Pinto Beans

Crock pot Pinto Beans

  • 1 pound dried pinto beans
  • 6 cups water
  • 2 teaspoons salt
  • 1/2 teaspoon black pepper

On the night before cooking:

  1. Pour dried beans out of package and into a colander/strainer.
  2. Filter through the dried beans with your fingers, looking for bits of mud or rock. Discard this kind of trash if you find it.
  3. Rinse the beans under running tap water.
  4. Pour wet beans into a bowl or the crock pot you will use the next day.
  5. Add 6 cups of water and soak overnight.

Next day, cook beans:

  1. Pour off the water after beans have soaked 6-12 hours.
  2. Re-rinse beans.
  3. Pour wet beans into crock pot and add 6 cups water
  4. Add salt and pepper.
  5. Cover with the crock pot lid and cook on low for 6-10 hours.

Forgot to soak overnight?

Forgot to soak the beans? You can skip the soaking stage, just make sure you use 8 cups of water so that the beans won’t dry out while cooking.

No crock pot?

If you are going to be in the kitchen for most of the morning, you can cook the beans in a big soup pot in about 3-4 hours, with a lot of attention.  Rinse your beans and put them in a big soup pot with 8 cups of water.  Bring the beans to a boil over high heat and boil on high for one hour, adding water as needed.  Any time the water drops down to the level of the beans, add 2 more cups of water.  After you have boiled them for one hour, add the salt and pepper and 2 more cups of water and bring them back to a boil on high heat.  When the beans begin to boil this time, cover the pot and turn the heat down to medium and simmer 20 minutes.  After 2o minutes, uncover the beans and check the water level.  If it is close to the top of the beans, add 2 more cups of water.  Recover and simmer on medium 20 more minutes.  Uncover, check and add water, recover and cook on medium 20 more minutes.  Repeat until the beans are done.  The skins will come off and the beans will be more mushy than in the crock pot, but if you have to get beans done in 3-4 hours, this is the only way.  NOTE: cooking beans on high for 1-2 hours won’t work.  The insides of the beans will still be tough.