Recipe Search: Pinto Beans

Welcome to another edition of Recipe Search, this edition highlights the Pinto Bean!

Pinto Beans

I have been attempting to work in more legumes into my diet and found the pinto bean to be great! They can take on a nice creamy texture that compliments a variety of dishes. My favorite preparation so far has been as refried beans.

Pinto beans are a nutrient powerhouse that is noted for both its protein and fiber levels. Pinto beans have a low glycemic index score and studies suggest that the consumption of pinto beans might help regulate cholesterol levels.



How do you like to prepare pinto beans?

I've always soaked my beans before boiling them, but I hear there are some folks that never presoak.

Does it matter? Should I be concerned about lectins?

I quit presoaking years ago.

I presoak and I often make bean dip out of them.

Timothy Norton wrote:I've always soaked my beans before boiling them, but I hear there are some folks that never presoak.

Does it matter? Should I be concerned about lectins?

They say presoaking your beans (and then discarding the soaking water and using new water to cook them) reduces or possibly eliminates the extent to which eating them makes you gassy later. I sometimes presoak my beans but most often don't, and I don't think I've noticed a difference.

They also say cooking them with cumin further prevents gassiness, and I just about always use cumin when I'm cooking pintos, so maybe that's why I don't notice a difference with presoaking.

(I can't remember what lectins are, so I can't answer that part, sorry.)

FWIW, I don't boil my beans; I always use a slow cooker. I put them in in the morning with water, spices, salt, and a few tablespoons of bacon fat, set it on high or low--the setting doesn't seem to matter--and they're done when I'm home from work. With pintos in particular, in most cases at the end I'm draining them (but retaining some of the drained water), mashing them into refridos, and adding some of the retained water back in while I mash them so I have control over the viscosity. If they're going in a burrito I want them more firm (actually usually if they're going into a burrito I don't mash them at all), but if they're going over nachos--and that's what they're best for--I want them more runny so they can seep into and around the chips.

I like to throw a dry ancho or california pepper into the slow cooker at the beginning along with my spices, gives it a certain umami that's killer.

I mostly cook all beans the same. I either put them in a clay pot and cook them slowly on the stove for eight hours or I put them in the pressure cooker and they're done in 24-30 minutes depending on bean size. Either way, in the pot with about a pound of dry beans, goes: 1-2 heads of garlic, 1 onion, a handful of chiles, a *lot* of cumin seeds, and two bay leaves -- Maybe other stuff if I just want to. When the beans are a little al dente, I add a little salt. At that point, they're ready for whatever further use -- bean soup, frijoles, chilli, beans and rice, or just leave them as they are and add them to tacos, sopes, tamales, quesadillas; or even just eat them in a bowl with a couple spoons full of salsa added.

Also, the best frijoles recipe we've found is in Crescent Dragonwagon's _Bean by Bean_.

If you haven’t tried cranberry beans, you must!  I find them creamier than pintos.

I do pre-soak--I put them in the pressure cooker and cover them well with water before going to bed.  When I'm ready to cook them, I'll drain them and refill the pot with water.  What I've been doing of late is cooking much more than I intend to use, and then pack up the extras and put them in the freezer so they're ready to go when I want something easy.  I have some thawing in the fridge as I type this!  A real bonus when I don't want ANY extra heat; we're expecting temps up near 100 over the next few days...so it seemed like a good time to bring some to thaw.
I love to just mix in fresh veggies like onions, cukes...whatever I have and then add good balsamic vinegar and a little EVOO.  A tasty and quick lunch or side dish.  I also use pintos to make bean burgers.  Ooh, I'm making myself hungry!

I cook all my beans the same, bulk quantities, in an instant pot, with NO seasonings, not even salt. Just beans and water. I bulk cook them to save energy. Although I don't know if I do, since most of them they go into a freezer. I cook pintos, white beans, and garbanzos this way.

The pints of cooked beans go in the freezer. A pint is enough for an entree for the 2 of us... I can make any kind of soup/stew/taco, whateva I want...

Given that I have a twitchy tummy but like spicy food, this works. Some days I can take salsa like a champ. Other days, I can barely look at a tomato and cooked onion. I long ago gave up trying to freeze entrees or side dishes -- it just didn't work. Ingredients? That works.

If you like dried pinto beans try growing some to enjoy them fresh. A totally different experience!!!

I never add salt until towards the end because they don't get as soft if the salt is added too early.

I usually cook them in a crock pot. Either as borracho beans (drunken beans ... cooked in beer) or as charro beans. Plenty of recipes online for those. Cumino, jalapeno or chili petins, onions, & garlic are always in mine & usually some sort of meat such as bacon or chorizo. Sometimes dried cilantro too. I almost always eat them over cornbread for a day or two then turn the remainder into refritos (refried beans) & freeze it for later.

  I second frijoles de la olla ("pot beans"), and that general preparation seems pretty versatile, appearing in Appalachian cuisine as soup beans and in Italy as pasta e fasule. So I'll make soup beans or frijoles de la olla (slightly varying the spices in the latter case) for one night, then heat up the rest to serve over penne as pasta e fasule a few days later. The recipe I follow uses a pressure cooker, including instructions for a crazy-fast method of soaking the beans in the pressure cooker in case I forget the pre-soak.

  Oh, and leftovers can also become refried beans!

I guess us poor ole country boys from the South do Pintos a little different. I always wash them in a big pot to get out the trash. Then soak them over night. Rinse them and add new water or chicken broth. Put in a big chunk of smoked meat and simmer cook them all day. What goes good with them. Mixed greens, corn, beets, chow chow or kimchi. A big slice of onion and real cornbread. No sugar in the cornbread please. That's corn cake. And white corn meal. That yellow stuff is for city folk.

use fresh beans ...old pinto beans never taste as good as fresh ...grow your own for the best of best.   definitely pre-soak, rinse, and cook with fresh water as others have said

James Bradford wrote:use fresh beans ...

Please clarify as some of us did not grow up in this culture. When I eat "fresh beans" that means I pick  green or purple beans when the seeds inside are fairly small, and I cook the whole fruit.

I think here, you are suggesting that we pick the beans when the seeds are fully formed, but not dried yet? And remove the fruit layer and cook these still soft seeds?

I have done that with Scarlet Runner Beans where the fruit got old and tough, and the weather wasn't right for trying to dry the seeds, but I was just faking it, as I didn't know what I was doing.

So please describe what you're doing as a recipe for people like me who are totally new to this concept?

I don't think the shells are edible. They probably aren't poisonous but just tough with little nutritional value. Earthworms seem to happily devour them.

When I grow them they are intended for fresh eating only. Dried beans are very cheap & easy to buy. Ever seen fresh pintos in any store?

Once they are close to maturity the pods develop purple blotches or streaks. That is when I pick them & remove the individual beans. If you intend to dry them I'd wait until the pods turn completely brown.

Jay Angler wrote:

James Bradford wrote:use fresh beans ...

Please clarify as some of us did not grow up in this culture. When I eat "fresh beans" that means I pick  green or purple beans when the seeds inside are fairly small, and I cook the whole fruit.

I think here, you are suggesting that we pick the beans when the seeds are fully formed, but not dried yet? And remove the fruit layer and cook these still soft seeds?

I have done that with Scarlet Runner Beans where the fruit got old and tough, and the weather wasn't right for trying to dry the seeds, but I was just faking it, as I didn't know what I was doing.

So please describe what you're doing as a recipe for people like me who are totally new to this concept?

To me, pinto beans just don't store well, so whether you buy 'em or harvest your own, the sooner you eat them, the better the texture and flavor.   if you have some dry pinto beans in the pantry for over 6 months, plant them next spring ...you will be surprised by how freshly harvested beans taste.   I pick the whole pods, let them dry in my greenhouse for a few days, and then rub them between my hands to separate the beans from shell ...its really not that hard.   For cooking, the comments above are great.   Some salt is needed when cooking, how much, just experiment until you get it like you like it.   A chunk of ham/bone isn't bad, but not as necessary as salt.  I like to cook them until the juice is almost creamy, but watch 'em close at that point because they burn fast if you cook all the water out.    If you do slightly burn them, you'll smell it fast ... react fast and get them off the fire.   Don't scrape the pot, just pull the good beans off the top, and they will still be edible as long as you don't mix in the burnt parts.

To the question about cooking in or out of the husk? A Reply fom the South. Peas, Butter, Lima, and Pinto type beans are usually removed from the husk, Cornfeild, Blue Lake, 1/2 runners, snap beans? are usually eaten in husk.

Mike Barkley wrote:I don't think the shells are edible. They probably aren't poisonous but just tough with little nutritional value.

Thought/question/experiment opportunity:

I know that, in Appalachia, green beans have been strung up to dry out, later to be soaked and cooked as a dish called leather britches. I've done this, and they get just as dry, brown, and papery-crackly as anything; but the broth from cooking leather britches is very good. I wonder, therefore, whether there might be any benefit to adding dry bean shells to stock vegetables. Anyone tried it?

So firstly, I feel pretty strongly that soaking the beans is necessary! It definitely helps with the flatulence, and makes them easier to digest. And agree with everyone who cautions not to season or salt them until tender, it changes the osmotic situation and your beans take longer to get cooked.

As for recipes, I humbly present the best bean cookbook I own - straight from the bean queen! It's not hard to find online, but in addition to soups and casseroles it has plenty of finger foods, dessert options, and even bean based beverages. (Please someone make the doughnuts and tell me how they are, I dare not attempt a deep fry at our altitude.) and of course there's a jello dish or 3, it is of the era.

The book isn't hard to find, I believe ebooks are even offered nowadays!