Cooking dried beans for freezing

[womble]

Right bear with me for another silly question.

When I'm using up the left over dried beans from last year and want to freeze them.
Do I....

A. Boil them hard for ten minutes, then for another 50 mins on tickover. Then cool and freeze and just warm up in whatever fantastic thing I am making.
B. Boil them hard for ten minutes, then an unknown number of other minutes. Then cool, freeze and throw them in the wonderful food I am cooking a while from the end, to finish off cooking.

Or C. None of the above?

[HeyWayne]

Maybe a daft question - but why freeze them if they're dried?

[Two_Sheds]

I cook up a whole batch of my dried beans and freeze in individual portions (it's cheaper to cook one big pot than 6 small pots).

- boil for 10 mins
- simmer for 45 mins (they need longer if really old)
- cool & freeze

[womble]

Thankyou, perfect timing.

Note, next time ask question before you start cooking.

Our cooking is all electric Wayne, so I try to keep the long boilings to a minimum, as it's expensive, as TS says, I can cook up a whole load now and then warm up when they are needed.

[Bren In Pots]

Have you thought of using a pressure cooker, it cuts the cooking time down by a lot.

beans and legumes then click 'cooking time chart' from side menu.

[womble]

I'm not really a great fan of pressure cookers tbh, but good idea thanks and an interesting site.

[HeyWayne]

Our cooking is all electric Wayne, so I try to keep the long boilings to a minimum, as it's expensive, as TS says, I can cook up a whole load now and then warm up when they are needed.

Aha! Hadn't thought of that.

[Alison]

Thankyou, perfect timing.

Note, next time ask question before you start cooking.

Our cooking is all electric Wayne, so I try to keep the long boilings to a minimum, as it's expensive, as TS says, I can cook up a whole load now and then warm up when they are needed.

It's also quicker when you want some beans but have forgotten to soak them. I tend to cook up a bit pan, use what I want and then freeze the rest too, saves me using tins which I've had to buy.

[zazen999]

Me three.

In actual fact - Mr Z is making a chilli with some I made earlier as I type. Straight from t'freezer.

[Flummery]

I'm a fan of shelly beans - just about mature beans shelled and then frozen fresh. These you really can just lob in the casserole or whatever.
However, like you, I have left over 'seed' beans to use up so I do a cook up - often of mixed beans - for chilli etc.

[FionaH]

Ok so if I have this right, the fresh borlotti beans I have just shelled can be flash frozen then cooked later fairly quickly, say ten mins. But if I dry some at the end of the year I have to boil them for longer before freezing?

[Alison]

You don't need to freeze dried ones at all, you can quite happily store them in jars (so long as you dry properly and fully in the first place) but if you want to eat them you'll need to boil them for about an hour. If like quite a few of us you cook in large batches you can then freeze the surplus for using by just warming up, the same as you would with tinned ones. Hope that makes sense.

[FionaH]

Thanks Alison that makes perfect sense. Having just re read my earlier post I can see the DOH moment I had