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Beans are pretty great. They're healthful, cheap and tasty. I make a pot every week.

But for a lot of home cooks, they're a mystery. I didn't grow up eating beans on the regular. Though now that I'm in the habit, I can't imagine going without. Especially these days, when other proteins are getting more expensive every day, and I have a family to cook for.

I'll be focusing on dried beans here on Bean Tips. Now, canned beans are fine — eat canned beans! — but dried beans are much, much better.

When you cook beans from dry, you'll...

Save money

The fanciest dried beans I buy cost like $6 a pound. My daily drivers (pintos, chickpeas, navy beans) are closer to a dollar or two. Compared to meat, that's dirt cheap. Canned beans are also inexpensive vs. meat, and they're great when you're short on time, but the biggest bang-for-your-buck in the pantry is a bag of dried beans.

Use your bean broth

The liquid in a can of beans is kinda ick. It's not gonna kill you, but it's not a delicious ingredient. Cooking dried beans creates a broth that, to my taste, sometimes even upstages the beans themselves. At the very least, it's a tasty, healthful liquid that you can use much like stock.

Cook 'em thoroughly

Canned beans, especially chickpeas, aren't usually done. Straight from the can, they're often undercooked, even a little crunchy. If you want silky smooth hummus, you pretty much gotta cook from dried. If you find the texture of beans unpleasant, try cooking them yourself!

Make delicious meals

Honestly, all the rest wouldn't matter to me all that much if dried beans (and their broth) didn't taste better. But they do.

I'll be posting soon about meal planning with beans, but the short version is that I like to cook a pot every week, usually on Sundays, and then use the beans and broth (together or separately!) throughout the week. I might drain the beans and roast them for snacking, or to put in a salad, and later in the week cook rice with the broth. Or make a soup with a handful of the beans, plus a lot of broth, plus vegetables and another protein like fish.

A lot of my tips will include meat and seafood. But I got into the weekly bean habit when I started eating vegan, after my first gout attack. (Gout is the worst. I hope you are not genetically inclined to get it!) These days I eat meat, pretty often really, but I try to not rely on it as the primary or sole protein in any meal.

If I'm smoking ribs, grilling a steak, roasting a chicken, whatever, there's always gonna be beans on the side. And we go meat-free frequently, but it rarely feels like a compromise because the beans are damned good eating.

Anyway, I hope that I've piqued your interest and you'll stay tuned for more bean tips! Follow along by signing up, with RSS (it's like a podcast, but for a website!), or just bookmark beantips.com!

And if you've got questions, shoot me a note at brian@beantips.com. I'd love to answer them!