If you want to add more beans to your diet, it’s a great idea to soak and sprout beans before cooking. Legumes can contain phytic acid, which makes it harder for your body to absorb the nutrients they contain. Soaking and sprouting can reduce phytic acid and make them more digestable.
When you sprout legumes and grains they also have more nutrients available. Sprouts often contain more iron, vitamin c, and zinc. Plus it’s super easy to do!
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How To Sprout Beans Before Cooking
Whether or not you are sprouting beans, you should always soak them for about eight hours or overnight before cooking. After soaking beans I like to dump them into a colander and rinse them. Then I put them into a pyrex pie pan so they can sprout. Rinse them again the next morning.
If your beans are fresh, they should already be sprouting. If they are older, rinse again morning and evening until they do. If your beans haven’t sprouted in a couple days, they are probably too old, and won’t cook very well.
Once your beans have little sprouts on them, it’s time to cook them! You can cook them however the package or recipe you are using directs. I usually bring my beans to a boil in a pot of water with a dry chili pepper and an onion. Once the pot is at a rolling boil I turn it down to a simmer for about an hour until the beans are soft enough to pierce with a fork. At this point I can fish out the chili and the onion and use the beans however I want!
Do you sprout your beans? What are some of your favorite recipes to use your cooked beans in?
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