Instead of taking along a bunch of canned kidney beans, black beans and so on — with the space and weight they take — use Thermos cooking to prepare dried beans for use in other recipes. If you haven’t heard of Thermos cooking, you can read more about it here. No need for you to spend hours watching a pot on the stove — or put all that heat into the boat.
UPDATE: For larger quantities, and for cooking main dishes, take a look at a thermal cooker (I love mine!).
This makes the equivalent of one typical can of beans, such as kidney beans, pinto beans, black beans – whatever.
Dried Beans In A Thermos
Instructions
- Preheat a 16-ounce Thermos by filling it with boiling water. Cap it and let it sit for at least 3 minutes.
- While the Thermos is preheating, measure the beans and check through the dried beans for stones or anything else that’s not a dried bean. If the beans were purchased in bulk, rinse them.
- Put the beans and 1 cup water into a covered saucepan. Do NOT add salt or salty spices, as these will toughen the beans and increase the cooking time. Bring beans to a boil over high heat and let boil 5 minutes.
- Pour the hot water out of the Thermos and save it. Put the boiling beans and water into the Thermos. If the Thermos is not quite full, add some of the reserved water until the water is about 1/2” below where the stopper will be. Let the beans sit in the Thermos for at least 2 hours – this is the equivalent of soaking overnight.
- At the end of this time, drain the beans and discard the water. Discarding the water considerably reduces the “gassiness” of the beans but if you’re really short on water, you can re-use it. Be sure to re-stopper the Thermos as soon as you remove the beans to keep the heat in.
- Place the beans in a covered pan and add 1 cup water (you can use more of the saved water from when you preheated the Thermos). Still don’t add salt! Boil for 10 minutes.
- Pour the beans back into the Thermos, again adding additional boiling water if needed. Put the stopper back on the Thermos and let it sit for at least 3 hours. You’re now “cooking” the beans.
- At the end of the time, open the Thermos and try a bean. It should not be hard, although it won’t be as “mushy” as canned beans. Don’t be alarmed by the taste – remember that you haven’t added any salt yet.
- If the beans weren’t done, replace the stopper and let them sit for another hour, then try again.
- When done, add salt or spices as desired, then use in any recipe in place of one can (15 to 16 ounces) of beans. If the recipe calls for draining the can of beans, discard the water; otherwise include it – or replace it with an equal amount of fresh water if you want to further reduce the beans’ gassiness.
Notes
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vrkelley says
I tried to make split-pea soup by soaking 24hrs, boiling 5 mins and putting them in an el-cheapo 16 oz stainless thermos. It bombed out.
Considering your Nissan instead. When you made the beans did you have to keep reheating the Nissan thermos?
Thank you in advance!
Carolyn Shearlock says
With the Thermos Nissan, I don’t have to re-heat. With my old Stanley, I sometimes did — it depended on the temperature where I had the bottle sitting.
An easy way to tell how well insulated a bottle is, is to feel how warm the outside of it is a minute or so after you fill it with boiling water. The warmer it feels, the less well-insulated it is. The difference is very noticeable between the various brands of bottles that I have!
Sorry your soup bombed! A better bottle can make all the difference.
Carolyn
vrkelley says
Yes the lid of the el-cheapo is almost too warm to touch for the first two hours or so.
Thank you,
Happy Boating
Caryn Canfield says
Using the themos doesn’t seem like much of an improvement over pressure cooking. The hardest beans only take 18 min under pressure. Some varieties take even less. Have you worked with pressure cooker much?
Carolyn Shearlock says
True, some prefer pressure cooking. This is another possibility . . .
Diane Fitser says
I never tried using a thermos for beans, but did use a cheap, wide mouthed one for making yogurt. I found that if I preheated it, put the warm mix in, and quickly wrapped it in a heavy towel and secured it for the night, it really helped retain the heat. Of course, that was in the Caribbean, so it might be different in a cooler climate.
Carolyn Shearlock says
I did a lot of yogurt in the Sea of Cortez, where it’s usually 90+ degrees. I discovered that a good Thermos is a lot more important when it’s only 70 degrees in the galley — and had to wrap my cheapie Thermos in a towel and also put the whole thing into a cooler bag.
Here’s my recipe for yogurt: Make Your Own Yogurt
Melody s/v Vacilando says
I’m so glad you posted this! I wanted so badly to get a bag of beans at the grocery store yesterday, but didn’t because it takes too long to cook. This is good for future reference…
Patricia L. McMullen on Facebook says
This is where a pressure cooker comes in handy
Linda Rand on Facebook says
and you wouldn’t even need to put the sails up 🙂
Judie Ashford says
I did this today with ceci beans – garbanzos by any other name. I preheated my three-cup size Nissan-Thermos for about 30 minutes with boiling water, and then put in a cup of dried beans that I had thoroughly washed, and then filled the vacuum bottle again with boiling water. I did not boil the beans on the stove at all. After about ten hours, I put the beans with fresh boiling water into a 1.5-quart Rival Crock-Pot and let them cook in there for two hours.
When I took them out, I drained almost all the water off and added olive oil, Montreal steak seasoning, and some Italian herbs. These will be wonderful tomorrow mixed in with my green salad for a lot of protein.
This method works really well, too, with whole grains. Different grains require different timing, but quinoa comes out the very best of any!
Stephanie Kershaw-Marsh says
I use my pressure cooker as a slow cooker for dried beans. Soak beans overnight as normal. Put in pressure cooker with water, bring to high pressure for 10 minutes, turn off heat and leave all day. Beans are ready for the evening meal!
Mary Roth says
I have used your thermos bottle method for beans successfully several times. But I just purchased a Wonderbag and wondered if you knew about them. It is a quilted bag that works like a crock pot with no fuel, after your initial cooking as with the thermos. We have made pulled pork and navy beans with great results with both recipes. Their website is https://www.wonderbagworld.com. I think you should add it to your site as an additional cooking option.
Carolyn Shearlock says
Hi Mary!
Yes, there’s an article about the Wonderbag already, and one about the Thermos Nissan Thermal Cooker (more expensive but takes up a LOT less space than the Wonderbag).
Read about the Thermos Nissan Thermal Cooker
Read the Wonderbag article
Bill says
Cooking in a thermos is a “thing”. It is a compliment to wonderbags and pressure cookers.
–Bill
Carolyn Shearlock says
Yes, I’ve written about Thermos Cooking, Thermal Cooking (Saratoga Jack’s and the Thermos Nissan) and the Wonderbag — all work really well:
https://theboatgalley.com/thermos-cooking/
https://theboatgalley.com/thermal-cooker/
https://theboatgalley.com/thermos-nissan-thermal-cooker/
https://theboatgalley.com/wonderbag/
Cory Nickerson says
This is excellent. My cruise budget is very bean heavy. Does this work for rice too? Lol
The Boat Galley says
Yep! It works with any rice, but it’s especially good with instant rice.
Patricia Leat says
I love my thermal cooker!
Ward Schmidt says
I use a pressure cooker in my land kitchen, but recently bought various sizes of Thermos bottles for cooking rice and oatmeal and now cooking beans too when at sea. Great post. I also have a Thermal Cooker (mine is a Tiger) which I use almost daily for our evening rice on land. I’ve been experimenting and like the convenient size of Thermos bottles. Thank you for TBG.
Anonymous says
I do something similar with Steel Cut oats and hot water in a quart size yeti type container, make before bed and hot oats in the morning with my coffee.
Anonymous says
That’s thinking!
Russ says
This method is likely to get someone very sick. Some beans need to be cooked at boiling temperatures for 30 mins or they are toxic. For example look at the wikipedia article for Kidney beans or Google undercooked kidney beans
Carolyn Shearlock says
Several articles that I’ve read say that boiling to 10 minutes is sufficient, which I do in step 6. But if you want to be doubly sure, you could boil them for 30 minutes at that point.