Best cookbook for beans?

friederike

I've been meaning to cook more beans recently, but I don't really have a good book on cooking beans (I think), nor the time to search all my current cookbooks to find a recipe here or there. In short, I need a new cookbook focused on beans. Can you recommend anything? Doesn't have to be beans only, as long as it contains lots of beans recipes.

southerncooker

I love Crescent Dragonwagon's books and she has one called Bean by Bean. I don't have this one but bet it's loaded with great bean recipes.

bunyip

I can recommend Grains by Molly Brown. It has lots of recipes for beans and lentils.

I started cooking more beans and lentils a few years ago in an effort to lower my bad cholesterol. It worked, and I actually enjoy the food!

Queezle Sister

I love beans, but at my elevation they are difficult to cook. So my go-to book is Great Vegetarian Recipes Under Pressure by L. Sass. I mostly use it for its table of pressure cooking times for beans. In the summer, I don't use a recipe (gasp!), and combine green beans with cooked legume beans, and misc. vegetables (red onion, bell peppers, cucumber, asparagus - whatever is on hand) to make bean salad.

I will be watching for your favorite bean recipes.

friederike

Ha! I actually own a copy of Grains! But of course this is a problem where only a new cookbook can really solve the problem...

I was about to go to Amazon and order a copy of Bean by Bean when I stumbled across this thread on AskMetafilter, which convinced me that we needed a pressure cooker, and why not go for an Instant Pot while we're at it? So, now we have a shiny new Instant Pot standing in our kitchen, but I totally forgot to order Bean by Bean. And Vegetarian under Pressure looks good, too! I've placed both books on my wishlist, and I'll have another look at Grains. Thank you for your recommendations!

bunyip

I could not live without my pressure cookers - I have two, a 6 litre and a 4.5. They are excellent for beans and chickpeas, you can cook a quantity then freeze for later instead of using cans.

kateq

Have you used the Instant Pot yet? I'd love to hear peoples' experiences with it.

friederike

We've used it just a few times now. It makes excellent rice; even better than our rice cooker. I steamed cauliflower for my daughter, but the cauliflower ended being overcooked after just 2 min of steaming (which in this case was a good thing as I wanted to purée it), and DH made this dish - not a success but I guess that was the recipe. I was thinking about cooking our oats for breakfast in the Instant Pot, but given that it needs time to built up and release pressure I'm not sure it would actually save us that much time. But in general, the specific functions make using the IP really easy.

Queezle Sister

Similar to my issues with the pressure cooker. I use it for beans, because its the only way I can get them to cook through, but for many things, it doesn't save time. However, it does a brilliant job on hard boiled eggs! They reliably peel easily.

Kestrel

The Rancho Gordo book Heirloom Beans is very good.
https://www.amazon.com/Heirloom-Beans-Recipes-Spreads-Salads/dp/0811860698/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8

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