How to Cook Pinto Beans

I decided to cook our late summer harvest of nutritious pinto beans. Homemade beans beat canned beans any day and they are much easier to digest. Cooking fresh beans is quite easy too!

I am Salvadoran and we love our beans! I can eat beans breakfast, lunch and dinner.  A delicious traditional Salvadoran breakfast is plantains with a side of beans, fried egg and queso fresco (fresh cheese) accompanied by a hot cup of black coffee. Yum!

This year my husband planted pinto beans and each plant yielded about a pound of beans. I need 24 plants to get me through the year. I plan on growing this wonderful and easy to grow crop every year. 

Here is my basic recipe for cooking pinto beans.

Ingredients 

• 1 pound (2 cups) pinto beans
• 10 cups water
• 1 bell pepper, quartered
• 1 onion, halved
• 5 cloves garlic, crushed 
• 1 bay leaf
• 2 tsp sea salt

How to Cook Pinto Beans

1. Check your beans for stones and rinse in a colander;
2. Soak 1 pound of beans in 10 cups of water for 8-hours, or overnight;
3. Discard water and rinse the beans;
4. Add 10 cups water and beans to a pot, bring to a boil and lower to a simmer;
5. Add bay leaf, bell pepper, crushed garlic and onion to pot;
6. Allow beans to simmer over med heat for 30-minutes, check that beans are tender. Depending the beans’ freshness, cooking can take anywhere from 30-minutes to 1-hour. 
7. Add salt only once the beans are done cooking as salt and any acidic ingredients will keep legumes from cooking properly. 

Buen provecho!