Camp Beans From Dry
Dried beans, soaked in your water bottle all day, finished at camp with an acid splash.
- calories
- 420
- weight
- 4.5 oz
- cal / oz
- 93
- protein
- 24 g
- serves
- 2, scales
- prep
- 5 min
- cook
- 50 min
- total time
- 55 min
- water
- 900 ml boiled
- cost
- $
Calorie and protein figures are my own estimates, good enough for planning a food bag and not meant as precise nutrition data.
- Dinner
- Canister stove
- Liquid fuel
- Campfire coals
- Car camping
- Basecamp
- Canoe / raft
- Bikepacking
- Vegetarian
- Vegan
- Gluten free
- Dairy free
- Nut free
- One pot
- Grab and go
- Shelf stable
- Basic
Ingredients
| Dried beans | 1 cup | pinto, black, or navy; skip chickpeas, they take forever |
|---|---|---|
| Water | 900 ml | 600 ml to soak, the rest to top up while cooking |
| Lemon juice | 1 tbsp | the shelf-stable squeeze bottle, added at the end |
| Salt | 1 tsp | |
| Bay leaf | 1 | optional, weighs nothing |
Method
- At breakfast, put the beans and 600 ml of cold water in a wide-mouth bottle. Carry it. That is the soak.
- At camp, drain the soak water off and dump the beans in the pot. Cover with fresh water by two fingers. Add the bay leaf.
- Bring it to a boil, then hold it at the lowest simmer your stove will give you. Lid on, edge cracked.
- Check at 40 minutes. Add hot water if the beans go dry. They are done when one squashes flat against the pot with a spoon.
- Salt now, not earlier. Stir in the lemon juice off the heat and let it sit five minutes.
Dried beans are the cheapest protein you can carry and the slowest to cook, so the whole recipe is about moving the waiting off your stove. The soak happens in a bottle strapped to your pack while you walk. By the time you stop, the beans have taken on water for eight hours and the simmer is 45 minutes instead of two hours.
Draining the soak water matters. The sugars that cause the gas leach out into it, and dumping it takes most of them with it. Salt and acid both go in at the end: add either one early and the skins toughen, and you will burn fuel on beans that never soften. The lemon juice replaces the whey the home version uses, since nothing fresh and dairy survives a pack.
Packing
One cup of dry beans per two people, bagged with the salt and bay leaf. The lemon juice rides in a 1 oz dropper bottle with the oil.
Variations
- Bring the drained soak water to a boil separately and use it as broth if fuel is short. It does cost you some of the degassing.
- A spoonful of tomato paste from a tube and a pinch of cumin turns the pot into dinner rather than a side.
- Cook them at home, dehydrate, and rehydrate in ten minutes if you are counting fuel grams.
https://dontwastethecrumbs.com/how-to-soak-and-cook-beans-from-scratch