Hot take: That dry beans vs canned math took me 3 hours to crack

I figured canned beans were always cheaper so I never bothered with dry. Last month I sat down and actually calculated it for my local grocery store in Columbus. One pound of dry black beans makes about 7 cups cooked and costs $1.80. Canned is $1.20 for 1.5 cups. So dry saves about 70 cents per cup but you gotta soak and boil for over 2 hours. It took me a full afternoon to work out the numbers for all the beans I use. Has anyone else clocked the actual time cost of cooking dry beans?

2 comments

2 Comments

elizabeth_king12d ago

Hold up, 7 cups from a pound of dry beans? That's blowing my mind honestly. I always assumed it was like maybe 3 or 4 cups max, so I've been wasting money this whole time on canned. Still, the two hour boil sounds rough when I'm just trying to throw dinner together after work. Guess I gotta weigh if saving a few bucks is worth the extra time in front of the stove.

skylercooper12d ago

Last time I tried to speed things up I forgot to soak the beans overnight and just boiled them for three hours straight. My apartment smelled like a fart for two days and the beans were still crunchy. My roommate put a fan in the window and threatened to move out.