hope it's not too hot. It hot. (laughs) It's like a harmonica. It is good. It's more beanie than cheesy. So that's just like a
separate issue of the ratio. I feel like it's nice, but I don't have that
much to say about it. Number two, this one I like better. It feels a little bit less generic. Number three, having to
eat quesadillas for my job. It's not a bad job, it's not a bad job. I did some work on these quesadillas. This one was my favorite number two. One and three, I couldn't taste as much of a difference between them. Let's see what they are. This is the grocery store dried bean. Okay, let's see what this one is. Oh shh. This one is the canned bean. So what's super interesting
is that in round three with the refried beans plain, I didn't notice too much of a difference between the Rancho Gordo, refried beans and the dried beans
from the grocery store. But here with the quesadillas, I did notice a significant
enough difference to be able to really like
the second plate the best. And I didn't notice too
much of a difference between the canned beans and the generic grocery
store dried beans version. So very interesting results. I really thought I would've noticed more of a difference between
dried and canned beans. Rancho Gordo again was the winner. So in terms of whether it's
worth it to buy dried beans or canned beans for a quesadilla, I'd say in general, not
much of a difference unless you get fancy dried beans. Our final recipe is a tomato
eat Tuscan white beans stew. This recipe will be a good test to see whether dried
beans make a difference in a dish with complex flavors. Everything gets simmered
for a while in this recipe. So I'm not sure if dried
beans will have a big texture or flavor advantage as we've seen before, I'm using can beans for this recipe. And by now you're familiar
with how the dried beans get prepared overnight
soak and salted water. Then add them to a pot
alongside your aromatics. Half an onion, smashed garlic, cloves, bay leaf, pepper, and salt. Then a 10 minute boil followed
by a very gentle simmer until the beans are tender. These beans are a lot bigger so they did take longer to cook. The fancy Rancho Gordo beans took about 50 minutes of simmering
and the grocery store brand took another 30 minutes after that. While the beans were cooking, I started on my aromatics for the stew. For each batch I chopped
up one medium yellow onion, finally chopped, two medium carrots and two ribs of celery
and four garlic cloves. This combination of ingredients is known as as soffrito in Italy. And I also added flat
leaf, parsley, and sage for extra flavor plus red pepper flakes. The beans are done now. So I'm gonna get started on the stew. Heat a dutch oven over medium heat. Add a glug or two of olive
oil in goes the onion. Let that sweat down for
seven to eight minutes until a little bit golden. Stir occasionally, add in your
carrots, celery and garlic cook that for another
three to four minutes and then add in the herb
mixture for about a minute. Clear a little bit of space
in the center of the pan and plop in a good amount of tomato paste. You wanna stir this continuously
for one to two minutes until it's a little bit darker in color. Deglaze with a generous
pore of white wine though. You can skip this if you are booze free. And use the wine to pick
up all of those brown bits at the bottom of the pot to infuse more flavor into the stew. After about three minutes, the smell of wine should have cooked off. So you'll add in the tomatoes. I'm using whole peeled tomatoes
that I crushed by hand. Plus a bay leaf, some salt
and several cracks of pepper. Keep this at a rapid
simmer for 12 to 13 minutes so the tomatoes can break
down and get nice and jammy. In go the beans for the canned beans. I used one and a half cups of store-bought organic vegetable broth. And for the dried beans I used as much bean broth
as I could about a cup. And then I supplemented the rest with store-bought
vegetable broth. Simmer over low for 30 minutes during ever stir occasionally. And this smells like some
amazing rustic Italian comfort food. I am so excited to try this one. All right, so I have my three
bowls of Tuscan stewed beans in front of me. And I have to say I'm very
curious about this one because this recipe for Tuscan
stewed beans, I love it. It's been on my blog for a
year and a half or two years. The original recipe uses canned beans and I've never had it and
thought this needs more flavor or this needs better beans. It has a ton of flavor
from being slow simmered with all the good aromatics
and the high quality tomatoes. So I am curious to see if dried beans are worth it or if it is
perfectly delicious as is. It's got my trusty blind fold. Okay, really love the flavor. Got a nice savoriness, a
little bit of spiciness, really rich tomato notes. Some of the beans are nice and soft and some are not as soft. That would be my one
criticism of bowl number one. Okay, I promise this is the last bite. I lied. I need one more bite. This one also has the same lovely flavor. The beans are softer on
this one and creamier. So I would say I like this one better in terms of the bean texture. But the overall flavor
of the stew is the same. I'm also just really hungry 'cause I've been cooking all
day so this is just my lunch. The beans here are also nice
and soft, like bowl number two. They feel a little denser and creamier, more hefty and meaty. I'm ready. I have to take this off because
I'm getting dizzy and hot. Whew. I liked bowls two and three the best. I'd say I have a slight
preference for three if I'm like really paying
attention to the bean quality. It's denser, it's creamier,
it feels more substantial, but you have to like really
be paying attention to it. And I don't think that's
how most people eat. So I would say it's a
pretty marginal difference. This one was my least favorite because some of the beans
were not soft enough and some of them were nice and soft. So there was just like
a lack of uniformity. I'm gonna guess that this is
the grocery store dried beans, because I noticed as I was
cooking them from scratch that they weren't cooking as evenly. They were a very cheap bag of beans. And so that's possibly why. I'm gonna guess these are the canned beans 'cause they were nice and soft and creamy. I'm gonna guess these are
the Rancho Gordo beans 'cause they were also creamy and soft, but had more of a personality to them. Grocery store beans. Yes,
these were the dried beans. I don't know how much I can lift this up without spilling it. Canned beans, okay, and Rancho Gordo. So very interesting results here. I feel like in a couple of the past tests I was kind of down on the canned beans, but here they performed really well. In fact, better than the
grocery store dried beans, which you know, I could have
gotten a bad bag of beans, they could have been old. But in any event, the canned
bean version is delicious. I don't think it needs any work. And it's obviously quicker and
easier than cooking the beans from scratch. The Rancho Gordo beans
were slightly better, but not significantly better. There was just a marginal difference. And so canned beans I think
absolutely work really well in this recipe. I have a lot of dishes to do
and then when I come back, I will let you know my overall thoughts on whether I think it's worth it for home cooks to cook beans from scratch. Wow, that was a lot of beans. So to summarize our findings
in most of the taste tests, the canned beans tasted noticeably worse than the dried beans. And if you look at just the dried beans, the fancier Rancho Gordo
beans did perform best in every single test. Does that mean home cooks
should always cook beans from scratch? I don't think it's that simple. To help you navigate this question, I've created some rules for when you should take the extra effort to cook dried beans and
when you should just stick with canned beans. My first rule is if you
are not pressed for time, choose dried beans. Now my definition of
being pressed for time is gonna be different than yours, and it's a very individualized decision that I will leave up to you. But I do wanna note that
cooking beans from scratch doesn't require that much active cooking. Once the beans start simmering, you can pretty much walk away. And if you want something
that's even more hands off, you can cook the beans
in your Instant pot. My second rule is if you are
eating the beans plainly, you should definitely cook
your beans from scratch. As you saw with the first
test with the plain chickpeas, there was a huge difference
in flavor between the canned beans and the dried beans. The canned beans tasted flat, not good, and dried beans were richer in flavor, they had better texture and they were almost
even savory and meaty. Rule number three, you should buy dried beans if
you are looking to save money. We talked about the cost effectiveness
of dried beans earlier. Basically, a grocery store brand of beans is gonna be three times
cheaper than canned beans. And that's especially
helpful if you eat beans on a regular basis. Of course, if you're buying
the fancier dried beans, you're not gonna really
see any cost savings. It's about the same cost as canned beans, though they do taste much better. Number four, you should buy dried beans if you really care about flavor and you have the budget to
purchase specialty beans like this. The Rancho Gordo beans
won in every single round. And to be honest, I could usually
tell which ones they were. Even with the blindfold on, that shouldn't surprise me
because these are the beans that really help me
fall in love with beans and realize that beans
could be a gourmet food. So if you have the budget,
definitely worth it. Now, a few words on when it makes sense to
stick with canned beans. The first rule is pretty obvious. You're in a rush and or you
haven't planned ahead of time. Canned beans are convenience food that makes our busy lives easier, and you should definitely
use them for that reason. No shame, no judgment. If you wanna eat dinner
and it's already 7:00 PM and you haven't done any advanced prep, canned beans are a wonderful option. Number two, you are making a dish that has a lot of other big, bold flavors and or the beans aren't the primary focus. In that case, I don't think it's worth it to cook beans from scratch unless of course you want
to and have the time. A couple of recipes that fit the bill would be my slow simmered vegan
chili and my chickpea curry. Would these recipes be better
with dried beans? Possibly. But they're really freaking good as is and I don't think it's
worth the extra effort. Number three, you're
fine with good enough. So personally, I get a lot of satisfaction out of creating the most
delicious version of a recipe, but I know for a lot of people, food and flavor aren't
as important to them as they are to me. And for them good enough
is, well, good enough, and that is completely okay. The only thing I ask is that you don't eat canned refried beans because they taste like dog food and nobody deserves to eat that. Oh, one last tip. If you enjoy watching people eat food while they're blindfolded, you absolutely have to watch
this video of my parents taste testing, my breakfast burritos. - Where is the mouth. - You know where your mouth is. - Can I see? I cannot see. - Where is the mouth though. (Nisha laughing) I can't taste when my eyes are closed. - You can take your masks off. - You mean, little brat.
