andrew_miller90•10d agoProlific Poster

Stumbled on a stat about canned beans that surprised me

I was looking up ways to cut grocery costs and found a USDA table showing canned beans are actually cheaper per serving than dried beans after you factor in the energy to cook them. I always assumed dried was the clear winner but for a single guy like me, the $0.15 difference isn't worth the extra hour of simmering. Anyone else find a budget staple that's not as cheap as everyone says?

2 comments

2 Comments

diana_black2210d ago

I mean that energy cost thing is real, I had the same surprise when I actually sat down and did the math. For me personally I just buy canned now and save my dried beans for chili or soups where I'm already simmering stuff for a while. What I do to cut the sodium is rinse them really well in a colander for like 30 seconds before I use them.

michael_patel10d ago

Honestly I'm not sure it's that big of a deal unless you're doing this every single day. Like yeah if you're cooking dried beans for a full pot from scratch on a gas stove for three hours, sure that adds up. But most people I know just do a big batch once a week and use that for everything. The sodium thing with canned beans, yeah rinsing helps but I just check the label and buy the low sodium ones if it's a concern.