5 Techniques to Transform Canned Beans into Slow-Cooked Delights

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Adding more delicious and nutritious beans to your diet doesn’t require an extensive soaking, preparation, or cooking process. Streamline your mealtime by ditching the dry legumes for your favorite canned bean brand and get your food on the table even faster. Because canned beans are already cooked, you can easily pop open a can and start noshing just about anytime you like. 

There are a few simple tricks to amp up your beans with a bit more flair and flavor, making them taste like they’ve been homemade without the effort. Try adding fresh herbs, cooking up a tasty sofrito to mix with the beans, adding either hot sauce or spicy peppers, cooking the beans with bread crumbs and cheese for an au gratin style, or braising them in olive oil. 

All of these methods have their merits, each one of which will level up your canned beans with luxurious taste. Choose the right addition to suit your preferences and let your kitchen creativity flow with a number of fun ideas. With so many different tastes and textures to choose from, there’s sure to be a few that will work their way into your regular meal rotation. Armed with the right can of beans and a willingness to try something new, the options are nearly endless.

There is a wide variety of fresh herbs that will bring your canned beans to life. This simple addition can accommodate just about any herbs you have on hand by pairing them with your favorite type of canned beans. The matchup possibilities are nearly limitless, though there are definite go-to options that just taste great together. For example, adding fresh dill to kidney beans or basil to cannellini beans ensures an unforgettable interplay of tastes that will definitely give off homemade and slow-cooked vibes. 

Canned white beans, such as Great Northern, cannellini, or navy beans, are also an especially good choice to dress up with herbs because these beans tend to be on the more bland side, allowing you to easily flavor them with whatever herbs you like. Mix fresh herbs into your next batch of black-eyed pea stew to change up the taste and texture. 

This works especially well with types of herbs such as thyme, oregano, rosemary, and parsley. If you want to level up a can of basic butter beans, prepare a mixture of herbs, lemon juice, and olive oil in which to simmer the beans for a taste of classic comfort. You can also whip up your favorite canned beans with fresh herbs into a flavorful dip, perfect for serving warm or cold alongside your favorite chips, crackers, or veggie sticks.

Another way to turn canned beans into a restaurant-worthy dish is by making a delicious sofrito to mix in with your beans. Sofrito is popular in Puerto Rico and Latin American countries and uses fresh ingredients for a robust flavor, making it an ideal addition to your favorite canned beans. While this will take some prep work, the results will be well worth it. 

If pressed for time, you can also pick up a store-bought version such as Loisa Sofrito Cooking Sauce to streamline the process. For a simple scratch-made sofrito, start with a basic combination of chopped onions, garlic, cilantro, and bell peppers and pulse it in the food processor. Once it’s ready, add about ¼ cup of sofrito per 15-ounce can of beans to a pan on the stovetop and let everything simmer until aromatic. 

You can add sofrito to just about any type of canned beans you wish, but some of the typical choices would include pinto beans, black beans, or kidney beans. For an even more flavorful dish, start by frying up a portion of bacon and chopping it up, reserving the fat in the pan in which to cook the sofrito and beans before adding the chopped bacon back into the mix.

While hot sauce and hot peppers aren’t for everybody, even a small hint of canned chipotles can give your beans a delightfully smoky intensity. There are plenty of different types of chile peppers and hot sauces of varying Scoville levels to give just the right amount of heat for your personal spice tolerance. Whether you’re sprucing up a can of baked beans or looking to add more bold flavor to your favorite can of pinto or garbanzo beans, a little bit goes quite a long way. Start with about 1 tablespoon of hot sauce per 15-ounce can of beans and be sure to taste as you go. 

It’s easy to pour a little bit of the liquid out of your canned baked beans and swap in your favorite hot sauce. If you’re working with beans in water, start by draining and rinsing them first and building up a hot sauce-infused base with seasonings and other ingredients to mix together. Try using a portion of thinly-sliced jalapeños or serrano peppers and minced garlic, adding either the raw ingredients to your beans or sauteing them first. Remember to de-seed and de-vein your peppers before adding them to temper some of the excess heat.

When you hear the words “au gratin,” you’re likely thinking of potatoes. Though this might be one of the best known recipes for au gratin, the term refers to any food prepared by topping it with cheese and/or bread crumbs and then browning and crisping it with butter either in the oven or under the broiler. You can easily give canned baked beans a fancy au gratin twist or use other types of beans. If you want to remove cheese from the equation, simply whip up a batch of “Poor Man’s Parmesan” with olive oil, salt, parsley, and bread crumbs as a convenient swap. You can pair just about any type of beans to your favorite au gratin preparation to make a flavorful dish filled with the comforts of a slow-cooked meal.

For example, create a mouthwatering white bean gratin in just a few easy steps. Start by opening a can of white beans, draining the liquid, and rinsing them thoroughly. Saute aromatics such as shallots, onions, and garlic in olive oil before adding in your beans and letting the mixture warm up. Take half of the mixture and blend it with the stock and milk of your choosing along with olive oil and spices until it’s creamy, then return this mixture to the pan. This will create an amazing variance in texture for your dish. Pour this mixture into a greased baking vessel and top it with the cheese and bread crumbs of your choosing. Then, bake it in the oven until the top begins to bubble.

Braising your canned beans in olive oil is just about the easiest way to get the taste, texture, and general vibe of slow-cooked comfort food. Adding a rich, high-quality olive oil makes a significant difference in addition to the rest of the ingredients you choose to use. The process for braising canned beans is considerably quicker than that of braising meats because you only have to ensure that the rest of your ingredients are properly cooked through alongside the pre-cooked canned beans. The biggest benefit of the braising process is the time your beans spend soaking up all the aromatics and seasonings you use.

You can try this with any can of beans you like. The spices and other ingredients are entirely up to you. Pop open a can of red beans and let them braise in a mixture of olive oil, chicken stock, and your choice of one of the best Cajun seasonings for a scrumptious riff on red beans and rice. Use canned black beans in olive oil alongside yellow onions, garlic, smoked paprika, and vegetable stock for a delightful vegetarian-friendly side dish or entree. Or, try a Mediterranean-inspired dish with Greek spices, lemon juice, olive oil, and a can of cannellini beans, perfect for serving alongside your favorite kabobs or grilled fish. If you’re eager for more ideas, here are 16 simple uses for canned beans.