Soup Beans Again?

For soup beans you will need:

• 1 pound dry pinto beans

• Approximately ½  or more water

• Ham, or pork, or bacon, or other meat for flavoring (optional)

• Salt and pepper to taste.

Wash and rinse beans. Soak beans if desired. Place washed beans in a stock pot, cover with water to one inch over top of beans. Bring to a boil. Turn to low, and simmer for three to four hours until beans are soft and tender. Serve hot, over cornbread. 

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Soup beans in their simplest form requires only two ingredients. You need the dry pinto beans and the water to cook them in. Seasoning with salt and pepper is recommended, but this can be done at the table if some of your target eaters are on a low sodium diet. 

Most people, my mother included, do not adhere to this minimalistic approach. Soup beans are commonly enhanced with optional add-ins, usually a meat to impart flavors into the beans curing the cooking process. 

It is important to wash or soak the dry beans before cooking. The drying and packaging process can rarely result in dust, tiny rocks or bean husks being mixed in with the beans. Washing the beans removes the dust, and you can run your hands through the beans and inspect for small stones or other debris. 

When I was growing up, we had a neighbor who had fallen on hard times. Mom would often prepare enough dinner so that we could send this neighbor a plate of food. One evening my brother delivered dinner to the neighbor’s house and returned visibly upset. When my mom asked him what was wrong, he said “Mom, we have to take him dinner more often. When I got there he was counting beans.”  While my brother’s empathy was endearing, our neighbor wasn’t counting his beans, but was inspecting them for rocks or other debris.

Once the beans are cleansed and free of any obstruction, there are several options available as to  cooking methods. The most basic method is outlined in the recipe above, but you could also prepare soup beans in a slow cooker or a digital pressure cooker. 

With the slow cooking method, as with the stovetop method, don’t forget to check the beans occasionally to verify that water covers the beans. The beans will expand during cooking, and water will slowly evaporate, so water will need to be added as the cooking continues. 

A more modern solution for soup bean preparation is the digital pressure cooker. I remember mom using a pressure cooker on the stovetop to make beans when we were small, but the modern wave of instant cookers, while having some similarities to their predecessors, are safer and easier to use. The one I use is a Nuwave Nutri-Pot 6Q. It was a Christmas gift from my mother. Thanks Mom!

During cooking, the digital pressure cooker  creates a tight seal around the beans, and the heated pressure inside the cooking chamber cooks the beans faster than the other methods. With a digital pressure cooker, a pot of beans that may take three to four hours on the stove, or five to six hours in a slow cooker, can be cooked in forty-five minutes. This makes soup beans on a week night after work a possibility. 

Regardless of the cooking method, the end goal is that the beans are soft and tender. The beans will plump and soften while cooking, they also release flavor into the water they are cooked in. The water will also thicken a bit. (If you have left-overs, the water will thicken further, and additional water may be needed when reheating.)

Soup beans are almost always paired with cornbread--at least in my experience.  The most common method is to crumble the cornbread into a bowl, then ladle some soup beans over the cornbread. The cornbread soaks up the beautiful bean broth, and the two become one, inseparable and delicious. 

This dish is good enough to stand on its own as an entree, or maybe garnished with some green onions. There are many days when my wife and I have a meal of just soup beans and cornbread. Soup beans go well with sides as well. My family enjoys having fried salmon cakes with our soup beans. We also like skillet fried potatoes. Mustard or collard greens, macaroni & tomatoes, or sauerkraut and wieners are also pairings that we enjoy next to our soup beans. 

Soup beans are delicious. They really are. They have a comfort food spot in my pantry that could not be filled by any other item. That is fortuitous, because there was a time in our lives when soup beans were just about all we could afford.

We never went hungry. I am not sure how mom did it. It was just her, and a child support payment that sometimes never showed up. Pinto beans were cheap, and would keep on the shelf as the month stretched out longer than the money did. There were lots of times when we had pancakes for breakfast and soup beans for dinner. Sometimes for days at a time.  We never got burnt out on soup beans though. They were always good, and we were always thankful. 

When I went away to college, I lived in the dorms, and the only cooking device we were allowed was a microwave. I knew a couple of residents that had hot plates, but I was not one of them. I also didn’t have a car, so I didn’t get to come home as often as I may have liked. When I did plan a trip home, my mom would always ask what I would like to have for dinner while I was home. I always requested soup beans. They were the home cooked comfort food when I visited home. 

It was just something that happened. I didn’t realize that I was requesting soup beans every time I went home. My wife did though. She was my girlfriend at the time. I invited her to come home with me to have dinner with my family sometimes. After the third time, on the way back to college, she asked me, “Does your mom cook anything besides soup beans?”.

“Of course she does.” I said, and I probably looked at her like she was crazy. “Mom cooks all kinds of delicious stuff.”

“We have been to your house to eat three times, and every one of those three times, we have had soup beans.”

I though back, smiled, and said, “That’s true. It isn’t because she doesn’t cook other stuff. It is because that is what I ask her to make when I get to come home.”  

That is a funny little moment that still makes me smile when I think about it. 

Soup beans were one of the first things that I learned to cook when I lived on my own. Like I said, they are cheap, easy, shelf-stable, and delicious. 

Try the soup beans. I recommend them.