Hit a weird milestone cooking dried beans from scratch for the first time

I finally got around to cooking a whole pound of dried pinto beans instead of buying cans. Cost me about $1.50 versus $5.00 for the canned equivalent, and I got three meals out of it. Has anyone else noticed a surprising money difference switching from canned to dried?

3 comments

3 Comments

grantp141mo ago

Is it really that much of a difference though? I feel like the time and effort of soaking and cooking dried beans kind of eats into that savings... plus water and gas or electricity to cook them for hours. Canned beans are already cooked and seasoned, so I don't have to think about it. And you gotta factor in that dried beans shrink a lot when you soak them, so a whole pound isn't really three full meals like you'd get from three cans. I don't know man, I tried dried once and just went back to cans. The price difference isn't worth the hassle to me.

jenny471mo ago

parkerbrown is spot on about the fiber thing, I noticed the same thing when I switched back to canned after trying dried once. The extra sodium and lower fiber in canned beans made me feel hungry way faster too, so I was reaching for chips an hour later. You're not wrong about the hassle though, dried beans are a pain and I always forget to soak them ahead of time.

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parkerbrown1mo ago

Wait, did you account for the fiber difference? Canned beans usually have way less fiber than dried ones cause the canning process and added sodium can mess with how your body processes them. I tracked that one time and dried pinto beans kept me full about 4 hours longer than canned, so I ended up snacking less. That alone saved me more than the actual bean price difference honestly, like probably $5 a week on random snacks.