We don’t talk about cooking all that often here on A B.O.B List, but that’s something we’re trying to change around here. Cooking during survival situations is an incredibly important thing that everyone should be aware of, and this also includes knowing how to cook and prepare certain meals. Pinto beans are a favorite for lots of fellow preppers out there, and today we’re going to be teaching you the best way to cook pinto beans.
Different preppers have different ways of preparing their beans, and while everyone will say and argue that their way is the best way, we’re not worrying about all that ego crap. We’ve tested out a ton of different styles of cooking pinto beans, and after a lot of trial and error, we’ve come up with a recipe that’s proven to be the best out there.
We’ve got a surprising amount of ground to cover today, so, with that said, let’s dive right into things.
But first, why pinto beans?
There are a lot of survivalist foods out there, and if you’re new to the prepper lifestyle, you might be a bit confused as to just why we’re talking about pinto beans today. That’s a very fair question, and we’re going to do the best job we can at answering that.
Pinto beans are such a sought-after survival food because of how well they keep in storage for long amounts of time. When we talk about beans on this site, we’re referring to dried beans.
Dried pinto beans can be kept in storage for an absurdly long amount of time, but while this aspect to them is great for survival, actually trying to cook them is a whole other story. No one we know really enjoys cooking dried pinto beans, but you quite obviously need to do so in order to eat them.
We saw the problem here and decided to break everything down in a few simple steps to help you understand the easiest way to cook beans. All of these tips are relatively easy to follow, and they should make cooking pinto beans much easier and more enjoyable for everyone.
First things first, sort your beans
Before you can start cooking your pinto beans, you need to make sure that you go through the sorting process. When sorting your pinto beans, you’re pretty much just removing anything that doesn’t need to be within the beans. Rocks, dirt, and other things can often find their way into a stash of beans, and because of this, you want to make sure that you aren’t cooking something up that shouldn’t be going into your body.
While there are a number of different ways to go about the sorting process, we’ve found that the easiest one is to get a few cups of your beans and pour them out over a large table. Once you’ve got that done, sit in front of the beans and position either a big bowl or pan right in the middle of your lap.
Using either your hands or a utensil of some sort, scoot all of the beans from the table into the bowl/pan. This will make it incredibly easy to spot anything among your beans that needs to hit the curb, and it makes light work of a sometimes tedious task.
Time to get clean!
Now that you have your beans all sorted out, it’s time to wash them. Washing pinto beans simply helps to ensure that they’re as clean as they can be, and this is a short and easy step that will wipe away any dirt or dust that wasn’t removed during the scooping process.
Take your beans, place them in a colander, and then put that underneath a faucet or other source of running water. Moving the beans around with your hand or moving the colander while rinsing them off with help to clean as many of the beans as possible, and you’ll just want to do this until all of the beans look especially clean to your eye.
You might be taken aback by having a lot of dusty or dirty pinto beans at first, but try not to be. This is something that’s very much expected when storing large amounts of dry beans for a prolonged period of time, and as you can see, all of that unwanted gunk is removed in no time at all.
Cooking the beans
As for actually cooking the beans, we’ve found that there are a couple of different techniques that you can use depending on how much time you have on your hands. Both methods work great, and you may very well find yourself making use of both of them from time to time.
The first method takes quite a bit of time, and that’s because it requires you to soak the beans overnight.
We often see questions online with people wondering how long do you have to soak pinto beans, and as you’re about to see, that varies depending on which method you choose!
Going back to the overnight style, add your beans to a large bowl once you’ve rinsed them off of any dirt, grime, etc. From here, add so much cold water to that bowl so that the beans are covered by at least 2-inches of it.
The beans will be completely hydrated within around 4 hours or so, but you can choose to let them soak for up to 24 hours if you really want to get a lot of flavor out of them.
As for the second method, you’ll want to boil a pot of water and then add your beans to that. With your beans in the boiling water, cook them for about 3 minutes or so and then remove them from the heat. Let your beans sit and cool down for an hour, and you’ll be ready to go!
Final Thoughts
And with all of that said, that is the best way to cook pinto beans. The process itself isn’t all that challenging, but if you don’t know where to start, trying to work with dried beans can seem a little overwhelming at first. However, that doesn’t have to be the case whatsoever. Pinto beans are a great survival food that will likely save your butt a few times if things ever get really, really bad, and as you now know, cooking them is actually fairly simple!
