Dig Your Spoon Into Soup!

This "chili" time of year is actually just right for any warm, comforting bowl of soup or stew. Fortunately, many of them are also excellent at providing healthy beans and/or vegetables to your body when most needed for cold-weather wellness — and health-related resolutions, naturally!

Learn to Cook

White Beans

Cooking beans at home is renowned as a simple way to save money and provide the base for many a healthy meal. It requires little effort and they're easy to keep on hand in the fridge or freezer. And then you can quickly put together everything from basic beans and rice (seasoned differently in different cultures) to soups, salads, dips and spreads.

Bean Cooking Tips & Tricks

• You can use this basic method for cooking any variety of dried beans, adjusting the seasoning as you wish and the cooking time as needed to allow for age and type of beans.
• Soaking beans helps ensure even cooking. If you didn't plan for soaking ahead, simply cook the beans an additional hour or so until fully tender.
• For increased digestibility (ahem) cook beans with 6 fresh leaves (or 2 tsp dried) epazote herb or a piece or two of kombu seaweed (remove before serving).
• Serve beans over salads, toss with pasta or vegetables or purée in a food processor with a bit of extra-virgin olive oil and lemon juice to make a spread for sandwiches or dip for crackers.
• Store cooked, cooled beans (with or without their liquid) in an airtight container in the fridge for 3–4 days.
• Freeze cooked, cooled beans in an airtight container, covered with cooking liquid (to avoid drying out), up to 2 months.
• To quickly cool cooked beans, drain them well, spread out on a large sheet tray and toss gently every few minutes until room temperature.

Apply Your Skills

White Bean and Kale Soup with Chicken Sausage

Now that you know how to cook beans at home, try this! At your game party, instead of chili, serve this hearty soup and learn the budget power of using a little bit of flavorful sausage to create a lot of satisfying food.

Let guests garnish their own bowls with sliced red onions, red pepper flakes or hot sauce, crumbled Feta cheese, fresh chopped parsley or basil and whole-grain croutons. Provide chunks of crusty whole wheat bread on the side.

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