Slow Cooker Pinto Beans With Ham Bone - A Southern Favorite Recipe (2024)

FAQs

Why shouldn't you cook beans in a slow cooker? ›

When preparing dried red kidney beans, the FDA recommends soaking them overnight, then boiling them for a 30 minutes. Since most slow cookers do not reach the boiling point (212°F), beans prepared in them without soaking and cooking them first will carry the toxic lectin.

You don't. Just wash thoroughly, add water and salt, and cook until done. Soaking helps reduce the cooking time, but only by about twenty minutes, so it's not necessary. Some people pour off the water that they soaked the beans in.

Cooking Directions

Place the beans in a colander and sort out any debris, rinse beans and add to the slow cooker. Add the ham, onion, carrots, celery, thyme, pepper and chicken broth, stir. Wait to add the ham flavor packet. Cover and cook on HIGH for 6-7 hours without opening the lid during the cooking time.

I like my juices thick with my beans, therefore in a separate bowl I added 1/4 cup of cornstarch or flour and 1/4 cup of water to make a thickening paste. Then, slowly add your thickening paste to the boiling beans and ham. Be sure to stir as you add it in.

Cook on low for 6 to 8 hours: Cover the pot and cook on low for 6 to 8 hours. If this is your first time cooking beans or you're cooking an unfamiliar kind of bean, begin checking the beans after 5 hours and then every 30 minutes until they are cooked to your liking.

Cook low and slow—patience is key. To cook on the stove, bring the pot of beans (soaked or unsoaked, with olive oil, salt, and any seasonings plus 2 to 3 inches of liquid covering them) to a boil over high heat, then reduce the heat so that your beans are barely but steadily simmering and cover with the lid.

"If you rinse your beans thoroughly, you will have a consistently flavored product, but if you do not rinse them, different amounts of salt will remain in the dish each time you cook it, and it will be hard to cook consistently," he says.

Short answer: They take longer to cook. Long answer: Many people claim that soaking beans is not necessary. The argument for this method is while it does take longer to cook, unsoaked beans end up having better flavor.

Place 1 cup beans in a large pot with 4 cups water and 1 tsp salt. Bring to a boil, then reduce to a simmer, cover and cook until tender, 1–1½ hours; drain well.

Can I leave beans in slow cooker overnight? ›

Start the pinto beans in the morning, and they'll be ready by dinner. If you are comfortable leaving your slow cooker plugged in, you can even cook them overnight.

Cornstarch, potato starch, and chickpea flour are a couple of pantry-friendly ways to thicken soups, stews, and sauces in the slow cooker. Just a tablespoon or two of any — added towards the end of cooking — will thicken sauces especially well.

The sugar absorbs some of the water, slowing how fast the beans dissolve, and the calcium molecules reinforce the cell walls by linking together with the pectin.

The addition of chili powder, chipotle peppers, adobo sauce, hot sauce, or salsa is a great way to both add flavor and heat to bland pinto beans and give them a nice kick.

Either drain off some of the excess liquid, add a thickener such as a starch slurry, or simply cook the beans longer until the liquid reduces out.

Slow cookers may not reach a high enough temperature and hold it for long enough to kill the toxin. If you have a slow cooker recipe that calls for kidney beans, either cook them first or use canned beans, because they are pre-cooked before canning.

Put beans into the slow cooker and add enough water to cover beans by 2 inches. Turn cooker to HIGH and cook beans until they're tender and cooked through, about 5-6 hours for unsoaked beans. (You can also cook the unsoaked beans on low, which would take about twice as long.)

Canned beans are cooked and packaged in liquid, so they are also low in lectins. However, raw beans simmered at low heat such as in a slow-cooker or undercooking the beans will not remove all the lectins. The body can produce enzymes during digestion that degrades some lectins.