How to Make the Best Homemade Beans

The best-tasting beans are homemade. Generally, I use homemade beans in my soups because it’s as easy as turning on a slow cooker. Plus, beans freeze really well, so it’s easy to make a big batch and bank some for later. (Don’t worry if you don’t have home-cooked beans around; I include instructions in recipes for using canned beans as well.)

Personally, I think the best-tasting homemade beans are made from dried beans that have not been soaked overnight. Conventional wisdom used to dictate that soaking dried beans before cooking them makes them easier to digest and quicker to cook, but recent studies have confirmed that there is no science to back this up. Hurrah, one less step!