Please subscribe to our YouTube channel for more content!
MEET THE KROCKS: We are a married couple who started on a life-changing whole food, plant-based weight loss journey in June 2018. To date, we have lost over 270 pounds combined and we aren’t done yet! Read Our Story
Follow our Journey:
YOUTUBE | FACEBOOK | INSTAGRAM | PINTEREST | TWITTER
We eat a LOT of beans. They are a great source of whole food, plant-based protein and we love adding them to our salads, enjoying them in soup, blending them into hummus or even baking them on top of a pizza! But we have always wondered… are all beans created equal? Does it really make a difference if you use pre-cooked canned beans or cook your own dry beans? We set out to answer these questions and more with this Black Bean Throwdown!
For this throwdown, we decided to compare a can of no salt added black beans to a cheap bag of dry beans from Aldi and an expensive bag of fancy beans we bought in a small market.
Prepping & Cooking Your Beans
The good thing about beans is they do not require a ton of prep work! For the canned beans, we just rinse and drain them and they are ready to go.
For the dry beans, we usually do not soak them overnight because our Instant Pot does a great job of cooking them quickly, even without soaking. We do like to give them a good rinse and sort through for any rocks or other debris. Then we put them in the Instant Pot and make sure there is at least 2 inches of water above the beans. We set the Instant Pot to high pressure for 25 minutes and then let the pressure release naturally for 15 minutes or so before activating the manual pressure release.
If you soak the beans overnight, you can shorten the Instant Pot cooking time to about 15 minutes.
Now that the beans are prepped and cooked, let’s take a closer look at each contestant in this throwdown!
Check out the “Featured Products” section at the bottom of this post for more information about the Instant Pot we used.
Contestant #1: 365 Everyday Value No Salt Added Canned Black Beans from Whole Foods
We use black beans in our salads almost every day, so we go through a ton of them. Since we try to reduce our sodium intake, when we use canned beans, we make sure to buy the ones with no salt added. Early on in our journey, we discovered that Whole Foods has a surprisingly affordable collection of no salt added canned beans! One 15 ounce can of the 365 Everyday Value No Salt Added beans costs just 79 cents.
Contestant #2: Pueblo Lindo Black Beans from Aldi
Aldi is my absolute favorite store to shop at for great deals and black beans are no exception!
I picked up this two pound bag (32oz) for just $2.39.
Contestant #3: Rancho Gordo Midnight Black Beans
Rancho Gordo is a bean producer/seller based in California that specializes in heirloom beans. We first heard about these beans from the Whole Food Plant Based Cooking Show. Jill absolutely loves these and we knew we had to give them a try! We were browsing at a specialty market in Kansas City, MO a few months back and saw they had a bunch of Rancho Gordo beans, so we decided to pick up these Midnight Black Beans and see for ourselves if they really tasted any better!
We purchased a one pound (16oz) bag of these for $8.99, but you can find them on the Rancho Gordo website for $5.95.
The Throwdown: Which Beans Won?
Be sure to watch the video to see us prepare and try all of the black beans! We decided to pick a winner in three different categories: Taste, Price & Convenience.
Taste: Rancho Gordo
The Rancho Gordo beans really do taste better! They maintained their texture and had an almost “buttery” taste. We could definitely tell a difference in the flavor when comparing these to the other two varieties. I think we would only use these in dishes where the beans are the star, since the subtle flavor differences might get lost when mixed into a salad or other dish. We might actually try making a hummus with these beans!
Price: Pueblo Lindo (Aldi)
When it comes to cost, Aldi can’t be beat! At $2.39 for a two pound bag, they cost just 7.5 cents per ounce.
I did some research and found out that a 15oz can of cooked beans is equal to approximately 4oz of dry beans. So although the 365 canned beans seem really cheap at 79 cents per can, they are actually about 19.8 cents per ounce when converted to their dry measurement. That is more than twice the cost of the Aldi dry beans!
The Rancho Gordo beans cost a whopping 37.2 cents per ounce, which is nearly five times the cost of the Aldi beans. Based on that alone, I would definitely save the Rancho Gordo beans for a special occasion.
Convenience: 365 Everyday Value (Whole Foods)
When it comes to eating a whole food, plant-based diet, you spend a LOT of time in the kitchen. Since you will likely prepare a majority of your own meals, finding shortcuts is key. This is why the 365 beans win the convenience category. There is nothing easier than opening a can of beans, rinsing them off, and then throwing them into your salad, soup, etc.
We do have to consider that the canned beans create a significantly larger amount of waste. You could get dry beans from a bulk bin and really eliminate the unnecessary packaging.
OVERALL WINNER: Pueblo Lindo (Aldi)
We both agreed (I know, crazy!) that Aldi’s Pueblo Lindo beans are the overall winner! They tasted better than the canned beans and also cost a lot less. We will definitely be getting out the Instant Pot more often and adding bean cooking to our weekly salad prep process. The best part for me will be not having to haul around all of those heavy cans of beans all the time!
What kind of black beans do you like best?
Let us know in the comment section below!
Featured Products:
PLEASE NOTE: If you choose to purchase through these links, we receive a small commission from each sale at NO extra cost to you. All proceeds go back into making more content!
365 Everyday Value, Black Beans, No Salt Added, 15 ozRancho Gordo, Beans Midnight Black, 16 Ounce
Set of 3 Stainless Steel Fine Mesh Strainers
Stainless Steel Micro-perforated 5-Quart Colander
Instant Pot DUO60 6 Qt 7-in-1 Multi-Use Programmable Pressure Cooker
OXO Digital Food Scale *NOTE: Buy these directly from RanchoGordo.com for the best price!
I buy walmart brand and cook 2 ponds at a time in instapot. Then divide up into 2 cup bags about same amount as a can and freeze. I do black, kidney and chickpea.
Great idea! We definitely need to start making large batches and freezing!
Ohhh! You gotta soak Em overnight before you cook them. Not just to same time but it changes their flavor and the way they digest. You’ll be less gassy from them. Always soak overnight. And then just 12 minutes in the instant pot. Makes them a bit firmer and creamer.
Thanks for the tips! We will definitely try that… I never thought of the other benefits of soaking aside from saving a couple of minutes 🙂
Soaking most things you’re going to cook before hand is always better. If you plan your meals ahead of time anyway it doesn’t take that much extra of a step. Grains in particular benefit, especially stuff like rice, quinoa, etc… – they start to sprout a little bit and suddenly you’re into a whole new level of high nutrient density goodness!
Further Hint: soak overnight and then RINSE off the water and start with NEW WATER in the instant pot. It gets the gas- producing enzymes out that way, and sometimes I change water halfway through cooking when I cook them in a regular stock pot on the stove. And don’t put acidic ingredients in with dry beans until they are done, like — don’t add tomatoes, etc because they will keep the beans from softening. And if your grandma has dried beans stored from the 1960’s missile crisis or Y2K, they will take forever to soften up haha. But dried beans will never go ‘bad’ unless they get wet. (I’ve lost 12 pounds in the months since I found your youtube videos, so excited.)
Thanks for the tips Tabby! And congrats on the 12 pounds – that is great! 🙂
Soaking most things you’re going to cook before hand is always better. If you plan your meals ahead of time anyway it doesn’t take that much extra of a step. Grains in particular benefit, especially stuff like rice, quinoa, etc… – they start to sprout a little bit and suddenly you’re into a whole new level of high nutrient density goodness!
To further improve digestibility (and reduce gas), you can cook them with asafoetida (amazon). It has an onion-garlic flavour, so use in really tiny amounts – like 1/50 of a teaspoon for a full instant pot. I once added 1/4 teaspoon and the taste was overpowering. I’m now heading to the gourmet beans site, hope they ship to Canada! 🙂
Thanks for the tip!!
We use El Mexicano dry black beans from Walmart online. They are the best black beans we have had in all of our 70+ years! I cook them a bit differently, which produces a virtually gas-free bean, creamy but firm….so good! I learned this from cooking soy beans long ago. As soon as a bean is soaked, its enzyme is activated and that’s what helps produce gas in our bodies. Boil a medium pot of water, turn off heat, and drop 3 cups of beans into it, cover, soak for an hour. Drain. Put into 6 qt. Instant Pot and fill with new water up to just below the 8 cup mark. Cook for 42 minutes, natural release. (We are at about 800 elevation in NW MO, so I’ve added 5 minutes extra cook time). I do this same recipe for all beans. So delicious, soft skins, and creamy. The gravy it makes isn’t bitter because the phytic acid was removed in the boil soak, making it a creamy mineral-rich soup base, so save it and use it! I use most of it in making the refrieds anyway though.
Walmart’s Great Value brand is good too, just a little thicker skin I think. Hope you try this! Thanks for all your information and videos…am enjoying it tremendously! Just found you through Mrs. Plant!
I re-read my information above and just wanted to clarify that the process of doing the boil-soak is that it deactivates the production of the enzyme in the beans that causes gas. Soaking overnight gets rid of the phytic acid on the outside of the beans, which is good, but the boil-soak is the only way to deactivate the process of producing the enzyme in the first place. That’s also why the gravy is so delicious too!
Thanks for the great info Barbara!
I do not use an insta pot nor do I want to. There were no insta posts years ago, just pressure cookers which I never 👎 used and do not intend to.
I did not ask how to cook them I asked what beans do I discard when cleaning them and never got the answe I wanted.
Thank you for sharing this – we will definitely try it out!
Whether using 32 0z.canned beans or dry, I always freeze a bag of prepared beans in order to have them ready to use.
Then I have salt-free beans to use which aren’t always available at the grocery store as well as the most economical serving of beans.
Thanks for your review.