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The simple overnight process of how to soak beans (by type) will help to eliminate gas and intestinal issues so you can enjoy eating these nutritious plant foods again!
I went on a bean soaking binge this past weekend, and the amount of scum that came to the top of the large pot of soaking kidney beans was so huge, I thought it deserved its own blog post. Soaking beans for many hours before cooking them produces a lot of scum which is course, is rinsed and drained away when the soaking is complete.
What is all that scum anyway? Anti-nutrients, that’s what! And those anti-nutrients such as phytic acid, lectins, and enzyme inhibitors are going to be in your gut causing you gas, heartburn, reflux, and whatever other digestive ills beset you when you eat something that isn’t particularly digestible unless you soak your beans before cooking them.
Traditional cultures took great care to prepare their legumes with a long soak before cooking to enhance digestibility and nutrient absorption.
I love Mexican food but really try to avoid Mexican restaurants for this reason .. they don’t soak their beans before cooking them!
After a meal at a Mexican restaurant, I will typically feel very bloated. Eating the same meal prepared at home where I soaked the beans properly before cooking results in no digestive upset whatsoever.
Take the Soaked Beans Challenge!
If you think unsoaked beans don’t cause you any trouble .. take this challenge. Soak beans next time before cooking and notice the difference in your stomach after eating.Â
You may think that the unsoaked beans don’t cause you any trouble, but you just may find that soaked beans are infinitely more filling and that you eat less and enjoy the meal more as a result!
Traditional peoples were very wise in the preparation of their foods. They not only selected nutritious foods but they prepared them for maximum digestibility and nutrition. Â
What good is eating nutritious legumes if the body is so whacked by the anti-nutrients that it can’t very easily extract and digest the nutrition?
So, the next time you make your beans, make sure you soak them first!
I soak large pots of various types of beans every month or so and then cook them – freezing for easy, quick meals when beans are required like homemade chili.
**If you absolutely do not have time to do this, at least buy pre-soaked legumes and beans packed in glass jars. Your digestion will thank you!
How To Prepare Beans by Soaking (video tutorial)
If you’ve never soaked beans before, it’s so easy. It’s a very similar process to soaking nuts. The method also mimics the wisdom of traditional societies that soaked seeds.
See this short video below that demonstrates the simple process.
Kidney shaped beans
For kidney shaped beans and dried/split peas, put a pinch of baking soda and enough water to cover in a large pot and soak uncovered for 12-24 hours. Drain, rinse and cook as usual.
Examples of kidney-shaped beans include:
- Red kidney beans
- White kidney beans (cannellini beans)
- Pinto beans
- Anasazi beans
- Black-eyed beans (black-eyed peas)
- Great Northern beans
- Lima beans
Non-kidney shaped beans (and other legumes)
For more oval-shaped beans and other legumes, soak for 12-24 hours in filtered water to cover plus 1 tablespoon of cider vinegar or lemon juice for every cup of dried beans/legumes used.
A homemade apple cider vinegar recipe or store-bought are both fine (make sure the ACV is packed in glass). Liquid whey from yogurt, kefir, or clabbered milk may also be used. Drain, rinse, and cook as usual.
Examples of non-kidney shaped beans include:
- Black beans (turtle beans)
- Navy beans
- Fava beans
- Adzuki beans
- Chickpeas
- Lentils
For maximum digestibility, it is best to rinse and refresh the filtered water and baking soda or the acidic medium once or twice during the soaking period. If you forget, no worries.
I try to always soak beans for the full 24 hours instead of just overnight. Sometimes if I get busy, I might even soak them 36 hours, but this is risky as they can get moldy sometimes if you go over 24 hours. Best to stay between 12-24 hours particularly during summer months.
How to Cook Beans After Soaking
After soaking, be sure to thoroughly drain and rinse the beans until all the scum is washed away. Then, complete the process by doing the following.
- Fill the pot of rinsed pre-soaked beans with fresh filtered water, bring to a boil, and skim away any additional foam that may come to the top at the start of the boil. Â
- Turn down the heat to a simmer, add 4 crushed garlic cloves, and cook until the beans are soft (about 4 hours).
- Drain beans and add to your favorite dish or let cool and freeze in large freezer bags for quick meals at a later date!
You won’t be needing over-the-counter gas meds after preparing beans the traditional way!
Should You Use the Soaking or Cooking Water?
Some alternative cooking circles advocate using the soaking or bean cooking water. Unfortunately, neither of these practices is traditional.
Using the cooked bean water or aquafaba is actually a dangerous practice. See the linked article for reasons to avoid this modern food especially during pregnancy!
Other Types of Legumes
This article plus video on soaking lentils provide additional information specifically for this legume. Because they are soaked exactly the same as all non-kidney shaped beans, it is helpful for visual learners.
Lentils were the favorite of nutritional pioneer Dr. Weston A. Price due to their very high potassium content.
Recipes Using Pre-soaked Beans and Legumes
Here are some recipes to try using soaked beans and other legumes to entice you!
This is taken from the “Wild World of Bulk,” a little booklet about everything you buy in bulk offered for free from Wild Oats and Alfalfa’s Markets many moons ago…it is like a Bible in my kitchen:
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Ogliosaccharides are the complex sugars in beans that cause gas. Humans cannot digest these sugars in their stomach, so they travel to the intestines where bacterial enzymes break them down, producing methane, hydrogen, and carbon dioxide. Presoaking and thorough cooking are vital for removing the majority of trouble bubbles.
Short Soak Method:::
This method reduces hard-to-digest complex sugars by 80%. The Long Soak Method does not remove the complex sugars as well as the Short Soak Method.
Boil beans n water for 3 minutes in a heavy-bottomed pot.
Cover and set aside for 2-4 hours {Soaking longer doesn’t help or hurt}.
Drain and discard water. Rinse beans. Proceed with cooking.
Many recipes call for baking soda to speed cooking and soften beans by reducing alkalinity. Use it only if you have extremely hard water. Baking soda will produce mushy beans and deplete minerals.
Add while cooking: Do your major seasoning 30-45 minutes before beans are due to be done. Spicing too early can cause flavors to break down.
*Chopped onion and garlic; digestive spices {bay leaf, cumin, epazote}; kombu
Do NOT add while cooking: Add only when soft: these ingredients will toughen uncooked beans and increase cooking time considerably.
*Unrefined sea salt, miso, tamari, soy sauce; sugars; acidic ingredients such as tomatoes, lemon juice, and wine.
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In answer to the canned bean questions: The need for soaking is with dry beans. It is still a good idea to rinse canned beans to remove the indigestible residues.
~~~~~ I am curious about soaking with whey, as I’ve yet to try it. What do you think about timing? I’m wondering whether to add the whey to the soaking water before it boils, add it after when the beans are soaking in it, or add to the cooking water….Hm..I sense an experiment coming on…
thank you for your post. I did not know:
“The Long Soak Method does not remove the complex sugars as well as the Short Soak Method.
correction:
quote: “baking soda to speed cooking and soften beans by reducing alkalinity.”
baking soda IS alkaline so it will only ADD to “alkalinity” they must have meant it reduces ACIDITY.
the following is also helpful:
“Do NOT add while cooking: Add only when soft: these ingredients will toughen uncooked beans and increase cooking time considerably.
*Unrefined sea salt, miso, tamari, soy sauce; sugars; acidic ingredients such as tomatoes, lemon juice, and wine.”, as there have been some times when it took hours and hours longer than it “should” have to soften the beans. Thanks
also indirect comment: I too am going to try adding baking soda – we always just used water.
Hi Sara, thanks for the info on beans.
I would like to ask a question that is off topic. Concerning water systems. I have looked in your resourse section but can’t find any info on suggested water systems for your home. I see the add on the life ionzeers. Is this the one that you recomend? Where should I go to find the best one for my kitchen? Thanks in advance for your help.
We have a Berkey & after much research felt it was the best choice. We have been using it 3 years now & love it. You put all the money up front, but in the end it is the cheapest for the life of the filters & produces truly pure water. If you are concerned about fluoride as well, there is a second filter to purchase. It’s well worth the $. And if there is ever a situation where you have a disruption in water service, you can use almost any water in this system to purify, so it’s a great thing to have around.
Sarah, I’m a little confused. I have always soaked my beans for about 12-24 hours in just water. They seem to digest well for us. After reading today’s post and using whey, I looked in NT and Sally Fallon’s recipes for beans don’t always call for whey or lemon juice or vinegar. Some do, some just say to soak in water. What is the difference or the reason do you think? I never get the scum either without the whey, so will try the whey. It would be nice to know I was ridding my beans of ant-inutrients!
Not sure the reasons, Mikki. My NT says to soak with whey, lemon juice, or cider vinegar (basic beans recipe).
For instance, go to Baked Beans on page 497. She says, “Cover beans with warm water and leave in a warm place for 24 hours.” Nothing about whey or lemon juice. There are some other too like, French Bean Casserole and Beans and Rice Jamaican Style.
Please see the latest info on this in my comment at the top.
Strange. I always soak my beans like that ,but never have a layer of scum. They soak and plump up, I rinse and cook – usually in broth.
Tara, do you add any lemon juice, apple cider vinegar or whey? Soaking just in water produces little to no scum from what I’ve been told.
Yep, every time. Wonder what the difference is?
I don’t get much scum, practically none – using Apple Cider Vinegar – the black beans I soaked last night are organic – would that make them less scummy, the organic part???
Maybe the “warm” water and “warm” environment would make the scum – dehydrator in this cold weather? Love reading all the comments – thanks for the topic Sarah!
I have the same issue, little if any scum… I have a batch of beans soaking in baking soda water and one soaking in vinegar water… A few bubbles of scum around the edges of the pans but little else. =(
I want scum!! (Lol) if only because I feel like without it I feel like the bad stuff is still there….
Could it be from altitude? I live at 7000 ft above sea level…
Are you referring to canned and dry?
Definitely dry beans. Don’t buy canned if you can possibly help it.
Beans must be on the mind because I just posted a chickpea recipe. I don’t usually get that much scum, though. Do you think the soaking agent affects the beans differently? I always use lemon juice.
I always use organic beans but different beans produce more or less scum. Kidney beans produce a lot I’ve found.
Is this necessary with canned beans? I buy cans of white/cannelini beans to make Gaida de Laurentis’ chicken and white bean chili -which is delicious. But I have never soaked the beans after taking them from the can ,,,
Beans from a can were not previously soaked – only cooked. If they’ve been cooked already, soaking won’t do any good. Best to buy your beans and soak and then cook them yourself. Canned beans would have little to no nutritional value plus plenty of anti-nutrients to irritate the gut. Not to mention the BPA the cans are lined with which are hormonally disrupting.
Amen …
just think of it like this: their time in the can is there soaking period (even though they were cooked first. So all you have to do is simply rinse them when you take them out of the can.
I’m fairly certain that this is incorrect. I think the lack of the soak before the factory cooked them leaves them with the anti-nutrients intact and no way for you to remove them. But you could always do a comparison to see if soaking and cooking your own from organic dried beans leaves you feeling differently after a meal as compared to the same meal made with canned beans.
My Mom soaked navy beans overnight and then we knew we were going to be treated to her homemade bean soup! She didn’t soak them because of the “poisons” or the anti-nutrients either. She soaked them because if she hadn’t they would have been hard as little rocks and would never have made soup. I’m pretty sure that soaking beans was originally done for this reason and the removal of anything nasty was a by-product of the process. How many of our ancestors would have known about anti-nutrients?? When were anti-nutrients discovered? I mean I highly doubt that my great grandmother (from the mid to late 1800’s) would have known about them at all.
Nevertheless, whatever you think the reasoning was, soaking beans and other legumes first is the only way to go.
they soaked them because they could tell they felt better when they did. Hello.. why do we assume everyone before us now were stupid. Granny knew her kids thrived on it .. so they did it. They may not have known “names” we NOW give to things they have done for thousands of years.. but that doesn’t mean they don’t know why they did what they did. We could use a ton of that old fashioned common sense. Diet is one of those things we must look back in order to successfully move forward. Our lives have evolved much faster than our diets and bodies. We must realized..after all our ancestors were pretty good at getting us this far.
Cool the attitude. I can make out a stank face while reading your response.
“Attitude?” I found Crystal’s reply to be intuitive and thoughtful. The idea that we might value the wisdom of previous generations is both valuable and wise. And that’s no bull!
Definite attitude. I agree that trial and error was mostly the learning method of the day
Crystal, I couldn’t agree more. I think we have lost so much conventional wisdom. Case in point. My granny used to have little tubs of tomato seeds sitting out in the sun fermenting. I thought it was gross & wanted to throw them away one day while I was cleaning up. She told me no, those were her tomato seeds. I though it was weird. Fast forward a few decades & I read in a seed book that to save tomato seeds you need to ferment them to kill diseases. Now I had to read in a book what my granny just knew from experience dating back to the 1880’s.
I wish my granny was still around. There is so much I am ready to learn from her now. If it weren’t for the internet, much of this wisdom would be gone forever.
Crystal couldn’t agree more. Also whatever is supposedly ‘discovered’ now has been discovered by ancient peoples long long time ago. Infact, Ayurveda (traditional Indian medicine) has written about soaking beans to remove harmful nutrients as far back as 1500 bc. How would a country mainly surving on beans and pulses survive without knowledge like that?
I don’t have a web, but I agree to the soaking the beans with a little more than a pinch of baking soda. I learned a lot from the older generation. They are full of info. that most of us use today with out thinking about it. Just wish I had the forethought to write most of it down. Now I’m in my 60’s and now my daughter has finally taken up crochet after trying to teach her for years. . She is a super cook, she loves to make things from scratch. She got that part from her dad. Me I can’t make a decent biscuit. lol. Have tried but no go. Thanks so much for this site. Now the diffrence of opinion has been solved between me and hubby.
Before I got into traditional foods I always soaked my beans overnight in water only. When I started adding whey I was amazed by the difference. You are correct, the beans seem to sit better when you eat them and there are almost no after affects the next day. I never make beans or lentils without fermenting them now.
Very good reminder! I have always soaked my beans, simply because “that’s how granny did it”… she always said it “removed the poison”. Very smart lady! =)
I always add a pinch of baking soda to my soaking water (have never tried vinegar!), again because “that’s how granny did it”. And who am I to mess with the way someone who lived to 96 yrs old and was never on blood pressure or cholesterol meds cooked things!
Smart Grandma! She didn’t need a double blind study to observe the obvious! 🙂
Indeed — smart granny!
Also, I learned at the most recent Weston Price conference cooking class that the baking soda method is best for some types of beans, and the acidic medium of whey/lemon/vinegar is best for others. Lentils, garbanzos & black beans get acidic medium, and every other kidney shaped bean plus split peas get pinch of aluminum free baking soda. Rinse and refresh the water and neutralizer once or twice during the soaking period.
I think she said this is information that is updated since Nourishing Traditions was printed. Perhaps either would work, and we could all experiment.
Ha ha, I remember soaking beans at a friends house and everyone was aghast at the fact that there was nary a puff that evening! (Pun intended.)
Er, make that flabbergasted. 🙂
Thanks Beth! Revisions are always good. Actually, I’ve found a few recipes in NT in the baking and meals that need revising. There are some errors and if I wasn’t an older, savvy cook, would not have noticed. I also chuckle at some of the spellings of Spanish named dishes and ingredients, for instance, page 438 should read Huevos, ot Heuvos. Also, page 437, a typo, yollks. You can tell, I really read this wonderful book! Everyone watch out for that Banana Bread recipe on page 483. Anyone else try it and not have it work?
Oh yes, the Banana Bread recipe! That recipe is a DISASTER, ha ha! I’ve found if I split the recipe in half and bake at 325 degrees for around 45 minutes, it turns out much better (start watching it after 30 minutes, though, to make sure the top doesn’t burn). If you follow their recipe, it explodes everywhere in the oven, and burns!
thank you for your post, I am commenting to help others keep from being confused : ). “aluminium free” only applies to baking POWDER. You are correct in saying add baking SODA but if you have anything that says “aluminium free” that is baking POWDER and is not correct. I agree that you always want to use “aluminium free” baking powder when ever a recipe calls for it and do the same myself. Here is a long quote on the difference between baking SODA vs. POWDER from About.com: “Both baking soda and baking powder are leavening agents, which means they are added to baked goods before cooking to produce carbon dioxide and cause them to ‘rise’. Baking powder contains baking soda, but the two substances are used under different conditions.
Baking Soda
Baking soda is pure sodium bicarbonate. When baking soda is combined with moisture and an acidic ingredient (e.g., yogurt, chocolate, buttermilk, honey), the resulting chemical reaction produces bubbles of carbon dioxide that expand under oven temperatures, causing baked goods to rise. The reaction begins immediately upon mixing the ingredients, so you need to bake recipes which call for baking soda immediately, or else they will fall flat!
Baking Powder
Baking powder contains sodium bicarbonate, but it includes the acidifying agent already (cream of tartar), and also a drying agent (usually starch). Baking powder is available as single-acting baking powder and as double-acting baking powder. Single-acting powders are activated by moisture, so you must bake recipes which include this product immediately after mixing. Double-acting powders react in two phases and can stand for a while before baking. With double-acting powder, some gas is released at room temperature when the powder is added to dough, but the majority of the gas is released after the temperature of the dough increases in the oven”
The intent here is to help someone – I hope this post has. thank you all for your comments – especially Crystal.
Thanks for clarifying that! It kind of confused me.
Soaking my beans in cider vinegar didn’t seem to make enough difference…now I’m going to try baking soda!
AJ, I also put in baking soda when soaking my beans. I live in Central America where beans are the norm. I’ve tried soaking it with an acid medium and it didn’t work at all for us. A friend in Costa Rica suggested baking soda and I’ve been doing that with great success ever since!
Well said